Who is NAFO?

It all started as a hilarious flash mob when a diverse group of people from around the world decided they wanted to fight back. They chose the method of trolling and mocking, resorting to memes, jokes and mockery of Russian propaganda publications. NAFO is a decentralized network of online activists dedicated to combating fake newsIt focused primarily on the social network then still known as Twitter. Members of the organization introduce themselves with cartoon avatars featuring the image of the Shiba Inu dog. They have mocked and continue to mock Russian government accounts, using a “meme war” to undermine Russia’s attempts to misinform the internet, Channel 24 reported, citing Wired.

In November 2022, Elon Musk took control of the platform, renamed it X, and effectively allowed Russian propagandists to do whatever they wanted. However, have you seen various reports that accounts in Ukraine, on the contrary, are blocked during export, hidden from users abroad or even excluded from searches?

Wired writes that while NAFO members continued to fight back by posting memes in response to posts from official Russian accounts, they knew they had to do something else to turn the tide of the war. Yes, have helped raise tens of millions of dollars for the Ukrainian military serving on the front lines over the past two yearsfinancing of weapons, ammunition, medical supplies and vehicles. Many are branded with the NAFO mark.

Examples of avatars used by NAFO representatives in their profiles / Photos from Channel 24 Collage / X social network

These cartoon dogs are among the objects financed $250,000 Raccoon’s Revenge seaplaneIt was used to destroy a Russian warship. The group also helps raise money for thousands of drones. Front-line military personnel say NAFO’s efforts are vital in countering the Russian offensive.

This is the only way to win because the Russian army is bigger than ours. We need more drones. This is very very important
Oleksandr Sokolenko, commander of the drone unit in the 79th Airborne Assault Brigade, told Wired:

Sokolenko first heard about NAFO’s work from a friend serving in the Ukrainian army, and now says their work to fund drones for his brigade is vital to his chances of winning the war.

“When I entered the army, I first served as an infantryman. However, I realized that drones were really important and decided to work with drones. My first experience [політ на дроні] It was a DJI Mavic. I threw grenades from it. This is my main job now,” said the soldier, who had previously developed a career as an actor but joined the army at the beginning of a large-scale occupation.

It is impossible to calculate the scale

Since NAFO is not a traditional organization with a specific center and leadership, it is not possible to obtain exact figures on how many people identify with this movement. However, according to one of the members, there are at least thousands of members.

You can’t just raise $250,000 for a seaplane without the participation of thousands of people.
– A British citizen, who did not give his name because he feared threats from Russia, said:

The funding was made in direct cooperation with United24, a Ukrainian government organization created to enable people to help the Ukrainian military.

The author of Wired’s material, journalist David Gilbert, contacted United24 representatives and learned the details of this collection:

“It all started in November 2022, when United24 launched its first fleet of seaplanes, a project that would later change the course of naval warfare. The guys really wanted to help. We made a special offer: raise funds for the NAFO drone and give it the name we want. ” – says the representative of United24, whose name was not mentioned in the publication.

In conclusion NAFO raised $276,429 in two monthsHe named the drone Raccoon’s Revenge or “Revenge of the Raccoon” in reference to the raccoons stolen by Russian zookeeper Oleg Zubkov during the Russian retreat from Kherson in November 2022.

NAFO members in general in collaboration with United24 Raised nearly $1 million across four campaigns. The current campaign, called “Fellas Fury,” aims to raise funds for remote-controlled combat robots. In addition to the official roundup with the Ukrainian government, NAFO members also launched numerous separate campaigns conducted in close cooperation with individual soldiers in the field.

Since NAFO has no central leader, fundraising is organized on a brigade or division basis, usually under the leadership of an individual affiliated with a specific unit or soldier of the Ukrainian army. These brigades and divisions often focus on a specific item: vehicles, rifles, drones, or medical equipment. Part of the fundraising effort is selling patches that become collectibles.

Twitter is no longer valid

Fundraisers are held on Discord, Signal and Telegram, but not on X, where the NAFO movement began and flourished at the beginning of the Russian occupation.

The UK user mentioned above says NAFO members abandoned Elon Musk’s platform because “Russia effectively bought it.” Now the world is full of Russian bots and views of tweets are deliberately cut off. Many people sit in shaded bathrooms for months. This reduces collection efficiency.

69th Sniff Brigade

One of the most successful and prolific fundraisers is Ragnar Sass, who led the 69th Sniffer Brigade (the humorous name alludes to the sense of smell, the main skill of the dogs that are the symbol of the NAFO movement). Today, according to Wired More than $10 million was raised for the Ukrainian army. This money allowed Sass and his collection partners to send more than 460 vehicles to the front, as well as more than 1,000 drones and other equipment. They also rescued 32 Ukrainian pets.

The Sass Brigade not only supplies the trucks, but also equips them with technologies specifically designed for combat operations, such as silencers and night vision cameras. Then the trucks and jeeps are painted, including NAFO letters, and sent to the front.

What distinguishes us from others is that we analyze the most effective solutions in the field of electronic warfare every week.
– says Sass in an interview, coordinating the 33rd shipment.

Ragnar Sass is an Estonian entrepreneur and co-founder of Pipedrive, a cloud software company valued at over $1 billion in 2020. He has been working in Ukraine for more than a decade and founded the Lift99 startup incubator in Kiev in 2019. The entrepreneur says that he donated $20,000 to the Ukrainian army at the beginning of 2022, but then more people joined him, so this amount quickly increased to $200,000. It organized its first convoy of 14 vehicles in March 2022 and joined NAFO in June of the same year.

Sass encourages donations by offering a patch to anyone who donates more than €100 ($110), and says they’ve sent out more than 10,000 patches to date to donors in more than 50 countries around the world.

Ragnar says his team was the “fastest and most efficient” because they were able to raise funds and deliver aid in a matter of days. He describes the operation in the Kursk region as an example: “We started the operation on Thursday night. Next week, cars and unmanned aerial vehicles were delivered to the troops in Kursk. This war will be won with unmanned aerial vehicles, with NATO’s purchase.” It’s from the Stone Age.”

His work does not go unnoticed

British legislator David Taylor, who joined Ragnar Sass during one of his delivery missions, US Congressman Adam Kinzinger, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who recently received his own cartoon Shiba Inu dog, and Ukrainian representatives have all extolled the virtues of NAFO. For example, General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukrainian Ambassador to Great Britain and former commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, has a NAFO badge.