How the US, Ukraine and the media have thrown a wrench into Russia’s disinformation machine

Demonstrators stretch out banners representing the colours of the Ukrainian nation flag as they gather to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 6, 2022. Moscow’s propaganda machine has been disrupted by the Ukrainian people and an army of international journalists who are there to counter the spin, bearing witness to Russian aggression and civilian resistance with a speed and ferocity that has outpaced Moscow’s disinformation campaign. — AP

Weaponising all manner of media is a specialty of Vladimir Putin’s, but now, two weeks into his unprovoked attack on Ukraine, Russia’s president is losing the information war.

Putin’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, drove the point home March 10 when he claimed, absurdly, that Russia had not attacked Ukraine at all. But that was just the latest, if most pointedly Orwellian, in Russia’s bizarre missteps as it has tried, and failed, to control the narrative of the war.