NAFO Taking Names, Barking Back At Russian Disinformation

One fella on X with the username osint_69
commented ,“The funny thing about Mr. Elbridge Colby is that he thinks of himself as a serious person who should be respected but he is engagement farming by arguing with cartoon dogs. His grandfather would surely be ashamed.”

Even former US House representative
Adam Kinzinger,
who is a fella himself, joined in on the
mockery . Kinzinger, responding to Colby,
commented
“you don't get to feign seriousness now that you tried pretending NAFO was CIA, got schooled, and for months refused serious convos.”

Colby joins a long list of officials who have been humbled by a random group of cartoon dogs on the internet. First, it was the infamous Mikhail Ulyanov who found himself in a spat with NAFO fellas in 2022.

He made the mistake of replying to a cartoon dog, with the words heard around Twitter:“You pronounced this nonsense, not me.” Ulyanov was humiliated and took down his social media for some time. As Vice News put it,“Shitposting Shiba Inu Accounts Chased a Russian Diplomat Offline.”

Russian state media was left licking their wounds as they felt the momentum shift as Russian troll farms finally met a worthy opponent fighting back against Russian information warfare.

RT, the official Russian state media, made an attempt to discredit NAFO by
labeling
it as“a vast pro-Ukrainian 'bot army' designed to influence Western policymakers.”

Russia uses
troll factories
to try and spread disinformation across the internet. For years, the West lacked an effective response. In a democratic society, governments can't restrict the open flow of information, which makes it easier for authoritarian governments to influence Western societies. There is a reason China has never allowed
TikTok
to be available domestically but supports its functioning in the West.

It is difficult to doubt the effectiveness of NAFO. There isn't any better alternative in the democratic world as a counterweight to the Russian information offensive on the internet.

Before NAFO's existence, a prominent official or pro-Kremlin commenter like David Sacks could spread propaganda without ridicule and the average person reading the posts and comments was more likely to accept it as fact. It was
estimated
that around 126 million Americans saw Russian-backed content on Facebook during the 2016 presidential campaign.

With NAFO's intervention, if someone is reading a post spreading Russian disinformation and they see the comments full of memes ridiculing the posted statements, it might give the reader pause and the idea to further research what is being discussed.

As Kallioniemi puts it: By ridiculing Russian propaganda, NAFO disarms it since the disinformation is so unbelievable and poorly executed.

The danger of not fighting Russian disinformation will have impacts on the battlefield itself. While the US Congress was splintered and debating aid for Ukraine, Russian disinformation played an
important role
in helping delay aid.

In December 2023,
US Senator Thom Tillis
said that talks on Ukraine aid were bogged down as some lawmakers had concerns that“people will buy yachts with this money.” This was a popular point of disinformation pushed by Russian intelligence services that had been spreading throughout the internet and was even retweeted by US House Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Colby has now joined the ranks of esteemed company. Republican Senator
Mike Lee
also found himself in a feud with NAFO fellas in 2023. Lee appeared to have lost his mind with NAFO fellas crashing his
Twitter polls
surveying whether the US should send aid to Ukraine.

In his
attacks
against NAFO, he linked a pro-Kremlin website to try and support his point. In the end, his spat with the fellas led to a very
unhealthy obsession
with NAFO for Lee and resulted in him blocking NAFO accounts en masse from being able to view posts on his @BasedMikeLee account.

NAFO, as a random group of individuals, has shown how information warfare is becoming decentralized, with the average person playing an important role as a member of a larger group supporting similar objectives.

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It's the organic formation of a response from the democratic world to fight Russia's troll farms on the internet with memes to help influence perceptions. Not only do the fellas fight back against the Russian trolls but they also combat those spreading Russian disinformation at the highest levels.

As Senator Mike Lee has demonstrated, NAFO's mocking of their peddling of Russian propaganda drives those officials to frustration when confronted by such a“menacing” force on the internet.

Ukraine needs all the support it can get. Awareness of Ukraine's plight connects back directly to support on the battlefield. Russian disinformation is a key war strategy to undermine support for Ukraine abroad.

Serhii Kuzan, chair of the
Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center
think tank and a former adviser to the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, told me in a recent
interview
that Russia's information war is focused on destabilizing Ukraine and also working to undermine support for Ukraine internationally.

While some may look at NAFO and have a chuckle at their work, the group is playing a vital role in supporting Ukraine, no matter the scale. President
Volodymyr Zelensky
himself stated:“Attention equals help. No attention will mean no help. We fight for every bit of attention.”

Every individual behind a computer who logs on every day and posts memes ridiculing Russian disinformation and propaganda is playing a much larger role than they realize.

The NAFO fellas, from across the political spectrum and from around the world, are all united by the cause of Ukraine and its fight for freedom. Somewhere out there, Colby, Lee and the fan-favorite Ulyanov must be wondering why they ever bothered responding to a bunch of random cartoon dogs on the internet.

David Kirichenko is a freelance journalist covering Eastern Europe. Follow him on X at @DVKirichenko.

This op-ed first appeared on Kyiv Post and is republished with permission. Read the original here .

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