Is London PR Agency the source of Zelensky's soundbites?

need to picture Russia as the world evil, not only for Ukraine, but for the whole world.

Let's remember, Zelensky is an actor. He's a comic and an actor, and he is being given lines to read. The people providing those lines to Mr. Zelensky are 2 public relations firms in London who are working with Ukrainians to craft the message coming from Zelensky, which is largely directed to the West. And again, this is war propaganda run out of London and Washington to create an effect.

That was the voice of Dennis Small on a Middle Eastern TV show taken from Twitter, where I found it was posted by someone called Nav Steva. And I wanted to do this because we're so full of the propaganda and certainly here in the West seeing Volodymyr Zelensky on every media— TV, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and so on— and really dominating the airwaves with the messages that we in the West believe in accordance with our values. But what Dennis Small is saying is that actually this is all being crafted and scripted out of London. Now, for those of us that might have been thinking and admiring the level of preparation that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have been putting out and using things like infographics, for example. The news that maybe the home of PR, which is in, of course, Britain, is helping in some way or other. So I thought I'd then have a bit of a look. Now, Dennis Small is the Ibero-American editor of the Executive Intelligence Review. Sounds very Impressive. It's EIR, but it's not the Economist Intelligence Review, which initially I thought it was. The Executive Intelligence Review is a Washington, D.C.-based magazine funded by Lyndon LaRouche, an economist and a financier. So what they are saying and what Dennis Small is saying is that actor and comedian Zelensky's war propaganda script is written by 2 public relations firms in London. And that's just been on Twitter today. So I'm going to Post that link in the show notes as well. But I thought what I would also do is just go and have a look and see, is that true? Now it turns out that all the way back at the end of February, 28th of February, the global PR industry has been quite public about pledging communications support for Ukraine. And the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs said that they'd been overwhelmed by the offers of communication support. This is according to to a report on Provoke Media, which is a really a worldwide but UK-based PR news platform. So in this story, it says that associates from London and from the PRCA, which is the professional body here in the UK for the agency world, has had over 150 offers of help. Doesn't surprise me really. Because I've also been trying to reach out to people that I know in Russia and people who are Ukrainian to see how we can communicate and to share information coming from the Ukraine to other social networks to daisy chain the content supply. And it turns out that the PRCA Director General Francis Ingham has said, we've been privileged to help coordinate efforts to support the Ukrainian government in the last few days. But let's be under no illusion, Russia is a pariah state and every corner of business and society must send the strongest possible message to Moscow. And it says, as an industry, we have a collective duty to fight Russian disinformation and support Ukraine. And what's happened is the MFA, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Ukraine, actually have created a dedicated website. So I thought it's quite interesting that they've done that. And there are some lessons in this for anybody that's running a company that has a crisis management strategy. So Dennis Small is absolutely right that Zelensky and the team are getting help. Are Western PR firms writing the script? I'm not sure. I can't find a record of anyone doing that, but the consistency in the speed And also the way that the messages have been crafted for local audiences, whether it's references to Churchill when he's addressing the UK Parliament or to the Second World War and people like Roosevelt when he's talking to America, for example. Plainly, Zelensky is being supported in ways that make this look like the world's greatest PR campaign. Now, by contrast, of course, we know that Putin Feels impenetrable and doesn't really care, and his own PR campaign seems to rely on people like this Navstiva, who are basically doing their best to put down any comments or to raise up comments like Dennis Small. So at the website that the Ministry for Foreign Affairs has created is war.ukraine.ua. And it says, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Why?

And it has a map of Russia all in red, and then it has Ukraine, which obviously looks not even 1/20th of the size. And it's the 41st day of this, this attack. So it's a very simple but effective graphic. And we have how you can help support Ukraine, donate to Ukraine, or join the Foreign Legion. And then it has a situation. So it has on the left-hand side a feeder, a news feeder. So 22:45, that's this evening, Russian invaders left stretch bombs or grenades in apartments in Bucha where they found Ukrainian symbols or documents of servicemen. They— this is going on pretty much every 15 minutes to an hour. There is some news coming out. It doesn't say where it's from. It's like a Twitter feed, but it doesn't seem to be powered by Twitter per se. And then we have 30 Days of War. We've got a picture on the front of a fireman helping an old lady out of a burning building. And then we've got The Country of Ultimate Freedom, a film. And then we've got the Ukraine War in Pictures, 6-year-old boy at a mother's grave. Pretty heartbreaking. A farewell with Ukrainian photojournalist Max Levin, who we read just last week was killed in Kyiv. He was found dead with 2 bullet holes. And then we have here halfway down, as a media professional, find here verified information on Russia's invasion of Ukraine and use our media kit for the global united voice. Media requests to mfa.ukraine@gmail.com and share the truth about Russian invasion of Ukraine. And then it has underneath that what Russia says and what it actually means. So it has information about the disinformation that's coming out of Russia. So if I take one, for example, Russian occupants say limited military occupation, and it means all-out attack, missile strikes, air and land invasions, civil targets, cities and infrastructure. Now these are Instagram-size format, so what they're doing very easily and very well is creating content for anyone that wants to share this. You can Download the image and share it. Okay. And what they've got below that is Defenders of Freedom. And they have, uh, human. They've got 3 columns, human, heroes, and human. They've got a 15-year-old girl from Mariupol who spent 2 weeks filming events. We've got a journalist and PR specialist, Margarita, who joined the ranks. And then we've got Time, the newspaper, the magazine with the mother and daughter. Who appeared on the Time magazine managed to get in touch with their rescuer. And then it says below, 141 countries support Ukraine. So there's a map of the world all with blue, and there's Russia on its own with yellow, and the rest is in white. And underneath that, follow us on Facebook and Insta and on— and get the Spotify. And then it also has a click here to see Ukraine before the war And what's nice, they even have a usability by userway.org. So you can go contrast, you can do pause animation, dyslexia friendly, text align, and so on. They've really managed to make this website very user friendly. What I'm also interested in from a PR point of view, if you said down here you're a member of the media or you want a media kit, it goes straight to a drive.google.com website. And this is interesting because in here we've got the World Support folder, we've got a Visuals folder, we've got Videos folder, Useful Information folder, Press Releases, International Legion of Defense, Editorials. If I just click here, for example, Editorials, then why is Russia invading? If I look, for example, at Visuals, I have only 6 visuals at the moment. Looks as though that hasn't been as updated as it might have been. Videos, let's see what we've got in here. A big stack, including 30 days of full-scale war, lots of short videos and video clips that you could take if you wanted to help to suggest more information. What we've got here on the Stand with Ukraine kit is really verified information, support Ukraine, donate, call the war a word, and also correct wording. So you can click that and you can see Here, actually it has in red and in green and in black, I guess, is a Ukrainian and Russian. And then we have it in English. So it says annexation of Crimea, reunification of Crimea with Russia, such Russian clichés like referendum in Crimea or the will of the people unacceptable. And so what they're doing is they're translating Russian content and then they are putting the English language translations here for those people. That might want to use that. The reason it's interesting for me is because this is a great example of crisis management. And for those of us that might be facing a situation where there could be a crisis in our own companies, or where we're asked to give advice to people, this idea of having a dedicated crisis management website with the assets already loaded and easy to share across multiple formats. It's kept updated with this dynamic news tracker, but also then has assets that can be downloaded and shared across multiple formats. It's really amazing. I noticed they don't have a Twitter share here for some reason, but they do have a Spotify here. So actually you can even find the MFA on Spotify. What we're seeing from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ukraine is really a very sophisticated Program. Now, interesting enough, the Facebook of the Ministry of Affairs only has 196,000 followers. As of today, Zelensky has 5.8 million followers on his Twitter. If we go to the Facebook, it has a rather sad picture of a dog staying with its owner killed by the Russian invaders. The person has obviously been shot and is dead on the sidewalk. With his bicycle underneath him. The dog is still attached to the man, and the dog is lying there waiting for the man. Very tragic, of course, but what the Ukrainians are doing is bringing the war home to us all in real time. And that is really one of the abiding memories of this war will be how professionally run the communications program is. by the Ukrainians. If Dennis Small is correct and British PR teams are helping Zelensky, then what one may be inclined to say is that everyone has a role to play. It doesn't matter if you can carry a gun or shoot a weapon. There are many other weapons out there. And as we've seen, the war for hearts and minds around the world is one of them. And public relations is playing a big role, and we all have a role to play. So I'm sharing this, and I'll share links to those sites. And if you're running your own company, regardless of your position on the war, you can learn, and we can all learn from what's happening from a PR and social media perspective in terms of having a dedicated and real-time And multiplatform campaign which helps other people to share the news. And really what the Ukrainians have done so well is that they have enabled other people that are interested in sharing about the war to do so by providing all the assets in real time and in formats that make them easy to share. So we talk about amplification in my Speak PR program, and amplification using technology, but also the creation of compelling content, which is easy for people to understand, and easy for people to share. And the Ukrainians are winning that war. And in your own business, if we're to learn anything from the Ukraine war, this could be one of the lessons. But Perhaps more importantly, some of these links that I'm going to share, perhaps you can use those as well to share the horrors of the war with your community, and maybe together we can all help turn the tide more quickly. Thank you so much for listening. I don't know about you, but I'm finding it quite hard to stay focused on my normal job, and the sort of preoccupation with this war and the horrors is difficult to overcome. So that's why we're a bit late today, because I've been wrestling with what's important and This is a show about getting noticed. And I think though, that in the context of what we're all living through at the moment, we also need to show some respect. And I wanna show some respect and give some love and some energy to those people and see if there's any way, in a small way, that this podcast, me standing here in the safety and security of Somerset in my garden shed, can help too. And I'm sure you'll feel the same. Thank you so much for listening. Share with me, jim@eastwestbr.com, any thoughts or ideas, or join me on Twitter, Jim A. James. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The Unnoticed Entrepreneur, or in this case, The Unnoticed Soldier.