Zelensky’s PR stunt, big triumph and embezzlement. How Ukrainian segment of Telegram responded to the Crimean Platform Summit

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The largest international event Ukraine ever hosted since its independency, the Crimean Platform Summit in Kyiv, has come to its conclusion. Among the attendees were delegates from 46 countries, representatives of international and intergovernmental organizations as well as some top government officials of Ukraine. The idea behind this new, initiated by Ukraine international format for consultations and coordination of efforts is to find a solution to the Russia’s occupation of Crimea and to bring closer Ukraine’s regaining of control over the peninsula. Previously Detector Media had already developed a guide on the summit’s program and talked to MP Rustam Umerov about the importance of this event.

A new format of such considerable scope, coupled with traditionally relevant and sensitive topic of the illegally occupied Crimea, couldn’t but attract the attention of many public authors on social networks. Additionally, Russian and pro-Russian media were also observed to be quite active in promoting their own views on the summit in Ukraine. From August 21 to 24 Detector Media had been analyzing how the Ukrainian segment of Telegram reacted to the summit. The findings will be useful in understanding the disposition among active public authors as well as in comparing it with the rhetoric employed by Russian propaganda.

Popularity of the Crimean Platform topic in the Ukrainian segment of Telegram

The two days of summit preparation were featured in around 450 posts. These posts had seen some significant outreach, with approximately 7,000 views per post dedicated to the Platform during August 21-22. More detail regarding the event was observed in the posts on August 23: on the day of the Summit more than 1,200 posts were published on Telegram channels in question, with approximately 20% of them being shared posts. The overall coverage was also impressive, reaching more than 6.5 million users. Interestingly though, at the time this analysis was conducted, the average number of views per one post on August 23 was lower than in the previous two days. At the same time, while mostly the attention of these channels on August 24 was centered around the Independence Day and ensuing celebrations, certain portion of posts were still dedicated to the Crimean Platform. Specifically, on that day Ukrainian channels produced more than 187 posts about the summit. In total, August 21 through August 24, Ukrainian channels on Telegram published more than 1,800 posts on this topic, with 70% of them being original posts.

Ukrainian segment of Telegram from the perspective of language

The Ukrainian segment of Telegram is in large part using Russian language, i.e., posts published by the channels are mostly in Russian. The coverage of the summit was no exception. 84% of posts were in Russian, meaning only 16% were in Ukrainian. Previous monitoring of Telegram, conducted by Detector Media, showed that manipulation and misinformation in Ukrainian is rather rare when compared to posts in Russian. This conclusion was further confirmed by the current analysis.

The sentiments of the posts vary significantly as well. While those written in Ukrainian largely have positive tone (54%), with the posts in Russian the tendency is opposite: negative tone is rather prevalent (47%) and only 13% of posts were neutral. The source of this variance can be attributed to the authors: f.e., the notorious “Legitimnyi (The Legitimate One)” as well as any other anonymous channel often spreading Russian narratives, do not have any close counterparts publishing posts in Ukrainian. There are a few channels of this kind that have raised certain suspicions, but their coverage is tens or even hundreds of times lower than that of the “SSU list” (a list, created by the Security Service of Ukraine, of persons and organizations posing threat to the national security of the country) channels ranking the highest in the Ukrainian segment of Telegram.

Most of the posts in Ukrainian were produced by the official channel of the summit (1,980 followers). Noticeable activity was also demonstrated by channels of Ukrainian media. Among the latter the most productive were channels owned by RBK Ukraina (RBC Ukraine) (200 followers) and Ukraina 24 (Ukraine 24) TV channel (10,940 followers). They mainly supplied textual coverage of the events during the summit, recording who said what. We also encountered several posts with personal reflections of authors, although they were very few and published not by media channels, which mostly maintained neutrality, but by personal channels of public figures and experts.

Telegram channels of Ukrainian media producing content in Russian were also rather prolific in covering the summit. The following 5 media channels published more than 20 posts about the Crimean Platform Summit over the monitoring period: KlymenkoTime (53,230 followers), Shariy.net (49,070 followers), Ukraina.ru (21,200 followers), Politika Strany (Country’s Politics) (54,000 followers; the channel belongs to the recently banned Strana.ua news agency). The most popular was the post on the First anonymous channel featuring the summit’s promotional video accompanied by the following ironic message: “The official promo video for the upcoming Crimean Platform Summit to be held on August 23 in Kyiv has been published. Everything in this video is so beautiful, including Kennedy and Churchill as well as the launch of an American rocket into space”. The description in the header of the channel is as follows: “The first news channel about events in Ukraine and the world! Read the most important and relevant political, economic and social news without any censorship.”

Back in February 2021 the channel had a little over 10,000 followers, then reaching more than 320,000 followers in only six months. The increase was happening gradually, approximately 50,000 new followers per month, which is indicative of potential fake engagement activity. However, there are no means to verify Telegram users to prove this point.

It should also be pointed out that starting around the same time in February 2021 the messages, published on this channel, were more and more frequently shared on others. The number of references and mentions also gradually increased. In February, the channel was referred to or mentioned 31 time, and in August this number rose to more than 1,000. Among the channels mentioning the First most frequently were Mega Zrada (Mega Betrayal), Narodnyi Correspondent (People's Correspondent), Rezident (Resident), Ukraina Live (Ukraine Live), Nablyudatel (The Observer) and others.

Noticeable visibility was observed regarding posts by pro-Russian blogger and politician Anatoly Shariy. The link to Shariy's video titled “Hungarian spy on the Crimean Platform” gained more than 128,000 views. The following message by Shariy had been viewed by more than 126,000 users: “In essence, the main achievement of the Crimean Platform, which cost 17 million, was European leaders saying that they did not recognize the annexation of Crimea. WOW”.

Summit coverage on Telegram channels

While some positive coverage was detected, it was a characteristic only of a minor part of posts, amounting to 43% in total. Neutral messages comprised 15% of posts, negative – 42%. Positive coverage messages were mostly rather similar, emphasizing that the format is unprecedented and that the summit is an informational and diplomatic victory of Ukraine. The negative coverage varied in language and wording, often being manipulative and echoing Russian rhetoric about the summit. Further details can be found below.

Prior to the summit Legitimnyi claimed that “the Presidential Office has removed from their positions a number of officials who have vested interests in the peninsula.” The anonymous author of the post goes on to specify that person dismissed was the head of Kharkiv Oblast state administration Aina Tymchuk. Hence the author recommends the Presidential Office “to be consistent and remove one more official who said that the Crimea is a disputed territory. An official of this high level giving few f..cks about. your Crimean Platforms”. The author here refers to the statements made by Aina Tymchuk's husband Andriy Tymchuk that were leaked to public in February 2021.

Another topic of interest before the summit were the resources spent on its organization. Most authors were critical of the “waste of money”, pointing primarily to the questionable effectiveness of the event. “Money out of thin air and some randomly drawn figures impossible to verify. Duh… how convenient for those contractors of Kvartal 95. Living in a golden age! The budget of the Crimean platform is simply colossal, and all that money coming out of our pockets.” The organizers of the summit were literally accused of “embezzling the money”: “The entire expenditures package intended for the Crimean Platform was broken down into small portions… Done so specifically not to raise any suspicions and to appease all special interest groups in the Presidential Office."

Among other expenses particular attention was drawn to the fee for the performance by Jamala, a Ukrainian singer: “Jamala, a winner of the Eurovision, will receive about $12.6 thousand for her performance at the summit. It is not clear whether this will help bring the peninsula back, but someone will surely make good money on it.”

On the whole, the key message with regard to the summit revolves around the idea of “ineffectiveness”. Some authors believe that the summit is nothing but an “information zilch”, saying that it’s just another talking shop that everyone will soon forget. Most of the attention is turned to exploiting the signing of the declaration, describing it as “a lot of noise out of nothing”. For example, Kartel (Cartel) channel (51,200 followers) posted the following: “The Crimean Platform and the statements made by all the guests invited can be reduced to generic phrases. Most of the guests have already grown tired of hearing all the slogans, while there is no “hot” topic for media to cover. All they have left to do is writing about the general phrases said by the representatives.” Naglyi (Insolent) (55,351 followers), a Telegram channel personally belonging to Max Nazarov, a news anchor at Nash (Our) TV channel, describes the summit in rather ironic tone: “This pompous declaration concluding the Crimean platform, is it really something more instrumental than the Budapest Memorandum? or the Minsk agreements? not saying anything, just curious.” The message of “ineffectiveness” is often closely associated with the narrative of Ukraine as a failed state and is formulated as something along the lines of “money wasted away while people are in dire need.” Moreover, certain accusations were quite often directed at Ukraine’s president himself: “People are drowning in poverty, the country is swamped with problems, but Zelensky and his entourage are getting richer and richer.”

Certain pro-Russian channels were making attempts to exploit the decision of several countries to change their delegates, claiming it’s a sign of the weakness on the part of Ukraine and an indicator of ineffectiveness of the summit, organized by its government. Their message was that the very fact of replacement speaks of the country’s “weak geopolitical position”: “So, just before the summit, major European countries have abruptly decided to lower the level of their representatives to attend the Platform. But why? This shows the real position of the West towards the prospects of Crimea being returned through the meetings of the Platform. They understand perfectly well that this summit is nothing more than a PR stunt for Zelensky.” Some pro-Russian channels tried to disparage the event by pointing to the alleged absence of Crimeans (which is not true).

Pro-Russian channels have also repeatedly mentioned sanctions against Ihor Guzhva, founder and chief editor of Strana.ua online news agency and against other associated companies, as well as against Anatoliy and Olga Shariy. According to the posts, published by these channels, the Crimean Platform was intended to draw the attention away from other pressing issues: “This information-rich agenda has helped officials shift the negative attention from the sanctions imposed against opposition media and bloggers.” Pro-Russian channels also wrote about the “favorable media coverage”, stating that only “the right journalists” had been invited, while many efforts were made to prevent the “opposition media” (several specific pro-Russian media) from voicing critical opinion of the summit.

Some authors tried to prove that the sole purpose of the Crimean Platform was another Zelensky's PR move. The story was that with the launch of Nord Stream 2 and the failure, associated with Merkel’s visit, “Zelensky has only weak cards left to play. That's why the Office decided to resort to bluffing and PR.” They also wrote that Zelensky and his team seemingly did not know what to do with the Crimean Platform.

Apart from Zelensky, another target of criticism was Petro Poroshenko, mocked for “his Crimean Platform, which has been going on since 2014.” Quite serious insults on Telegram were directed at Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid after her speech at the Crimean Platform.

Out of all the posts analyzed, one which caught our attention was the post published on the channel belonging to recently banned Strana.ua. It was virtually the only channel where after the summit and the signing of declaration they suggested that there could be a new initiated by Ukraine outbreak of war with Russia. Zelensky's concluding statement was met with the following uncanny comment: “Russia will one day sign the resolution of the “last summit in Yalta”. That is, it will, apparently, wave the white flag. Yalta, by the way, is also a symbol of victory over Hitler in World War II. These are some worrying sings: apparently, Zelensky is willing to go to war with Russia.”

Who was mentioned the most with reference to the Crimean Platform Summit

The top place decidedly belongs to the president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, who recorded 24% of all references (of names and surnames). He was followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel with 11%. The next spot in the Ukrainian-speaking segment was held by the President of the European Council Charles Michel, while in the Russian-speaking segment it was taken by the President of Moldova Maia Sandu. Interestingly enough, authors in Ukrainian-speaking segment made quite a lot of references to Dmytro Razumkov, even more than to Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, while in the Russian-speaking segment he had never been mentioned even once. Similarly, Hungarian President Janos Ader was mentioned only a few times in the posts in Ukrainian, whereas on pro-Russian channels he became quite a figure as he provided them with a topic for manipulation, particularly, the question of Hungarians in Ukraine. Another interesting finding is that the Ukrainian-speaking Telegram channels hardly mentioned Vladimir Putin, who was among the top five leaders referred to in the Russian-speaking segment.

Apart from officials, Detector Media has also analyzed the statistics regarding the most frequently mentioned organizations. The highest spot was taken by NATO, receiving 18% of mentions. Other top places were recorded for Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the United Nations, and the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. Another interesting thing we found is that quite a lot of references were made to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. While the latter was never mentioned in posts in Ukrainian, it ranked second in popularity in Russian-speaking segment.

Data were collected by keywords “Crimean Platform”, “summit”, “Crimea”, “Platform” in Ukrainian and Russian languages using TGstat service. On the whole, we have analyzed the entire Ukrainian segment of Telegram (the location of channels was determined based on TGstat data) for the period August 21 through August 24, taking into account the platform's policy on data collection and analysis. Subsequent analysis was performed using Python Natural Language Processing Libraries for processing textual information. Key libraries used include NLTK, TextBlob and spaCy. This method of operation was incorporated into the interactive dashboard of Detector Media for monitoring of social networks, in particular, of Telegram and Twitter.