Analysis: Pro-Ukraine internet "fellas" use memes to fight Russian propaganda
Analysis from CNN's Jill Dougherty
It looked like a normal tweet by Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, posted days before NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. But instead of referring to the military alliance’s acronym, she congratulated the “fellas” on their “first-ever NAFO summit.”
At the end of her short video greeting, a cartoon-like dog, wearing the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine’s flag, pops up behind the Estonian leader.
Kallas was not joking.
“NAFO” stands for the North Atlantic Fellas Organization and is a decentralized online volunteer organization that is waging its own social media war against Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, the group held its own summit in Lithuania’s capital, which was opened by the country’s foreign minister.
NAFO’s volunteer “troops” use tongue-in-cheek memes to mock, troll and discredit Russia’s war. Their battlegrounds are primarily Twitter and Telegram, where they have garnered a sizable fan-base among Ukraine supporters and captured the attention of global leaders.
These volunteers, also known as “fellas,” can be identified by their online avatars or profile pictures, typically a cartoon Shiba Inu (a Japanese hunting dog that became a popular internet meme in 2013) dressed in Ukrainian military gear.
Taiwan's military takes lessons from Ukraine war ahead of annual military drill
From CNN's Eric Cheung in Taipei, Taiwan
The Taiwanese military will "reference experiences" in Ukraine's defense against Russia in its annual military exercises this year, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
In a news conference, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said the drills would take lessons from Russia's war in Ukraine by adhering to the principle that "everywhere can be a battlefield."
The exercises will simulate the defense of beaches, ports and airports, and test the military's ability to conduct anti-landing and counteroffensive operations in both rural and urban settings, he said.
The Han Kuang drills will be held around the island July 24-28 and are aimed at countering China's military aggression, the ministry said in a statement.
Some context: Concern has grown in the United States and across the region over China’s increasing assertiveness, especially regarding its disputed territorial claims. These concerns have sharpened over the past year, as Beijing twice staged extensive military drills around the island of Taiwan and refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
That invasion has also drawn increased attention to Taiwan as a potential security flashpoint in Asia.
China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy as its own, despite never having controlled it, and has vowed to unify the island with the mainland, by force if necessary.
21 min ago
Australia to deploy military surveillance plane to assist Ukraine
Australia will send a military surveillance aircraft to Europe to help Ukraine that will operate outside the war-torn country's borders, the Australian Prime Minister's office said in a statement Monday.
The Royal Australian Air Force will deploy an E-7A Wedgetail aircraft to Germany in October, where it will stay for six months to help "protect a vital gateway of international humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine," the statement said.
"The aircraft will provide early warning in the event of any threats outside of Ukraine against the gateway for humanitarian and military assistance."
The mission includes up to 100 crew and support personnel.
The E-7A Wedgetail specializes in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, according to the Air Force's website. The aircraft combines "long-range surveillance radar, secondary radar and tactical/strategic voice and data communications systems to provide an airborne early warning and control platform," it says.
The deployment will "integrate with the efforts of our partners, including the United States, and support the multi-layered protections in place for assistance into Ukraine," the statement from the Prime Minister's office said.
Australian personnel or assets "will not enter Ukraine throughout this deployment and the aircraft will not be involved in the current conflict in Ukraine," the statement said. "The E-7A will operate outside of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian airspace."
34 min ago
NATO leaders are meeting for a key summit in Lithuania. Here are the key headlines to know
Biden meets Sunak: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden met in London and agreed on the need to “strengthen” their alliance and maintain support for Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement Monday. The two leaders discussed Ukraine's counteroffensive and emphasized the "importance of the country’s international partners committing to its long-term defense, providing the support Ukraine needs to win this war and secure a just and lasting peace,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
Kyiv's NATO push: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s push for NATO membership is expected to be among the key issues at the summit. Ukraine wants a unanimous invitation from NATO members to join the defense alliance, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna said, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said NATO has agreed to let Kyiv bypass a detailed formal process in its application. Biden has stressed, however, that the war must end before NATO considers Ukraine.
German support: Germany will announce new support packages for Ukraine during the NATO summit, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. The preliminary work is "practically completed," he said during a joint news conference with his French counterpart in Berlin.
Counteroffensive slow progress: The Ukrainian military says it has liberated 169 square kilometers of territory in the south since the beginning of the offensive in mid-May, an area roughly the size of the city of Odesa. The Institute for the Study of War said “the current pace of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is reflective of a deliberate effort to conserve Ukrainian combat power and attrit Russian manpower and equipment at the cost of slower territorial advances.”
Prigozhin met Putin: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin after his short-lived mutiny at the end of June. There has been widespread speculation about where the Wagner leader has been since the aborted mutiny last month.
War crime accusation: Russia's deadly bombing Sunday of a school where civilians were receiving humanitarian aid is a "war crime," according to police in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region. The death toll in the attack has risen to at least seven after three bodies were pulled from the rubble Monday, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. Search operations have ended, it added.
1 hr ago
Ukrainian air defenses intercept Russian drone attack on Kyiv
From CNN's Josh Pennington and Aruzhan Zeinulla
Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv early Tuesday as Ukrainian air defenses repelled a Russian drone attack on the capital, a senior military official said.
In a Telegram post, Kyiv city military chief Serhiy Popko said all drones launched by Russia were destroyed in what was the second such attack on the capital this month.
"Previously, as in early July, the enemy used ‘Shahed’ barrage ammunition," he said. "The Iranian drones were launched from the southern direction, probably from the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation."
Air raid warnings for Kyiv and the surrounding region have been lifted, Popko added.
2 hr 26 min ago
Girl receives heart of 4-year-old-boy in first transplant of its kind in Ukraine
From CNN's Radina Gigova and Svitlana Vlasova
Amid the raging war and constant threat of Russian missiles, a successful heart transplant has been performed on a 6-year-old girl in Kyiv, authorities with the Heart Institute of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday.
The three-hour operation, which took place on Sunday evening, gave the girl the heart of a 4-year-old boy, whom doctors had declared brain dead after suffering an aneurysm.
It was the first time a heart transplant had been performed in Ukraine on children so young, the institute said.
“The operation was also unique in that both the donor and the recipient were very young children, and the transplant required more effort from the doctors,” it added.
The transplant was performed by a team of doctors led by Dr. Boris Todurov, the chief scientist of the department of surgical and minimally invasive treatment.
“The operation went smoothly, the girl was extubated two hours after the operation,” Todurov said in a post on his official Facebook page.
The Heart Institute released images from the operation showing the mother of the boy whose heart was donated standing by the girl’s bedside.
“The operation went well, and the new heart is beating in the girl’s chest,” Oksana Dmytrieva, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s subcommittee on modern medical technologies and transplantation development, said in an emotional post on Facebook.
“It is extremely touching that the mother of the deceased boy came to listen to her child’s heart beating in the other chest … I have tears in my eyes from this photo,” she added.
Major firms accused of breaking promises to leave Russia
Exclusive from CNN's Matt Egan in New York
More than 1,000 major companies pledged to leave Russia after Vladimir Putin launched his devastating war in Ukraine, but some well-known firms stand accused by researchers of violating their pledge.
Not every company on the list left, but more than 1,000 exited. That unprecedented corporate exodus, championed and chronicled by Yale professor Jeff Sonnenfeld, dealt a serious financial and symbolic blow to Moscow and the Russian economy.
Now, as Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine blows past the 500-day mark, Sonnenfeld and his team are naming and shaming a slew of companies they accuse of breaking their promises to leave or at least drastically scale back their presencein Russia, including well-known companies like Heineken, Unilever, Philip Morris and Oreo maker Mondelez.
The Yale research, shared exclusively with CNN, is based on whistleblowers, on-the-ground experts, students operating inside Russia, corporate documents and news media reports.
“These companies are breaking their promises. They are functioning as wartime profiteers,” Sonnenfeld told CNN in an interview. “It’s beyond disappointing. It’s shameful and unethical.”
Sonnenfeld, who has testified before Congress about companies leaving Russia, is not accusing these corporations of breaking the law. Instead, he argues that by staying in Russia, they are breaking a moral code and simultaneously “self-immolating their own brands.”
“Consumers should realize that by supporting these companies, they’re endorsing something that fuels Putin’s war machine,” he said.
Sumy residents will not face forced evacuations, Ukrainian military official says
From CNN's Svitlana Vlasova
Rescue workers at a damaged building after a drone strike in Sumy, Ukraine, on July 3. National Police of Ukraine/Reuters/FILE
Residents of Ukraine’s northern Sumy region will not be forced to evacuate amid increased Russian shelling, a Ukrainian military official said Monday.
"There will be no emergency or forced evacuation," said Volodymyr Artiukh, head of the Sumy regional military administration. "The evacuation will start as planned after the citizens make a decision. If a person refuses to be evacuated, he or she should write a statement of refusal. The rest of the citizens who agree to evacuate will be moved to safe places.”
Artiukh cautioned those who wish to remain.
“People should just be aware that if they stay in the 'death zone,' which is the only way to describe this area, they are taking responsibility for their lives,” he said.
Earlier, the regional military administration said it would order the evacuation of areas near the Russian border.
2 hr 7 min ago
Russian defense official says Turkey is turning into an "unfriendly country"
From CNN’s Mariya Knight
Turkey is turning into an "unfriendly country" after a series of "provocative decisions," a Russian defense official told Russian state media Monday.
“The events of the past weeks, unfortunately, clearly demonstrate that Turkey is gradually and steadily continuing to turn from a neutral country into an unfriendly one,” Viktor Bondarev, head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, told state-run news agency TASS.
The series of “provocative decisions” came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Turkey on Friday, he said, pointing to Ankara endorsing Ukraine's NATO bid and releasing Azovstal leaders, despite an agreement about them staying in Turkey until the end of the war.
Zelensky said Saturday that five men, part of the Azovstal defense that defended Mariupol following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, would return to Ukraine from Turkey. The five Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered following the fall of the southeastern city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on July 7. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/TUR Presidency/Getty Images/FILE
After their release from Russian captivity, the men were taken to Turkey in September as part of a prisoner swap. They were obliged to stay in Turkey until the end of the war, according to the terms of the deal.
"Such behavior could not be called anything other than a stab in the back,” Bondarev said, referring to the Ukrainian troops' return, calling the “unfriendly step” a result of pressure from NATO.
Bondarev also claimed the only reason NATO needs Turkey is “to control the Black Sea straits and stabilize or destabilize the Middle East region,” and that Turkey should think about “leaving NATO and creating an alliance with Russia.”
Russia's war in Ukraine and a possible pathway for Kyiv to join NATO are expected to dominate the agenda as the defense alliance's leaders meet in Lithuania Tuesday.
US President Joe Biden will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the summit Wednesday, an official confirmed. Meanwhile, Turkey has agreed to back Sweden’s bid to join NATO, the alliance's chief said.
Ukraine's military claims it has liberated 169 square kilometers (more than 65 square miles) of territory in the south since mid-May, as Russian forces continue their assault in the east.
President Vladimir Putin met Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin days after his short-lived mutiny last month, the Kremlin claimed Monday, adding to the mystery over the greatest challenge yet to the Russian leader's rule.
It looked like a normal tweet by Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, posted days before NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. But instead of referring to the military alliance’s acronym, she congratulated the “fellas” on their “first-ever NAFO summit.”
At the end of her short video greeting, a cartoon-like dog, wearing the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine’s flag, pops up behind the Estonian leader.
Kallas was not joking.
“NAFO” stands for the North Atlantic Fellas Organization and is a decentralized online volunteer organization that is waging its own social media war against Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, the group held its own summit in Lithuania’s capital, which was opened by the country’s foreign minister.
NAFO’s volunteer “troops” use tongue-in-cheek memes to mock, troll and discredit Russia’s war. Their battlegrounds are primarily Twitter and Telegram, where they have garnered a sizable fan-base among Ukraine supporters and captured the attention of global leaders.
These volunteers, also known as “fellas,” can be identified by their online avatars or profile pictures, typically a cartoon Shiba Inu (a Japanese hunting dog that became a popular internet meme in 2013) dressed in Ukrainian military gear.
The Taiwanese military will "reference experiences" in Ukraine's defense against Russia in its annual military exercises this year, Taiwan's Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
In a news conference, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang said the drills would take lessons from Russia's war in Ukraine by adhering to the principle that "everywhere can be a battlefield."
The exercises will simulate the defense of beaches, ports and airports, and test the military's ability to conduct anti-landing and counteroffensive operations in both rural and urban settings, he said.
The Han Kuang drills will be held around the island July 24-28 and are aimed at countering China's military aggression, the ministry said in a statement.
Some context: Concern has grown in the United States and across the region over China’s increasing assertiveness, especially regarding its disputed territorial claims. These concerns have sharpened over the past year, as Beijing twice staged extensive military drills around the island of Taiwan and refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
That invasion has also drawn increased attention to Taiwan as a potential security flashpoint in Asia.
China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy as its own, despite never having controlled it, and has vowed to unify the island with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Australia will send a military surveillance aircraft to Europe to help Ukraine that will operate outside the war-torn country's borders, the Australian Prime Minister's office said in a statement Monday.
The Royal Australian Air Force will deploy an E-7A Wedgetail aircraft to Germany in October, where it will stay for six months to help "protect a vital gateway of international humanitarian and military assistance to Ukraine," the statement said.
"The aircraft will provide early warning in the event of any threats outside of Ukraine against the gateway for humanitarian and military assistance."
The mission includes up to 100 crew and support personnel.
The E-7A Wedgetail specializes in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, according to the Air Force's website. The aircraft combines "long-range surveillance radar, secondary radar and tactical/strategic voice and data communications systems to provide an airborne early warning and control platform," it says.
The deployment will "integrate with the efforts of our partners, including the United States, and support the multi-layered protections in place for assistance into Ukraine," the statement from the Prime Minister's office said.
Australian personnel or assets "will not enter Ukraine throughout this deployment and the aircraft will not be involved in the current conflict in Ukraine," the statement said. "The E-7A will operate outside of Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian airspace."
Biden meets Sunak: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden met in London and agreed on the need to “strengthen” their alliance and maintain support for Ukraine, a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement Monday. The two leaders discussed Ukraine's counteroffensive and emphasized the "importance of the country’s international partners committing to its long-term defense, providing the support Ukraine needs to win this war and secure a just and lasting peace,” the spokesperson said in the statement.
Kyiv's NATO push: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s push for NATO membership is expected to be among the key issues at the summit. Ukraine wants a unanimous invitation from NATO members to join the defense alliance, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna said, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said NATO has agreed to let Kyiv bypass a detailed formal process in its application. Biden has stressed, however, that the war must end before NATO considers Ukraine.
German support: Germany will announce new support packages for Ukraine during the NATO summit, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said. The preliminary work is "practically completed," he said during a joint news conference with his French counterpart in Berlin.
Counteroffensive slow progress: The Ukrainian military says it has liberated 169 square kilometers of territory in the south since the beginning of the offensive in mid-May, an area roughly the size of the city of Odesa. The Institute for the Study of War said “the current pace of the Ukrainian counteroffensive is reflective of a deliberate effort to conserve Ukrainian combat power and attrit Russian manpower and equipment at the cost of slower territorial advances.”
Prigozhin met Putin: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has confirmed that Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin after his short-lived mutiny at the end of June. There has been widespread speculation about where the Wagner leader has been since the aborted mutiny last month.
War crime accusation: Russia's deadly bombing Sunday of a school where civilians were receiving humanitarian aid is a "war crime," according to police in Ukraine's southern Zaporizhzhia region. The death toll in the attack has risen to at least seven after three bodies were pulled from the rubble Monday, Ukraine's State Emergency Service said. Search operations have ended, it added.
Air raid sirens sounded in Kyiv early Tuesday as Ukrainian air defenses repelled a Russian drone attack on the capital, a senior military official said.
In a Telegram post, Kyiv city military chief Serhiy Popko said all drones launched by Russia were destroyed in what was the second such attack on the capital this month.
"Previously, as in early July, the enemy used ‘Shahed’ barrage ammunition," he said. "The Iranian drones were launched from the southern direction, probably from the Krasnodar Territory of the Russian Federation."
Air raid warnings for Kyiv and the surrounding region have been lifted, Popko added.
Amid the raging war and constant threat of Russian missiles, a successful heart transplant has been performed on a 6-year-old girl in Kyiv, authorities with the Heart Institute of Ukraine’s Ministry of Health announced on Monday.
The three-hour operation, which took place on Sunday evening, gave the girl the heart of a 4-year-old boy, whom doctors had declared brain dead after suffering an aneurysm.
It was the first time a heart transplant had been performed in Ukraine on children so young, the institute said.
“The operation was also unique in that both the donor and the recipient were very young children, and the transplant required more effort from the doctors,” it added.
The transplant was performed by a team of doctors led by Dr. Boris Todurov, the chief scientist of the department of surgical and minimally invasive treatment.
“The operation went smoothly, the girl was extubated two hours after the operation,” Todurov said in a post on his official Facebook page.
The Heart Institute released images from the operation showing the mother of the boy whose heart was donated standing by the girl’s bedside.
“The operation went well, and the new heart is beating in the girl’s chest,” Oksana Dmytrieva, chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s subcommittee on modern medical technologies and transplantation development, said in an emotional post on Facebook.
“It is extremely touching that the mother of the deceased boy came to listen to her child’s heart beating in the other chest … I have tears in my eyes from this photo,” she added.
More than 1,000 major companies pledged to leave Russia after Vladimir Putin launched his devastating war in Ukraine, but some well-known firms stand accused by researchers of violating their pledge.
Not every company on the list left, but more than 1,000 exited. That unprecedented corporate exodus, championed and chronicled by Yale professor Jeff Sonnenfeld, dealt a serious financial and symbolic blow to Moscow and the Russian economy.
Now, as Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine blows past the 500-day mark, Sonnenfeld and his team are naming and shaming a slew of companies they accuse of breaking their promises to leave or at least drastically scale back their presencein Russia, including well-known companies like Heineken, Unilever, Philip Morris and Oreo maker Mondelez.
The Yale research, shared exclusively with CNN, is based on whistleblowers, on-the-ground experts, students operating inside Russia, corporate documents and news media reports.
“These companies are breaking their promises. They are functioning as wartime profiteers,” Sonnenfeld told CNN in an interview. “It’s beyond disappointing. It’s shameful and unethical.”
Sonnenfeld, who has testified before Congress about companies leaving Russia, is not accusing these corporations of breaking the law. Instead, he argues that by staying in Russia, they are breaking a moral code and simultaneously “self-immolating their own brands.”
“Consumers should realize that by supporting these companies, they’re endorsing something that fuels Putin’s war machine,” he said.
Rescue workers at a damaged building after a drone strike in Sumy, Ukraine, on July 3. National Police of Ukraine/Reuters/FILE
Residents of Ukraine’s northern Sumy region will not be forced to evacuate amid increased Russian shelling, a Ukrainian military official said Monday.
"There will be no emergency or forced evacuation," said Volodymyr Artiukh, head of the Sumy regional military administration. "The evacuation will start as planned after the citizens make a decision. If a person refuses to be evacuated, he or she should write a statement of refusal. The rest of the citizens who agree to evacuate will be moved to safe places.”
Artiukh cautioned those who wish to remain.
“People should just be aware that if they stay in the 'death zone,' which is the only way to describe this area, they are taking responsibility for their lives,” he said.
Earlier, the regional military administration said it would order the evacuation of areas near the Russian border.
Turkey is turning into an "unfriendly country" after a series of "provocative decisions," a Russian defense official told Russian state media Monday.
“The events of the past weeks, unfortunately, clearly demonstrate that Turkey is gradually and steadily continuing to turn from a neutral country into an unfriendly one,” Viktor Bondarev, head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, told state-run news agency TASS.
The series of “provocative decisions” came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Turkey on Friday, he said, pointing to Ankara endorsing Ukraine's NATO bid and releasing Azovstal leaders, despite an agreement about them staying in Turkey until the end of the war.
Zelensky said Saturday that five men, part of the Azovstal defense that defended Mariupol following Russia’s invasion in February 2022, would return to Ukraine from Turkey. The five Ukrainian soldiers had surrendered following the fall of the southeastern city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on July 7. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/TUR Presidency/Getty Images/FILE
After their release from Russian captivity, the men were taken to Turkey in September as part of a prisoner swap. They were obliged to stay in Turkey until the end of the war, according to the terms of the deal.
"Such behavior could not be called anything other than a stab in the back,” Bondarev said, referring to the Ukrainian troops' return, calling the “unfriendly step” a result of pressure from NATO.
Bondarev also claimed the only reason NATO needs Turkey is “to control the Black Sea straits and stabilize or destabilize the Middle East region,” and that Turkey should think about “leaving NATO and creating an alliance with Russia.”
