Lambeth residents working to overthrow Vladimir Putin

A group of Lambeth residents have been involved in an advertising campaign that aims to end Russian president Vladimir Putin’s reign over Ukraine.

For years the news that Russian people receive has reportedly been heavily censored in favour of the Government and nation.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Free Russia campaign, which the Lambeth residents are part of, has published adverts on websites in the country that are able to escape the usual censorship and detection methods employed by the Russian Government.

The adverts appear online with messages embedded in Russian such as “’Why have 141 countries condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?”.

Rob Blackie, who has lived in Herne Hill for more than 20 years but would not give a more specific address, founded the voluntary organisation and said: “All the indicators are that these adverts are reaching people.”

Mr Blackie said a lot of the 50-strong team of volunteers live in Lambeth and some of them are Russian exiles or Ukrainian nationals.

Since February this year, Free Russia has placed 400 million adverts in the country and has had to learn the “skills of criminal scammers” to make them work.

Mr Blackie said: “South London is such an international place that so many people here have some kind of connection to the war.

“There’s a huge number of people living here who do campaigning or marketing for a living, and they wanted to do something to help. Something like this can change the world.

“I would say one fifth of the people living in my street have some kind of connection to it.”

Mr Blackie said the organisation was trying to scale up each month and needed funding to do so.

So far a GoFundMe drive has helped the organisation raise £45,000.

Mr Blackie was unable to provide in-depth details as to how the adverts work, so as not to give the game away but said the group uses a range of video and online adverts.

“Some ads are videos and we can see how long people are watching as well as the click through rate,” he said.

Mr Blackie said that he is not concerned for his safety and that he’s “scared for the 40m Ukrainians in front” of him.

“We want to help people change minds in Russia,” he said. “I’ve been to Russia a few times when I was younger and made Russian and Ukrainian friends. I saw their relationships first-hand and they were good.

“We may never be able to prove that we changed people’s minds but one indicator will be how effectively Russia mobiles civilians into the army for the next stages of the war.”

Pictured top: Rob Blackie (Picture: Andrew King)