Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
unpacking a stack of sources that really challenges
the traditional idea of what a conflict actually
looks like. Yeah, it definitely clips the script.
Because usually, you know, when we talk about
history, especially the history between Ukraine
and Russia, our minds go straight to the kinetic
stuff. We picture tanks, trench lines, maybe
some high -level diplomatic summits or cyber
warfare. Right, the stuff that makes the front
page of the evening news. Exactly. But the story
we are looking at today is completely different.
It reimagines the battlefield not as a muddy
field or a negotiating table, but as the grocery
aisle. The dairy section. Yeah. The gas pump.
Yeah, the candy shelf. It is a fascinating pivot.
We are essentially looking at how the everyday
shopping cart became a weapon of resistance.
And we are digging into the specific campaign
known as Do Not Buy Russian Goods. Right. Or
in Ukrainian, Nekupy Rosiska. Right, which is
a massive nonviolent resistance movement. It
is. It turns the simple act of buying a refusing
to buy a carton of milk or a chocolate bar into
a direct form of protest. And what really stands
out immediately in the research is the premise
of it all. We are so used to hearing about sanctions
coming from the top down. You know, we think
of a president signing an executive order or
the EU freezing assets. High level statecraft.
Yeah, high level statecraft. But this, this is
entirely grassroots. This is ordinary people
organizing on social media to hit an adversary's
economy wallet first. It is the ultimate vote
with your dollar story. But here is where the
timeline really threw me for a loop when looking
at the sources. Oh, the timeline is wild. If
you stop someone on the street right now and
asked, hey, when did the boycott of Russian goods
really start? They would probably guess 2022,
right? With the full scale invasion. Or maybe
they would say 2014 when Crimea was annexed.
I mean, that is exactly what I thought before
we dug into this. Right. But looking at the source
material, that is not quite right. No. And that
is a really crucial distinction for us to make
right up front. This campaign didn't start with
a military invasion. It actually started as a
reaction to a trade embargo. The campaign officially
launched on August 14th, 2013. Which is months
before the Maidan protests really heated up and
well before any military annexation. Exactly.
So let's unpack that a bit. August 2013. The
world looks very different. What was happening
that made people say, OK, put down the Russian
cheese? Well, the context here is what the sources
refer to as the food wars. The food wars, which
it sounds like a reality TV show on the Food
Network. It really does. But I assume the stakes
were a bit higher than a cooking competition.
Much higher. Russia had been launching a series
of targeted economic conflicts against Ukraine
for some time. The documents list them quite
specifically, and the names are almost deceptively
cute. Right. You had the meat war. The cheese
war. And eventually the chocolate war. You know,
diplomatic relations are crumbling when you weaponize
confectionery. It sounds comical on the surface,
but think about the economic reality of that.
For Ukrainian exporters, Russia was a massive
market. When Russia decides to just block Ukrainian
chocolate or cheese, factories stop running.
People lose jobs. Right. It was a way for Russia
to use its sheer market power to punish Ukraine
politically. It is basically economic strangulation.
Precisely. Then, on August 14, 2013, the Federal
Customs Service of Russia took a drastic step.
They listed all Ukrainian exporters as companies
that were at risk. At risk. That sounds like
such boring bureaucratic code. Oh, it is code
for a total blockade. Suddenly, you had hundreds
of trucks and rail cars backed up at customs,
physically unable to deliver Ukrainian goods
into Russia. The goods were literally rotting
at the border. It was a complete stranglehold.
Yeah. So the boycott, this grassroots movement,
wasn't just an unprovoked action by Ukrainians.
It was a counterpunch. Yes. It was a direct reaction
to having their own goods blocked. And that is
when the group known as Vidzic stepped in. They
are a civic movement, right? Yeah. And their
logic was simple reciprocity. They figured if
Russia isn't going to buy Ukrainian goods, why
on earth? Should Ukrainians buy Russian goods?
And they didn't just post angry tweets about
it. They actually mobilized on the ground. They
hit the streets hard. We are talking about mass
distribution of leaflets, posters and stickers.
The research mentions coverage in over 45 cities
and towns. And the imagery they used was really
striking. They took the Matryoshka doll, you
know, the famous Russian nesting doll, and turned
it into this intense caricature. I saw some of
those images in the source material. They're
definitely not your... grandmother's nesting
dolls not at all they use them to symbolize a
hidden danger inside the products like this looks
innocent on the outside but there are teeth inside
it brands the product not just as foreign but
is actively hostile but Interestingly enough,
the campaign actually started to fade a bit later
in 2013. Right, because the Euromaidan protests
started in November. Everyone's focus naturally
shifted to the main square and the massive political
revolution happening. It is hard to worry about
checking grocery labels when your government
is in a state of collapse. That makes total sense.
But then came March 2, 2014. The date everything
changed. The annexation of Crimea and the beginning
of the Russian military intervention. strategy
and the tone of it shifted completely. In 2013,
the goal was reciprocity. You block our trade,
we block yours. But in 2014, the goal became
much darker and far more urgent. The sources
are very clear on this shift. The new message
wasn't about fair trade anymore. It was, do not
send your money to Russia because that money
buys the bullets used against us. It became strictly
about preventing the financing of the military.
It turned every single purchase into a moral
decision. And because the stakes were now literally
life and death, the tactics became much more
dramatic. This is where we start seeing the flash
mobs. Now, when you say flash mob, I think most
people picture a group dancing to a pop song
in a mall. But these were intense. Extremely
intense. The Russian Kills campaign really stands
out in the research. Can you imagine walking
into a supermarket to buy groceries? Maybe you're
just grabbing milk on a Tuesday evening and suddenly
people all around you just drop to the floor.
Just collapse right there in the aisle. Yes.
Activists would enter supermarkets or restaurants
and fall down as if dead. It forces the shopper
to physically step over a body just to buy a
jar of Russian pickles or a bottle of vodka.
That is incredibly confronting. It breaks that
autopilot mode we all have when we shop. Usually
you are just looking at the price tag or checking
the calories. This forces you to look at the
origin. It definitely kills the mood for casual
browsing. And the scope of the boycott expanded
too, right? It wasn't just about what was on
the supermarket shelf anymore. No, it went much
wider. The boycott expanded to include Russian
gas stations, banks, and even concerts by Russian
artists. The core idea was that any economic
interaction at all was a form of support. And
this brings us to what I found to be the most
fascinating part of the story from a tactical
perspective. The sources outline what we can
call the Battle of the Barcodes. This part feels
like a tech thriller. Because, let's be honest,
identifying a Russian product isn't always easy.
We live in a highly globalized world. You have
global supply chains, subsidiaries, complex licensing
deals. If I pick up a generic candy bar, how
do I actually know where the profit goes? Exactly.
So the activists gave consumers a brilliant shortcut.
They told people to look for the number 460.
460, the first three digits of the barcode. Right.
In the international barcode system, that prefix
indicates the country of origin is Russia. So
people started scanning everything. If the barcode
started with 460. It stayed on the shelf. But
then technology stepped up. We are in the smartphone
age after all. Someone developed a specific Android
app called Boycott Invaders. I love that name.
Boycott Invaders. It just cuts right to the chase.
It was very effective. You could scan a product
with your phone camera and it would check a database
and tell you instantly if it was Russian. But
here is where the cat and mouse game really began.
The Russian manufacturers didn't just take the
hit. They adapted. This is the part that surprised
me the most. They started hiding. Hiding in plain
sight. By April 2014, reports started coming
in that Russian companies were actually changing
their barcodes. They were switching them to Ukrainian
barcodes or even those of other countries to
disguise the origin of the goods. That feels
incredibly deceptive. You were standing there
trying to make an ethical choice, looking for
the 460, and the package is effectively lying
to you. It forced the everyday activists to become
detectives. They couldn't just rely on the prefix
anymore. They had to spot the illegal masking
of products in supermarkets. They had to research
parent companies. It turned routine shopping
into a constant investigation. It really highlights
how fluid the definition of product origin can
be. You think you know where something comes
from, but the supply chain is completely opaque.
But the campaign didn't stop at physical goods
either. In late 2014, they went after culture.
Yes, the Boycott Russian Films campaign. This
launched in August 2014. The target was movies
and TV serials. Which is huge because Russian
media was very dominant in Ukraine at that time.
It was the default entertainment for millions
of people, but the pressure actually worked.
Some movie theaters in Kiev, Lviv, and Odessa
actually stopped showing Russian films entirely.
It was a rejection of soft power alongside the
rejection of hard goods. And then there is the
Nestle case in 2015. This one seems a bit messy
when you read the sources. It wasn't just about
where the chocolate was made. No, this was a
real convergence of issues. It actually started
with a discrimination case. A journalist wasn't
hired, allegedly, because of Ukrainian language
requirements. But the activists from Vitsich,
the same group that started the 2013 boycott,
they latched onto this. They saw an opening to
broaden the argument against the company. They
pointed out that Nestle was still selling products
manufactured by Russia in Ukraine. So you had
this dual anger, a corporate culture issue regarding
language and a supply chain issue regarding the
aggressor state. And that led to protests right
outside their corporate offices and more of those
Russian kills flash mobs targeting Nestle products
specifically. It shows how a global brand. can
get caught in the crossfire if they aren't paying
close attention to the local sentiment. Neutrality
becomes very difficult to maintain in that kind
of environment. So we have talked a lot about
the domestic front, but this movement didn't
stay inside Ukraine's borders forever. No, it
rippled out almost immediately. Even back in
2014, you saw Poland and Lithuania joining the
boycott. But the real shift, the massive global
escalation, happened with the full -scale invasion
in 2022. That is when the whole world started
paying attention. And the boycott went from activists
with stickers to state governments actively removing
inventory. The scale was unprecedented. In Denmark,
major supermarkets just stopped selling Russian
goods completely. No more debates about barcodes.
The stuff was just gone. And in North America,
it got very specific. The sources detail actions
in the U .S. and Canada. You had states like
New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia. These are
states where the government actually controls
the liquor stores. The control states. Exactly.
The governors in those states basically ordered
the removal of Russian vodka. Take it off the
shelf immediately. Same thing happened in Canada.
Ontario, Manitoba, Newfoundland, and Labrador,
all the liquor control boards. pulled the products.
Now, we have to be honest here. Vodka is a symbolic
target. It is not the entire economy. Right.
But it sends a very visible message to the average
consumer walking down the aisle. You look for
your usual brand and it's just not there. But
while we were pouring out vodka, the financial
world was doing something much more painful.
They turned off the plumbing. The banking freeze.
This is the modern equivalent of a medieval siege.
The U .S. Department of State sanctioned lists
of banks. But the big blow. was Swift. We hear
about Swift a lot on the news, but let's clarify
what it actually is based on our deep dive. It
is not a bank itself. No, it is the messaging
system banks use to talk to each other. It is
basically like WhatsApp for money. If you get
disconnected from Swift, you cannot tell another
bank to move money. You are effectively mute
in the global economy. And on the ground, for
the average Russian citizen, the impact of that
was immediate. It was incredibly tangible. Visa
and MasterCard Just stopped working abroad. Imagine
being a tourist or a business traveler, and suddenly
your plastic card is just a useless piece of
plastic. You cannot pay for your hotel, you cannot
buy dinner. Precisely. You saw long lines at
ATMs, a sudden desperate reliance on cash, and
a forced migration to their domestic mirror system.
It isolated the Russian consumer economy from
the rest of the world in a way that leaflets
never could. So we have the anecdotes, we have
the flash mobs, and we have the liquor bans.
But now we really have to ask the big question,
the one that matters most. Did it actually work?
Do we have hard numbers on the effectiveness?
We do, and the numbers are significant. If we
look back at that initial surge in spring 2014,
the impact was undeniable. Sales of Russian goods
in Ukraine dropped by 35 to 50 percent. That
is a massive hit, losing up to half your sales
in a specific market in just a few months. That
destroys profit margins. That shuts down production
lines entirely. It absolutely does. Imports,
the actual physical delivery of goods from Russia,
fell by a third. by May 2014. And the banking
sector took a massive beating, too. Banks with
Russian capital operating in Ukraine lost more
than 50 % of their deposits between January and
May 2014. So people were literally withdrawing
their money just to ensure it wasn't sitting
in a Russian -owned vault? Yes. It was capital
flight driven entirely by patriotism. And public
opinion supported it heavily. TNS research from
spring 2014 showed 52 % of Ukrainians had a positive
attitude toward the boycott, and 39 % were actively
participating. By late 2014, participation had
risen to nearly half the population. That is
truly impressive for a grassroots movement, but
surely not everyone was on board with this? I
have to imagine the big retailers weren't exactly
thrilled about having empty shelves. No, and
that is an important part of the story to cover.
There was criticism and there was pushback. Specifically,
looking at the retailers in our sources, not
all of them cleared the shelf. Right. Major chains
like Akhen, Ukraine and Metro Cash and Carry
initially refused to support the boycott. What
was their justification for that? They cited
an apolitical vision. An apolitical vision. That
is a really tough stance to hold when your customers
are falling down, playing dead in aisle four.
It is. They argued they were just providing everyday
goods to people. But there were also more philosophical
counter arguments out there. One that really
stands out in the research comes from the blogger
Daniel Ovakovsky. Ah, yes, this was the contrarian
view. I think it is really important we dig into
this because it is a sophisticated argument and
we want to present what the sources say neutrally
here. We are not taking aside just explaining
his rationale. Exactly. Vukovsky openly admitted
to consciously continuing to use Russian Internet
services and products. His argument was that
by supporting Russian entrepreneurs, he was helping
to create a favorable environment for business
in Russia. So the idea is that commerce civilizes,
that if you support the business class, they
might eventually push for a more peaceful, rational
government from the inside. That is the core
of it. He admitted it wasn't patriotic in the
traditional sense, but he argued that engaging
with Russian business was a way to change the
world for the better. It is the classic change
through trade theory, the idea that if nations
are trading heavily, they are less likely to
go to war. Which contrasts sharply with the star
of the beast strategy of the boycott, which basically
says cut them off until they stop. It is a fascinating
debate. Does cutting ties stop the aggression
or does it just harden the resolve of the adversary?
We see that debate play out in every major sanctions
regime from Cuba to Iran to Russia. But in this
specific case, looking at the public support
numbers we just talked about, the momentum was
clearly on the side of the boycott. Absolutely.
The immediate need to defund the military simply
trumped the long -term theoretical hope of civilizing
through trade. So what does this all mean for
us today? We have gone from the cheese war of
2013 to a global shutdown of banking access.
It shows the incredible evolution of modern conflict.
It started with stickers and leaflets, very analog
grassroots tools. It moved to smartphone apps
and scanning barcodes, digital tools. And it
ended up with state level sanctions and global
corporate withdrawals. It really blurs the line
between a civilian and a soldier. You do not
need a rifle to participate. You just need to
check the label on a can of peas. And that is
the lasting legacy. of Neku Prereciske. It proved
that economic resistance isn't just a tool for
governments and diplomats. It empowered the individual
citizen to feel like they were doing something
tangible. When you cannot physically stop a tank,
you can at least stop a truck delivery. And judging
by that 50 percent drop in sales. those trucks
definitely stopped coming. They did. It turned
the everyday marketplace into a moral battleground.
It is a wild story, from chocolate wars to blocked
swift codes. And it leaves us with something
important to think about regarding the future
of global disputes. In a hyper -globalized world,
every purchase you make is essentially a vote.
We often feel powerless watching the news, but
this campaign suggests that consumer behavior
can sometimes move faster and bite harder than
diplomatic sanctions ever could. It raises a
really profound question. In the next major conflict,
how will the barcode be weaponized? Definitely
something for you to think about the next time
you are scanning your groceries at the checkout.
Thank you for listening to this deep dive. Thank
you for joining us. We will see you next time.