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Confronting Anti-Narratives news

Lessons From Russian Anti-Narratives

June 30, 2025

In the first months of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, thousands of moms carried their babies and their bags through Przemysl train station in Poland. For those fleeing Ukraine in the winter of 2022, those suitcases weighed heavy on the heart and were intensified by the lonely arrival at an unknown train station in another country. I led a small ministry team that partnered with many other grassroots volunteers waiting on the Polish border to offer aid. For those volunteers, especially the Russian ones, there was a different sort of weight to carry. The western media periodically reported on the numbers of Russians who fled the country in protest of Putin’s invasion. It rarely covered the Russians and Belarussians who showed up at strategic points to offer disaster aid to Ukrainians.

When asked about their motivations to give aid, Russian and Belarussian volunteers mentioned their shock over the power of propaganda. They credited cross cultural experiences with increased empathy, and they suffered from internal tension around being defined as “good”. They offer us an opportunity to learn how anti-narratives in a culture affect societal thinking.
 

The Power of Propaganda

Beginning in 1998, Putin systematically narrowed and controlled the media. In conversations with Russians, they often articulated shock over the weaponization of Russian mass media and its success. They recognized tv as a methodology for propagating a Russian pro-war, pro-Putin narrative. As time went on, they saw television and internet deliver a constant hum of propaganda that ‘corrected’ ideas on the government. The constant barrage normalized behavior and ideas that would ordinarily be declared illogical. However, because it operated in the background of homes while people prepared dinner, did their homework, played with their kids, the ideas slowly became normal.

Learning From Other Cultures

Many of the Russian and Belarussian volunteers were already residing outside their origin culture before the war started. This process of detaching from their origin culture and immersion in other cultures benefitted their ability to empathize. They spoke in terms of tolerance and articulated that in Canada and Western Europe, tolerance was viewed as a societal skill. They saw change in themselves and linked that transformation to long exposure to more tolerant cultures. In a conversation with a Russian who had been living in Canada for more than a decade, they said, “Canada is a country of immigrants, and they work on anti-discrimination. It’s absurd to hear someone say that another nation is bad, and that we are good”. They also directly connected their desire to help Ukrainians with their own experiences of emigration. They understood how challenging it can be to leave one’s origin culture, and how rewarding it can be to integrate into a new culture.
 

Wrestling With What Is Good

Many of the Russians and Belarussians volunteering at the border struggled most with the duality of being defined as good and bad. In March 2022, President Putin addressed his Russian nation and called pro-war Russians “true patriots” and anti-war Russians “scum and traitors.” In the early months of the war, Olesya Krivtsova, a 19-year-old university student from Siberia, was charged with terrorism. Her crime was posting anti-war messages from her social media account.

While Krivtsova’s story stood as one of many warnings to count the considerable cost of opposing Putin’s war on Ukraine, the volunteers struggled with a larger question of identity and morality. Inside of Russia and Belorussia, to be a “good Russian” clearly meant supporting the war. However, beyond those borders of Russia and Belorussia, being  a “good Russian” meant standing in opposition to the war. When the lines of nationality, identity, and morality define ‘patriotism’, it is a toxic mixture for a society.

A Good Word

We should not be ignorant of the fact that propaganda is a powerful tool used by all governments. However, when propaganda wields hate, society suffers. Russians and Belarussians offer us some insight not only into how anti-narratives wield power over society and the cost they represent to society, but also how important it is for society to build healthy structures of empathy and tolerance. Contrary to narratives of fear that isolate, intentional interaction with people who are culturally, linguistically, politically, religiously different is healthy. If we look at scripture as a guide, then we see that both the Old and New Testaments lead us toward love and empathy for our neighbor. Leviticus 19:34 reminds us that we have all carried a suitcase into a new land and how that reminder should form our interactions. “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

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Rev. Teanna Sunberg co-directs Mission New York, a non-profit in NYC that focuses on immigration initiatives in her East Harlem community. She offers consultation to churches seeking to be a missional presence building healthy and practical bridges with their community. She has 29 years of missionary experience in Eastern Europe and a decade of mass migration response in Europe. She is earning her PhD at Biola University with a dissertation focus on fourth pillar, grassroots humanitarian presence at the Ukraine-Poland border.

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