Justice?
What can Ukrainians expect from universal jurisdiction?
2:35
(CNN) --
Marija Stonyte picks up her phone and eagerly dials a number.
After a couple of rings, she answers a woman.
"I'm calling to give you a very important message. I don't know if you know much about what's really going on in Ukraine right now," Stonyte said during a call last month.
Her voice shakes as her 1-year-old daughter babbles in the background.
There is silence on the other end of the line.
“The plain truth is that it is a terrible invasion.”
This is one of dozens of calls Stonyte and her husband make every day to unknown people in Russia from their home in Lithuania, as part of a voluntary initiative aimed at weakening Russia's so-called digital iron curtain.
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ANALYSIS |
Putin is making the same mistakes that condemned Hitler when he invaded the Soviet Union.
Russia's attack on Ukraine has left cities bombed, civilians dead and more than 4 million people fleeing the country.
But at home, many Russians really know little about what is going on.
Russia has banned state media from referring to President Vladimir Putin's "special military operation" as an "invasion" or a "war."
And those who criticize the offense can face severe punishment.
A Moscow court banned Facebook and Instagram for carrying out "extremist activities".
And a new censorship law made publishing "false" information about the invasion punishable by up to 15 years in jail.
The pressure has forced independent media outlets to withdraw or close.
Which left a vacuum for the state media to fill with propaganda and disinformation.
Desperate to break through the digital iron curtain, people all over the world are implementing creative ways to connect with Russians.
Online activists Anonymous claim to have hacked into Russian TV channels to broadcast images from Ukraine.
Others, like Stonyte, try a more individual approach.
They are calling or texting strangers in Russia, hoping their personal pleas will disrupt the Kremlin's propaganda.
And potentially even help end the deadly war.
"Make the most important call of your life"
When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, documentary filmmaker Stonyte and her husband Mantas Kazlauskas watched the news from their home in the Lithuanian port city of Klaipeda.
Stonyte, 30, grew up in Lithuania after the Baltic state declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. While she doesn't remember Russia's occupation, the threat never really went away, she said.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Stonyte said he felt "a sense of despair and helplessness."
Marija Stonyte calls strangers in Russia to tell them about the war in Ukraine.
The couple began calling businesses, museums and restaurants in Moscow and St. Petersburg, hoping to tell them what was happening.
Days later they came across CallRussia.org, an initiative that was launched on March 8 with the slogan: "Make the most important call of your life."
Co-founded by Paulius Senūta, director of a creative agency based in Lithuania, the initiative aims to call 40 million phone numbers across Russia.
The team collected publicly available phone numbers in Russia and created a platform that randomly generates a phone number from the list.
A user can choose to call via phone, Telegram, or WhatsApp, and at the end of the call, a popup from the site asks the user if they managed to get through.
And if so, did the call go through?
The idea is based on Senūta's belief that the Russians have the power to end the war if they have access to free information and understand the human suffering in Ukraine.
A woman holds a sign that reads "Z=Zombie" at a march in Naples, Italy.
"There is a lot of support (in Russia) for this (war)," Senūta told CNN last month.
“But the funny thing about this is that they don't know about this war.
They don't know, hundreds, thousands of people killed, bombs thrown, children killed, women giving birth in subways, they don't know anything about it."
A woman in St. Petersburg walks past signs bearing the letter "Z," which has become a symbol of support for Russian military action in Ukraine.
With the help of psychologists, Senūta's team of about 30 people put together a script to guide the calls.
They didn't want to get into a confrontation.
Instead, the goal is to "convey the human tragedy and the fact that they don't know it."
Just a week after CallRussia was launched, thousands of volunteers made 84,000 phone calls, he said.
Stonyte says that few people hang up.
Instead, most fall into one of two categories: those who argue and those who listen, he said.
Stonyte believes that many people may not want to answer for fear that the call could be monitored and they could face punishment.
A call to a museum in Moscow stuck with him, Stonyte said.
Although the person who answered the phone said very little, she added.
Her husband, who speaks some Russian, helped translate the words that convey the horror of Putin's war.
"I think even the silence between my husband and that woman was really important," Stonyte said.
"I mean, she didn't get off the phone. She waited a long time, she wanted to hear every word."
"They live in another reality"
It's not just unknown people that Ukrainians try to contact.
A couple of days after the war started, Ukrainian restaurateur Misha Katsurin wondered why his father, who lives in Russia, hadn't called to check on him.
But when he called his father himself, Katsurin found something unsettling: his father simply didn't believe there was a war.
Even when Katsurin described being awakened by the explosions and hiding in a bomb shelter, his father still didn't believe him.
"They live in another reality," he said.
"He wants to believe me, but he can't," he said.
Katsurin's father consumes Russian state media, which has presented a very different narrative of how the war is unfolding.
On March 2, for example, when Russian military strikes targeted schools and cathedrals in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, banners on the Russian state television channel RT claimed that 40 Ukrainian towns and villages had been liberated.
ANALYSIS |
Putin is making the same mistakes that condemned Hitler when he invaded the Soviet Union.
Even the impacts of Western sanctions, already suffered by ordinary citizens in Russia, are not mentioned in Russian daily news reports.
To help others in a similar position, Katsurin started a website called Papa Believe, which offers advice on how to talk to friends and family about the war in Ukraine.
For those who falsely claim, as Putin has done, that Ukraine's government leaders are "Nazis," he recommends telling them that Zelensky is from a Ukrainian Jewish family.
When people claim that the invasion is not a war, but a "special operation," he recommends explaining that one country has crossed the other's border and is bombing and capturing cities.
A column of Russian military vehicles advances north on the Mariupol-Donetsk highway.
In a recording of a later call with his father, which he posted on his site, Katsurin tries to counter his father's ideas: that the Russians in Ukraine are oppressed, that the United States is making the Slavs kill each other.
At the beginning of the call, Katsurin looks hurt.
"I'm calling you to tell you what's going on in my life and in my country, things I see with my own eyes, but you don't believe me."
At the end of the call, his father seems dissuaded.
"I sincerely understand your feelings and I am very worried about you," he tells his son.
But convincing a stranger can be even more difficult.
Henkka, a Finnish man living in Estonia who asked to be identified only by his first name, pinned his location on the dating app Tinder to St. Petersburg, had a few drinks and embarked on a mission to tell the Russians about the war in Ukraine.
Although Instagram and Facebook have been blocked, dating apps can still be accessed.
Guides have emerged on the Reddit platform, advising people on how to use Tinder's passport feature — which allows users to connect with people in other countries — to share information about Ukraine with Russians.
Users share tips on how to create a credible fake account and connect with as many people as possible without getting kicked out by Tinder's algorithm.
Tinder says you can remove accounts that use the app to promote messages.
With each pairing, Henkka opened the conversation with "Hi! Have you heard the news about Ukraine?"
Henkka said that he had been surprised by how many of the people he talked to knew about the invasion.
But they were either indifferent on the subject or simply confused by conflicting accounts in the Russian and Western media.
"They really didn't know what to trust," Henkka said.
Former Russian official says Putin's days are numbered 1:16
"Some changes are going to happen"
Calls to strangers do not always have the desired effect.
Serge Kharytonau, a Belarusian now residing in the US where he works as a media expert at the International Strategic Security Action Network, says he has made some 120 calls to Russia since the beginning of March as part of the CallRussia initiative. .
But, he comments that, so far, he hasn't had the impact he hoped for.
Fewer than a handful of calls he has made have been successful, Kharytonau says.
In most cases, your callers become aggressive or quickly end the call.
Kharytonau says what is most surprising is that the Russians she has spoken with not only reject the alternative information, but also deny the fact that it exists.
Police officers detain a man during a protest against Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Moscow on March 13, 2022.
He says that while the Russians are victims of the propaganda foisted on them, it would be "a big mistake" to think they bear no responsibility.
“On the one hand, they are victims of propaganda. But on the other hand, it is their decision to trust the propaganda and even deny not just alternative information, but the fact that alternative information exists.”
However, the reality is that speaking in Russia can have serious consequences.
A Russian journalist, for example, was found guilty of organizing an unauthorized public event and fined 30,000 rubles ($370) after protesting the invasion of Ukraine during a live television broadcast.
More than 14,763 protesters have been detained in 151 Russian cities since the start of the Russian invasion, according to OVD-Info, an independent human rights protest monitoring group.
Stonyte, the Lithuanian, is more empathetic towards the difficulties of the Russians.
Her hope is that the Russians spread the truth about what is happening in private and, ultimately, can protest against the Putin regime.
"At the moment, the problem is that only a relatively small percentage of people are against the war," he says.
"The government can easily silence and arrest them. They couldn't arrest the whole nation (if the Russians were united)."
For now, he only concentrates on calling.
And the call with the Russian woman last month is one of the most successful calls she has ever made.
I spent a whole day watching the Russian propaganda network.
This is the warped reality I saw presented to viewers
During the call, as Stonyte begins to recount what has happened in Ukraine, the woman seems to agree with what she hears, according to a recording of her call shared with CNN.
She tells Stonyte that she knows everything but that she is afraid to act because she has a baby.
She and her partner are thinking of leaving Russia, she says.
As they talk, their children can be heard chatting in the background.
And both women are moved to tears.
"I really hope you find a way and that you are safe in this situation," Stonyte tells the woman.
"We are both mothers and we understand how important the safety of our children is. When we live with these types of governments, it is impossible to be completely safe, to feel safe in your own home. So I really hope that some changes will happen."
Russian invasion of Ukraine