TRUTH
ABOUT
THE WAR
Countless Russians are unaware of what is happening in Ukraine. In this room, they are forced to see the truth with their own eyes.
Esa Mäkinen, text
Counter-Strike is one of the most popular video games in the world.
Its basic idea is simple: Players are divided into teams of terrorists and counter terrorists. The counter terrorists must defuse bombs or save hostages, for example, while the terrorists try to prevent this.
Each round lasts two minutes, and then the players switch roles. After a few dozen rounds, the winner is declared.
The game is extremely popular in Russia, especially in St. Petersburg and Moscow. It is played by approximately four million Russians, mostly by young men.
Originally created in the United States, Counter-Strike differs from many Western online services and digital platforms in one respect:
It is not forbidden in Russia. Russians can still play the game.
After the start of the war on Ukraine, Russia has banned its citizens from accessing such online services as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, as well as the sites of several Western media, including Helsingin Sanomat. Due to this, a large proportion of Russians are not aware of what is going on in Ukraine, for example.
The Russian state-controlled media are not telling the truth.
This sparked a crazy idea: Could we create a place in Counter-Strike, where the millions of young Russian men playing this first-person shooter game would be forced to face the terrors of the war in Ukraine?
For those not familiar with Counter-Strike, here’s a quick introduction: The game environment is called a map. When starting to play, the player first chooses a map. The most popular map is Dust 2, which features a dusty landscape resembling Morocco.
The game has a few dozen official maps, but anyone can create their own maps using tools that are available free of charge. There are over one hundred thousand player-designed maps.
The most widely known map designers, such as Volcano and FMPONE, who have created a popular map located in the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, are big stars in the gaming realm.
In addition to actual gameplay areas, designers often add peculiar extra elements to their maps: hidden messages, graffiti, or even secret rooms containing messages.
Early this year, Helsingin Sanomat commissioned two well-known map designers to create a Counter-Strike map imitating a Slavic city. A secret room was hidden in the map.
The goal of the secret room was simple: to embed real-life war news inside the game.
Why add journalism to a computer game? Immediately after the start of the war in Ukraine, the Russian State Duma passed several laws aimed at suppressing freedom of speech. These laws forbid the dissemination of “false information” about Russian armed forces or Russia’s operations in Ukraine.
Requiring sanctions against Russia is also forbidden.
Violating these laws can lead to prison sentences of up to 15 years.
At the moment, practically all independent media in Russia have been shut down or they have suspended their operations on their own initiative. Some have fled the country. The consequences of the new laws have been heavily reflected on Russian journalists.
Alexander Nevzorov: TV reporter; reported about Russian troops bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Had to flee under the threat of imprisonment and was declared a foreign agent.
Andrei Soldatov: Investigative reporter; indicted after writing about digital dictatorship in Russia and the Russian security services’ operations.
Nastya Krasilnikova: Maker of the Schoolgirls podcast, an investigative series about sexual abuse imposed on girls on an elite Russian summer camp for years. The series was one of the most popular podcasts in Russia in 2022. Krasilnikova had to flee to Israel.
Dmitry Kolezev: Chief editor of the online magazine Republic; had to flee to Lithuania after visibly opposing the Russian aggression on Ukraine.
Evan Gershkovich: American journalist working for Wall Street Journal; arrested in Russia in March 2023, accused of espionage.
Lilia Gildeeva: TV reporter known especially for talk shows; forced to resign from her job and flee Russia in March 2022.
Ilya Krasilshchik: Former CEO of the online magazine Meduza; indicted for spreading “fake news” about the Russian army. Reported, among other topics, on the massacre in Bucha. Now facing a sentence of 10 years.
Helsingin Sanomat’s reporter Petteri Tuohinen and photographer Kalle Koponen were in Bucha, north of Kyiv, when the cruelties of the Russian army were starting to come to light.
The massacre was not fake news. It all happened.
People had been shot on the street. There was a mass grave of civilians behind a church. At least some of the victims had their hands tied behind their back.
Russian media also covered the events taking place in Bucha, but their perspective differed drastically from that featured in other countries.
The TV channels Zvezda and Izvestia both featured a news item from Bucha on 4 April 2022. Both channels offered lengthy citations from sources representing the Russian Ministry of Defence, repeating the same message:
The Ukrainian army brought the dead bodies to the city and placed them on the streets. The Russians didn’t do any harm in Bucha; instead, they helped the local citizens.
Zvezda 4.4.2022:
Izvestija 4.4.2022:
In Russia, independent media have been replaced by a continuous flow of propaganda from state-owned television channels. They portray Russia’s actions in Ukraine as a heroic battle against terrorism.
According to surveys considered to be reliable, more than 50% of Russians support the war in Ukraine.
When free press has been suppressed, President Vladimir Putin’s government can display the war in the way they desire: emphasising its heroic nature and downplaying its victims.
CCounter-Strike is a first-person shooter game, i.e. the player views the game environment through the eyes of their avatar. They can run through doors and hit walls.
They have guns and ammunition. If they’re hit, they die.
The moment of death is decisive for Helsingin Sanomat’s secret room.
When a player’s avatar dies, the game view changes: For a while, the player can go through walls or fly around the map. At this stage, they can also find the secret room hidden underground.
The room is hidden near a monument of eternal flame. Eternal flame monuments are common in Russian and Ukrainian cities. They serve as memorials of WW2, or the Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Russia.
In Helsingin Sanomat’s Counter-Strike map, the flame has a different motive. Ukrainian and Russian villages are quite similar. The purpose is to make Russians see that the terrors of war are happening in places that look very familiar to them.
There is a light above the door. This is a hint that taking a closer look at the object may reveal something.
There are stairs leading to an underground room.
First, the player sees a wall with a headline.
Next to the headline, there is a map showing how many civilian targets in Ukraine have been hit by Russians.
Another wall displays a news item on the Bucha massacre. When the player comes close to the images, they hear a Russian voice-over on their radio telling them what the images are about: Ukrainian civilians murdered by Russian soldiers.
Another news item is about a Ukrainian man called Yuriy Glodan. He went out for groceries, and meanwhile a Russian missile killed his family. Helsingin Sanomat’s reporter Katriina Pajari and photographer Rio Gandara met Glodan in Odessa in May 2022.
The story of the Glodan family has never been told to Russians.
The Russian state media have also remained quiet about the Russians who have died in the war. Precise victim counts are impossible to get, because all parties are downplaying their losses and exaggerating those of the opponent. Therefore, estimates also vary.
The table on the secret Counter-Strike room displays the most reliable figure that Helsingin Sanomat has been able to find: 70,000 Russians dead.
The secret room was released to Counter-Strike players on 2 May 2023. At the moment of publishing this article, it is just starting to gain attention.
The designers of the map say that they are proud of their work. “To be able to be involved in making such a map with a humanitarian purpose connected to the real world.”
They don’t want to disclose their names, because they are worried about Russian players’ reactions. They might be harassed and their work could be hindered due to releasing the map.
Both of them have designed hundreds of Counter-Strike maps but never anything like this.
“Russia’s senseless aggression on Ukraine has killed tens of thousands of civilians, including children. The least we can do is to bring Putin’s war crimes and Russian propaganda to light.”
If you want to support the spreading of Helsingin Sanomat’s map, play it on Counter-Strike, or take a screenshot of the prompt below and share it to players you know.
Do you want to support the freedom of press in Russia? Here’s what you can do:
The HS map is called de_voyna.
Subscribe to it here
Find the map in Counter-Strike under Workshop maps.
Play! Try to get Russian players playing.
@Helsinginsanomat
Helsingin Sanomat has been publishing independent journalism in Russian since spring 2022.
The map displaying a Slavic city with a secret room containing war news is part of Helsingin Sanomat’s campaign for World Press Freedom Day on 3 May 2023. The campaign aims to remind people of the importance of press freedom and the related difficulties in Russia. The campaign is also featured on television, in newspapers and on various websites. The campaign is implemented by Miltton in cooperation with Helsingin Sanomat’s editorial and marketing staff.
Esa Mäkinen, text
Boris Stefanov, intro
Mikko Peura, video editing
John Woodward, photo editing
Sami Simola, producing and text editing
Tuomas Jääskeläinen ja Antti Nikunen, visuals
photos: You Tube, ZUMA Press, Sonja Pugatševa, Wikimedia Commons, Zume Press, NTV, TASS, Valve, photos
These three pieces of news are read out in Russian to players in the secret room:
Massacre in Bucha
The massacre committed by Russians and the mass graves discovered in Bucha shocked the world. These were revealed after Ukrainian troops had pushed Russian occupation troops out of the city.
Russians had executed civilians on the street. Some of the victims had their hands tied behind their back. Those who remained in the city hid in basements. They had been tortured and randomly shot at.
Graves dug behind a church contained approximately 70 bodies. Helsingin Sanomat’s reporter saw that at least some of the dead bodies were in civilian clothes. Some were in plastic bags, one was wrapped in a sheet.
“What led to this kind of evil? No matter how the Russians try to explain what happened in Bucha, nothing can justify this. We did not threaten Russia or Russians in any way, this is a crime against humanity,” says Andrey Khalavin, a pastor from Bucha, in a Finnish reporter’s interview.
Man lost his family
Yuriy Glodan from Odessa, Ukraine, went to buy food. While he was out, his home was hit by a Russian cruise missile. His three-month-old baby was having a nap. The blast blew the baby’s cot up in the air, where it broke in half and was then crushed by a collapsing wall.
The baby died, as did the mother and grandmother, i.e. Yuriy Glodan’s wife and mother-in-law.
Glodan calls his dead baby daughter a holy child. The infant lived from Christmas to Easter: she was born on 4 January and died in the Russian missile strike on 23 April.
“Parents should not have to bury their babies,” said the father to a Finnish reporter.
70,000 Russians dead
Russian soldiers are killed in Russia’s aggression every day. Every day, mothers lose their sons, wives lose their husbands, children lose their fathers.
The Russian Ministry of Defence is hiding the actual figures of Russian soldiers killed in action. One year into the aggressive war started by Russia, an independent international research resulted in an estimate of 70,000 fallen Russian solders.
“A madhouse, a hot mess. I was fortunate not to be killed in friendly fire,” says a wounded Russian soldier to a Finnish reporter upon return from the frontier.
One Russian soldier’s mother said to a journalist: “They were told that it was an exercise, and this is why they were taken to another country. Why do they have to die?”
JULKAISTU 3.5.2023 © Helsingin Sanomat