Russia is a terrorist state. The author of the famous slogan raised a billion for Ukrainian soldiers

On the night the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Ihor Lachenkov set up a Telegram account to share current information with others. He became so popular that two years later he launched a campaign that raised more than a billion crowns for Ukrainian soldiers. In addition to reporting, it also helps expose corruption. He is a hero in the country. I didn’t want to be famous, but now I have to go on, he says.

Russia is a terrorist state. This is one of the most popular hashtags on social networks, which was created in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In English, RussiaIsATerroristState is used daily by hundreds of thousands of users, from ordinary people to top politicians. It appears mainly under posts that inform about Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.

The slogan was coined by Ukrainian influencer Ihor Lachenkov when he launched a viral campaign two years ago. On Twitter at the time, the hashtag began to spread massively after a particularly brutal Russian attack on Kiev in June 2022, when Russian missiles hit a residential building and a kindergarten.

“I hired a designer to make black posters on which we wrote ‘Russia is a terrorist state’ in red letters. It got a lot of attention. But after a while I realized that almost no one knew where it came from, that my team was behind it ,” Lachenkov told Ukrainian newspaper The Kyiv Independent.

When he saw the reach of his campaign, he decided to use his Telegram account with almost two million followers to help the Ukrainian army. “I have a lot of friends at the front. The idea that you don’t know what will happen to them tomorrow affects me a lot. I had to do something,” explained Lachenkov.

When you are fighting Russia, there are never enough weapons

Since the beginning of 2024, he has helped raise more than two billion hryvnias (converted to 1.2 billion crowns) to support Ukrainian soldiers. In November 2022, he joined forces with the largest Ukrainian fund to raise funds for the purchase of military equipment. In one month, they together collected less than six million dollars (50 million crowns) for the equipment requested by Ukrainian military intelligence at the time.

Lachenkov told Aktuálně.cz that he finally breathed a sigh of relief now that Ukraine will receive the long-awaited aid from the United States. It is to receive 1.5 trillion crowns in conversion. However, he wants to continue collecting money for military equipment. “When you’re fighting Russia, there are never enough weapons. American aid may have taken the thorn out of our heels, but in Ukraine we’re all fighting for ourselves. You have no guarantee that Russia won’t kill you tomorrow,” he says.

Lachenkov first encountered the consequences of the Russian war when he spent his summer holidays at his grandparents’ house in Lysychansk, Luhansk Oblast, which was occupied by Russia for three months in 2014. The city was reoccupied by the Russians in July 2022.

He describes that he knew even then that Russia was an aggressor state and that the Maidan revolution was one of the key moments that helped Ukraine become a free country. “But my problem was that I believed that Russian liberals, the Russian opposition and people who were against the annexation of Crimea and Putin were good Russians. When the invasion started, I realized that this was far from the truth,” he says .

I didn’t want to be famous, now I have to go on

When the war began, Lachenkov was in the Dnipro. He didn’t sleep for the first few days, watching and posting non-stop. His new Telegram channel quickly gained followers. Already a day after the start of the invasion, he had over 70,000 – almost 20,000 more than his personal Instagram account. The following day, when Russia began intensively bombing cities across Ukraine, he gained a quarter of a million followers.

Lachenkov runs the channel with two friends who remain anonymous. According to him, his followers like that he has no political ambitions. Although he says he never wanted to be famous, almost everyone in Ukraine now knows him. “I have many friends in the military and I care so much about my country that I have no choice but to accept where I’ve come and get on with my job,” he explains.

Lachenkov uses his voice on social networks not only to fight against Russian propaganda. Through his channel, for example, he helps the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to uncover corruption. Although the country’s military intelligence recently said that Telegram poses a threat to the country’s security, Lachenkov sees great potential in it to fight the Russians. “It’s a tool that needs to be used, not curtailed,” he concludes.