La Torche et l’Épée is the place Olivier Lavigne-Ortiz went to write about crossing the border into Ukraine as a foreign volunteer fighter, and to share pictures of the weapons he got on the other side.
It means “The torch and the sword,” and for years the online blog and Facebook community has been the container for the former Canadian Forces sniper’s thoughts and observations about his time in conflict zones, where, as he told the Star in a 2016 interview, he views himself in a dual role as both soldier and storyteller.
That is, until the account went dark this week, a change from his approximately once daily posting since late February. At the same time, Russian social media accounts started spreading a now-viral rumour that Lavigne-Ortiz has died.
No official source has yet confirmed if Lavigne-Ortiz is dead or alive. Loved ones have posted online that they fully believe he is still alive. But he is in a war zone, and the truth remains elusive. Experts, meanwhile, say stories of his supposed death fit Russia’s misinformation playbook and the long history of information warfare.
Known by his 40,000-person Facebook following as “Wali,” Lavigne-Ortiz has fought and documented his time in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and now Ukraine, always painting a picture of glory that comes from taking down enemies, and countering, he says, the images spread by the aggressors in war.
That purpose, and the fame Wali has garnered, may be why Russian troll farms want to spread word of his purported demise.
On Monday, Wali had shared a post on the blog telling his followers not to worry for his safety following a deadly Russian attack.
“I am already far from the base that was hit yesterday,” he wrote, referring to Russian missile strikes near Lviv. “Those who died probably did not see the Russian soldiers. Such is modern warfare. Still just as dirty, but impersonal.”
Far from Lviv, he said, but he gave no indication of where he was. That was the last post Wali made before his channel went dark. As of Friday, he hadn’t made another.
But less than 24 hours after Wali’s last post, explanations for his silence were going viral on Russian social media networks such as VKontakt.
“Canadian sniper, which propaganda called the ‘deadliest sniper in the world’... killed by Russian special forces in Mariupol 20 minutes after landing,” read one post by the administrator of a Russian nationalist group.
The post was “liked” more than 12,000 times, and would go on to appear on countless other channels.
Wali’s internet following was not so quick to accept this news, which has not been verified by independent news or government sources.
A spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said it hadn’t been informed of any Canadian volunteer fighters dying in Ukraine.
“Think about it,” one Wali fan said in French in a video he made about the rumours. “How could Wali have been in Mariupol the day after crossing the border into Ukraine? ... Wali is alive.”
A Facebook post by the Norman Brigade, the group with which Wali said he was travelling, did not confirm whether he was alive or dead, but said he was not near Mariupol on the day the Russian posts claimed he was killed.
Thomas Holt, a professor in the school of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University who specializes in internet hacking, said that whether or not Wali is still alive, it’s clear why Russia would want to spread the story of his death.
“That’s kind of a classic model of potential psychological operations using information warfare. So by saying that you’ve killed an enemy combatant very quickly ... before he could do anything has the potential to be not only demoralizing for those of Ukraine who might have seen him as a potential asset ... it certainly may affect individuals in Canada who are opposed to perhaps engaging in the conflict itself.”
To Yevgeniy Golovchenko, a University of Copenhagen researcher on social media disinformation, Wali has been swept up in a larger “fog of war” — the barrage of true, twisted, and false information propagated by Russia in its war to sow support among Russians, despondency among Ukrainian forces, and confusion among everyone else.
“If you look at the classical disinformation strategies ... you will almost always go for the stories, narratives that captivate people that capture attention — that are viral. There is no point in writing stories or narratives or a disinformation about something that nobody reads,” Golovchenko said.
“It wouldn’t make sense to make stories about this person if he was not already famous.”
But Wali is famous, and famous for the art of war.
By March 3, he had arrived in Ukraine, and posted about crossing the border with three other Quebec volunteers and some Britons. He wrote on his blog that he joined the Norman Brigade, a group of Canadian and British volunteer fighters working together in Ukraine.
His arrival in Ukraine was covered breathlessly by a smattering of international media and other websites that heralded him as a talent capable of single-handedly weakening Russian forces. He is often described as the world’s deadliest sniper, though, given the secrecy with which snipers operate, his exact achievements are difficult to confirm.
He told CBC earlier this month that he’d made the journey with three other former Canadian soldiers and they were greeted with hugs and handshakes when they crossed the border.
“They were so happy to have us,” he told CBC. “It’s like we were friends right away.”
Holt said Wali’s fame certainly contributes to why Russia would want to amplify news of his supposed death. But, he said, the posts about Wali are part of a bigger picture, and a long tradition of spreading information during times of war.
“It is important to note that this is just another tool in the broader suite of information warfare,” Holt said. “In traditional information warfare, going back to the last couple of decades even to World War Two and Vietnam, the use of printed materials in order to demoralize or stabilize the population of an occupied country, or conflict itself, is quite common.”
Russia’s use of disinformation, misinformation and propaganda has been well documented by the international community, especially since the country’s invasion of Crimea in 2014. A U.S. intelligence report released last year described the Russian state being at the centre of a controlled information ecosystem, which includes state media, farming internet trolls and propped-up friendly third party sites.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has not said anything about Wali through its official communications channels.
There are examples of propaganda being used on both sides of the war.
In Russia, state-controlled news outlets have amplified videos apparently showing a Nazi flag captured by Russian forces in Ukraine (Nazism in Ukraine is being used by Russia as justification for the invasion). In Ukraine, government sources spread a story about the capture of the tiny Snake Island by Russian forces, saying a mere 13 soldiers defending the island refused to surrender and therefore were killed (Ukrainian sources later said they may have been captured, not killed).
Holt said the barrage of information out there — some true and some false — makes it all but impossible to verify whether a person like Wali may actually be alive.
After all, Holt said, the smart thing for Wali to do in the circumstance is to stay quiet.
“So in the interim, the smartest thing to probably do is take everything with a grain of salt and check the source. If it is just troll farms (spreading this information) then it’s probably not truthful,” Holt said. “But it’s very hard. I would say, it’s like an informational fog of war where there’s no good information and it’s hard to necessarily get accuracy until third parties, new sources, etc., can validate.” |
