These surprising tactics are being used to disable the Kremlin's propaganda machine

Volunteers are using clever tactics to get around Kremlin propaganda to expose Russians to the truth about Vladimir Putin's brutal war against Ukraine.

The Russian government has blocked or restricted access to social networks and publicly funded networks such as the BBC and Radio Free Europe, and Vladimir Putin has signed a "fake news" law imposing prison terms for journalists who contradict state propaganda, but opposing voices have still found a way to break through, reported the Washington Post.

"Social media companies and media outlets in the West have also started helping Russians circumvent that censorship by using the special software Tor, which routes Internet traffic through a scattered network of servers, effectively neutralizing the website blockade," the Post reported. "VPN — or virtual private network — apps, which allow Russians to access otherwise-banned sites, have been downloaded millions of times in recent weeks on the Apple and Google app stores, market research data shows."

The U.S. government has also tried to protect companies like Cloudflare, a cybersecurity firm used by much of the internet to keep their websites online, and media outlets including the Post have launched channels on Telegram, which is widely used in Russia.

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The BBC and other outlets have turned to shortwave radio to reach Russians and Ukrainians, volunteers in Florida have started beaming Voice of America broadcasts to Russia, and computer programmers have built a website that allows visitors to send text messages to random strangers within Russia.

“Hello, my Russian friend,” says one text, roughly translated. “We don’t know each other. I live abroad. I know that Russia invaded Ukraine and many soldiers and civilians died there. How do you live in Russia? How is it going?”

Millions of messages, some of them showing photos of the war or civilian death tallies, have been sent in less than two weeks to Russian numbers, and the team -- named for the squad303 air squadron that battled Nazi warplanes in World War II -- has rapidly built up its infrastructure to reach even more.

Another group has created a search engine, Rusleaks, to aggregate more than a dozen databases of purported personal information for Russian military personnel to alert other Russians to what their government is doing.