Photos via Romanian MoD InfoRadar: Italy (SondrioToday), Corsica (SOS Donbass), Romanian sticker 01 2023 – 2025 2024
The sentence and the image In 2023 the leader of a small British party writes "Russia is not our enemy" and keeps repeating it; Sputnik picks him up in January 2024. In 2024 the same phrase appears on posters in more than 20 Italian cities and in France, with a handshake in the national and the Russian flag colours. In August 2025 it reaches Romania as stickers, photographed on a restaurant door in Târgoviște.
See it on the slide → Image: Russian embassy in the Netherlands, 1 Sep 2026 02 10 Aug – 1 Sep 2026 1.3 M
The Russian state is there first The Pravda network carries the phrase from 10 August. The Russian embassies in the USA (11 August), the Netherlands (20 August) and South Africa (21 August) follow. On 1 September at 06:50 UTC the embassy in The Hague posts the sticker design itself: hands painted in Dutch and Russian colours, "RUSLAND IS NIET MIJN VIJAND", with "We know it. We hear it. We share this idea." and #NietOnzeOorlog.
The post draws 1.3 million views, three weeks before the chain on X starts on 21 September.
See it on the slide → Screenshot: the interactive network, nationality chain 03 9 Aug – 21 Sep 2026 57×
The Polish account An account in Poland with 4,769 followers writes "I'm Polish and Russia is not my enemy" as early as 9 August and again on 28 August. The first nationality claims in the whole dataset are replies to this account: "I'm British…" (9 August), "I'm Finnish…" (10 August). On 21 September at 13:51 UTC the same phrase reaches 272,873 views, 57 times its followers.
9 Aug → 28 Aug · 30,545 → 19 Sep → 21 Sep 13:51 · 272,873
Proof first claims per nationality, with time, account country and views (E2) 4 of the 10 claims before 21 Sep are addressed to this account the 21 Sep post: 272,873 views, 740 reposts See it on the slide → 04 ~20 – 21 Sep 2026 ×4.7
The trigger: a British war scare Jacob Rees-Mogg's clip ("some of you may die… doing your duty") goes viral and Sky launches "The Wargame", a simulated Russian attack. Posts by UK-located accounts rise almost fivefold: 151 before 21 September, 716 after. George Galloway's "Rise up. Russia is not our enemy" is already being reposted at 13:10 UTC on 21 September, 41 minutes before the Polish post.
before 21 Sep 151
from 21 Sep 716
See it on the slide → 05 21 – 28 Sep 2026 3 → 234
The chain The "I'm [nationality] and Russia is not my enemy" format starts slowly (35 hours to the next 10 posts), then explodes: 37 posts on 23 September, 142 on the 24th, 234 on the 25th. 521 accounts write it, mostly real: the claimed nationality matches the account's country in 89% of cases, and only 36 are labelled new or inauthentic.
19 Sep 1
21 Sep 3
22 Sep 6
23 Sep 37
24 Sep 142
25 Sep 234
26 Sep 157
27 Sep 99
28 Sep 71
Proof posts per day and hours to 10/50/100/300 posts (E2) nationality–country match: 231 of 259 (E6) See it on the slide → Screenshot: the interactive network, the embassy and the accounts reposting it 06 25 Sep 2026, 07:33 UTC +65%
The embassy blesses the chain "Dear Friends! We're so impressed by the «Russia is not my enemy» flash mob! And we fully share this idea!": 756,627 views, 4,788 reposts, 21,500 likes, replies closed. Within 24 hours volume rises 65% (1,088 → 1,796 posts); the next day is the peak, with 1,866 posts.
Proof the post 254 captured reposts: 14 in the first hour, 146 in 24 hours; 44 hostile (E3) volume per hour, 19–28 Sep (E1) See it on the slide → Screenshots: t.me/blondinka_dk/1382 and the source line on netherlands.news-pravda.com 07 25 – 27 Sep 2026 61 min
The syndication machine At 13:52 UTC, six hours after the embassy, the Telegram channel "Датчанка за углом" (@blondinka_dk, 949 subscribers, signed #InfoDefenseAuthor) posts "РОССИЯ МНЕ НЕ ВРАГ". InfoDefense Спектр relays it, and between 14:53 and 14:57, 14 Pravda-network sites (including romania.news-pravda.com) publish the same machine translation, which inflates the phenomenon ("800,000 views" for a Danish post that has 101,000). 12 VK mirrors follow, then InfoDefense in Danish, French, English and Latvian.
@blondinka_dk 13:52 → InfoDefense Спектр 14:43 → 14 × Pravda 14:53–14:57 → 12 × VK 14:59–15:26 → InfoDefense DA/FR/EN/LV
See it on the slide → 08 28 Sep 2026, 15:01 UTC 1 minute
Recycled for the audience at home A Russian text mocks the "foreign tourists in the banned network X" and derides Ukrainians. Five Telegram channels publish it in the same minute: "Илья Муромец и Киевский торчок ЗЕ", "Алёша Попович и Зелёный Змей", "Русский Медвежонок", "Русский Богатырь и Чубатый Чёрт" and "Русский Медведь и Киевский Петух", about 333,000 subscribers. Their public pages point to one operator: the same content and advertising contacts, the same self-description.
Илья Муромец и Киевский торчок ЗЕ · 119k Алёша Попович и Зелёный Змей · 70k Русский Медвежонок · 58k Русский Богатырь и Чубатый Чёрт · 47k Русский Медведь и Киевский Петух · 38k Proof the channels, subscribers and shared contacts from their public pages (E12) See it on the slide → 09 26 – 28 Sep 2026 7.7%
The counter-wave Part of the spread comes from critics: accounts rejecting the slogan (Vatnik Soup, Illia Ponomarenko, Julia Davis and others) receive 406 of 5,270 reposts (7.7%). The phrase also travels because it is quoted to be refuted.
See it on the slide → Thumbnails: the iGov TikTok Observatory, published bulletins 10 Jul – Sep 2026 29 / 37
Romania, on its own clock On X, the first Romanian claim (27 August) already moves the enemy: "Russia is not my enemy. Ukraine is my enemy". The Gabriel account hosts the most "I'm [nationality]…" replies (18), and "I'm Romanian, and Russia is not my enemy" is reposted 56 times.
On TikTok, videos that say or paraphrase the slogan start on 18 July, before the X chain. A group of 17 pro-Russia accounts holds 29 of the 37. In the comments, "Călin Georgescu președinte" formulas peak on 21–24 September, with the news on the Georgescu case, and pro-Russia formulas on 20–22 September, before the embassy. The X chain does not visibly move the Romanian comments.
See it on the slide → Conclusions
What it adds up to The design predates the chain by two years and the embassy carried it into 2026: posters (2024), stickers (2025), the Hague image (1 Sep 2026), then the chain (21 Sep), the praise (25 Sep) and the peak (26 Sep). The chain was incubated: the Polish account hosted the format for six weeks before it went viral. We do not show who directed it; we show it was its venue. The middle is organic, the edges are organised: real accounts copying a template, and a state apparatus that blesses it and redistributes it within minutes, in several languages. The coordination test measures it: the same text in the same minute appears only on the Pravda sites and Telegram channels, not among the accounts writing the template. The fuel was domestic: the British war scare. The "real enemy" named is one's own government, the EU, the UN. Romania has its own version on its own clock: on TikTok, a pro-Russia group and the Georgescu audience, with the enemy moved to Ukraine or the EU. See it on the slide → 
