Spare a few moments for this short clip from today’s presentation at the emergency session United Nations General Assembly from Ukraine’s ambassador. Sergiy Kyslytsya presented a (claimed) text exchange found on a smartphone on the body of a dead Russian soldier. His mother had asked whether she could send him a package while on training maneuvers in Crimea.

“Mama, I’m in Ukraine,” the soldier replied, lamenting that his superiors had assured him that he would be welcomed as a liberator. If true, the depth of his disillusion is heartbreaking — but also, if this is accurate, the depth of disillusion in Russia might reach critical mass quickly:

Ukrainian Ambassador to the @UN @SergiyKyslytsya reads text messages between a Russian soldier and his mother moments before he was killed.⁰

"Mama, I'm in Ukraine. There is a real war raging here. I'm afraid. We are bombing all of the cities…even targeting civilians." pic.twitter.com/kbWYZfbSpE

— CSPAN (@cspan) February 28, 2022

If Kyslytsya is lying about this, it’s of little import. In any war, both sides shape the media battlefield as much as they can, just like they shape the actual battlefield. Propaganda flies back and forth, especially aimed at the morale of the combatants. Kyslytsya has all sorts of incentives to fire up the UNGA in this emergency session, after all, including Vladimir Putin’s own propaganda that kicked off the war denying Ukrainian national identity at all. The very fact that Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN has been granted a key speaking position in the rather notoriously anti-Western UNGA is notable in itself.

If this claim and text exchange is true, however, it highlights a massive problem for Putin in the modern age. The more democratic communication becomes, the harder it is for propaganda to succeed. Russian media might flood the zone with Putin’s narratives about “liberation,” but text messages like these going to thousands of mothers, wives, children, and friends will expose Putin as a fraud. I mentioned this risk several days ago as Putin tried to use the old enmity World War II to claim he was conducting a “denazification” of Ukraine that would be welcomed by its inhabitants, but instead it’s become clear that Russians are the fascists. That realization will not just debilitate morale within the armed forces, as it appears to have done with this soldier, but also on the home front as Putin’s lies get exposed — even before the thousands of body bags start coming home.

It would take a master propagandist to counter these vulnerabilities. One Soviet/Russian expert has followed Putin’s propaganda efforts and finds them less than effective, and perhaps wholly incompetent — at least so far. In this theater, if not on the battlefield so far, Putin’s getting outgunned:

Russians are being bombarded with very effective Russian-language anti-war propaganda. We're seeing a lot about Zelensky etc. but Russians are widely viewing some HUGE celebrities with big, big follower counts coming out against the war.

— Dr. Ian Garner (@irgarner) February 28, 2022

Here's a voice from Ukraine. Travel YouTuber Anton Ptushkin, a Russian speaker with *5.5 million* subscribers, posted this heartfelt appeal for peace & frank discussion of fears about his family on his IG. Here's a version from YouTube for ease of viewing. https://t.co/ucmSfzsd2r

— Dr. Ian Garner (@irgarner) February 28, 2022

Turning to Russian social media, a much more threatening narrative for Putin's government might be playing out. I've spent some time reading around Russian language social media to look for what people are saying about the war.

— Dr. Ian Garner (@irgarner) February 28, 2022

Read the whole thread. One gets the sense that Putin is holding his public at as much length, figuratively speaking, as he does with his close advisers in the more literal sense:

Keep your friends close, your enemies closer and your top advisors as far away as possible.

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) February 28, 2022

Garner fleshes out his point about the tsar in WWI a bit more in this thread, and it’s definitely worth considering. In that case, Nicholas II committed Russia to a war in which it had little rational interest except imperial delusions, and the Romanovs paid the ultimate price for that decision. In this case, Putin has launched a war based on imperial delusions on fellow Slavs without bothering to sell it to Russians, apparently figuring he’s secure in his ability to control the narrative with Russians when necessary.

That could be the worst miscalculation Putin has made in this entire debacle. And it may not take long for him to pay a price for it, especially if the morale rots within the military quickly after they realize what’s in store for them even if they manage to grasp population centers. The occupation will make all of those problems exponentially worse, as will the grinding nature of international isolation over a war Russians didn’t want in the first place.