If I understood correctly, many Russians are or were in favour of the war, which is hardly surprising while they’re not the ones suffering the cost. Even when they do, a populace under the impression that the cost is some sacrifice for a good or necessary war can be quite resilient. And even if they lose faith in the war, there is a certain amount of patience and tolerance.

Not quite. Russians for the most part just want to be left the fuck alone. The ones that do support it only do because TV is their only source of information and their support is limited to calling foreign leaders names in their kitchens and shitposting on facebook and whatsapp to their information deprived peers. When the push comes to shove they would only ever accept the duty if they were too lazy to find a way out. So most people on the front line are either criminals or gamblers who don’t really have a choice.

For people with a little spare time that might not be able to contribute directly, it’s a low-barrier way to be at least a bit of a nuisance, amplifying the perceived impact of the shortage in ways propaganda can’t so easily handwave away.

I feel like it does the opposite by diluting a definitive victory:

Oil refinery got blown up which led to fuel shortages - “fucking Putin and his cronies can’t keep their shit together, couldn’t spare an AA from one of their villas to protect critical infrastructure, fuck them”.

I’m late to work because I had to spend 10 more minutes going to a different station because someone posted misinformation - “fucking Ukrainians trying to ruin my day again, fuck them, maybe Putin was onto something…”.

The difference is: one action is directed by the government at a government, the other - at the people by the people.

By encouraging them to keep trying to be a pain in the ass of imperial aggressors, you might recruit even the reluctant, the lazy, the cowardly to become a sort of “digital guerilla”.

What I think really happens is that people who were assholes just gotten an excuse to be assholes. I’d like to be proven wrong, but I’m yet to see anything actually good come out of NAFO and the likes. So far they’ve only managed to turn quite a few anti-war Russians against directly supporting Ukraine, by means of afforementioned scam calls, harrassment of opposition leaders and of people in neutral countries. It’s especially appalling to see coming from able-bodied young men who clearly fled conscription, and I’d like to counter the argument by saying that we shouldn’t encourage nor cheer laziness and pure national hatred. After all, they don’t have to go to the meat grinder, there are quite a lot of opportunities far behind the frontlines, I honestly would’ve probably gone myself if I were allowed and not for the severe consequences of it.