Steptoe Cyberlaw Podcast

Much of this episode is devoted to how modern networks and media are influencing what has become a major shooting war between Russia and Ukraine. Dmitri Alperovitch gives a sweeping overview. Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, clearly won the initial stages of the war in cyberspace, turning broad Western sympathy into a deeper commitment with short videos from downtown Kyiv at a time when Zelenskyy was expected to be racing for the border. The narrative of determined Ukrainian resistance and hapless Russian arrogance was set in cement by the end of the week, and Zelenskyy’s ability to casually dial in to EU ministers’ meetings (and just as casually say that this might be the last time the ministers saw him alive) changed official Europe’s view of the conflict permanently. Putin’s failure to seize Ukraine’s capital and telecom facilities in the first day of the fight may mean a long, grinding conflict. Russia is doing its best to control the narrative on Russian networks by throttling Facebook, T