NAFO (group)

The meme was created in May 2022, when Twitter artist Kamil Dyszewski, under the handle @Kama_Kamilia, started adding modified pictures of a Shiba Inu dog (the "Fella") to photographs from Ukraine. After some time, Dyszewski began creating custom "Fellas" for others who donated to the Georgian Legion. is considered by NAFO to be a gender-neutral term. The German paper Berliner Kurier estimates that the group includes "tens of thousands" of associates as of September 2022. The Fellas make appearances in various edited still images and "TikTok-style videos of Ukrainian troops set to dance music soundtracks", and are "spliced into war footage to mock Russia's military and praise Ukraine's soldiers". Some NAFO members reportedly have an "especial focus" on defusing the "whataboutism" defense of the Russian invasion. This response was seized upon by other NAFO members. In August 2022, NAFO raised money for Signmyrocket.com, a website where people pay to have custom messages written on Ukrainian artillery shells and equipment. Task & Purpose described the result, a 2S7 Pion self-propelled artillery with the inscription "Super Bonker 9000" and a sticker of a baseball bat on the barrel with the inscription "NAFO-Article 69" In an article about the group's activities that August, The Economist reported that "Another popular slogan—'What air defence doing?'—pokes fun at the failure of Russian air defences to prevent an attack on Saky air base in Crimea on August 9th." German state-supervised broadcaster ZDF rejects the notion that NAFO is an operation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, stating that "the fact that 'Nafo' is financed by the CIA is just a self-deprecating joke among Twitterers." The summit's main livestreamed event was held at the Kablys night club in Vilnius, with a turnout of roughly 200 people in-person and thousands more online. At the summit, a number of fundraising activities were hosted, including pro-Ukraine merchandise sales and an auction for an artwork depicting Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov's personalized Fella. == Reception ==

NAFO was described as a "Western civil society response to Russian campaigns" by Tobias Fella, a political scientist training Bundeswehr soldiers in dealing with social media. It is part of a larger "battle for sovereignty of interpretation" on shared online spaces. According to Politico, "To delve into NAFO is to get a crash course in how online communities from the Islamic State to the far-right boogaloo movement to this rag-tag band of online warriors have weaponized internet culture." British-Lebanese journalist Oz Katerji asserts that NAFO "has hampered Russia's propagandists and made them look absurd and ridiculous in the process". Ukraine's Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand Vasyl Myroshnychenko noted that the grassroots, decentralized nature of NAFO is an important part of its strength. American Lt. Col. Steve Speece of the Modern War Institute at West Point argues "Meme content shared in NAFO channels ... is almost exclusively English language and presumably not intended for Russian audiences ... These fora exist to generate content for the entertainment and status of their own members. Yet even Western national security policy is sometimes explicitly driven by the emotions—like outrage—cultivated in online communities." Speece argues that online agitators like NAFO take the role of bad cop in a good cop/bad cop dynamic with policy makers. According to the cyber warfare unit of the U.S. Army, the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, "For an online community like NAFO, hostile mention from an official propaganda outlet of its target is evidence its ridicule is achieving the desired effect." In response to Estonian Prime Minister Kallas's praise of NAFO, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova accused Western countries of hypocrisy stating, "NAFO personifies exactly what the European Union has seemed to be fighting until recently: hate speech, intolerance, trolling, spam, bullying, and all possible forms of xenophobia. Now the Estonian prime minister is openly showering this internet scum with gratitude, although it seems that until recently the 'advanced' Western democracies were hysterical over mythical 'pro-Kremlin trolls.'" Some anti-war Russians criticized NAFO for its members' creation and sharing of image-based memes referencing a Russian tourist killed by a shark in Egypt. After an inflatable shark appeared on stage at NAFO's Vilnius summit, Anti-Corruption Foundation chairwoman and Russian opposition member Maria Pevchikh stated "Is the 'NAFO summit' in Vilnius actually celebrating on stage the death of a tourist eaten by a shark? 'Fighting Moscow with humor?' Am I the only [one] missing what's funny about a guy being eaten alive?" Similar sentiments were given by Alexei Navalny ally Leonid Volkov, who accosted the group for “helping Putin" and further writing on Twitter, "Putin's important propaganda line 'The West supports Ukraine because they just want to kill all the Russians' would have faded away... were it not for the constant help of NAFO." After the end of the Vilnius summit on July 10, NAFO tweeted: "What these Russian politicians don't understand is that every second they spend arguing with dogs online or worrying about their 'online harassment' with shark memes is seconds taken away from their focus on Ukraine. This is what we want. Continue to mald." ==Recognition==

On 28 August 2022, the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine tweeted its appreciation of NAFO, with an image of missiles being fired and a "Fella" dressed in a combat uniform, hands on face, in a posture of appreciation. High-ranking military and civil officials in Ukraine and NATO countries have changed their Twitter avatars to a Fella. Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov temporarily changed his Twitter avatar to a Fella commissioned in his honor, on 30 August 2022. In addition, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country's official fundraising platform United24 recognized the group for its support in March 2023. Others have included former President of Estonia Toomas Hendrik Ilves, former Prime Minister of Estonia Kaja Kallas, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, United States Representative Adam Kinzinger, and United States Army Major General Patrick J. Donahoe. On 13 July 2023, Kamil Dyszewski, on behalf of the organization, was presented the award the Star of Lithuanian Diplomacy by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. == See also ==