Estonia: On Saturday, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas spoke at the pro-Kiev 'NAFO' group's first actual meeting and praised the trolls' efforts in "the information war" against Russia. NAFO, which was started by a purported Nazi sympathiser from Poland, has raised money for war criminals and cheered the deaths of Russian civilians.
The "North Atlantic Fellas Organisation," or "NAFO," is a group of online users who are easily recognised by their use of Shiba Inu avatars and their fervent support for the Ukrainian armed forces. NAFO trolls, who go by the moniker "Fellas," are active on social media, disseminating Kiev's talking points, banding together to swarm polls and demand the censorship of pro-Moscow accounts, and requesting donations for the Georgian Legion, a foreign mercenary group whose leader has acknowledged using his group as human shields.
As the NATO summit began in the capital of Lithuania on Tuesday, the group held its first "summit" in real life on Saturday in Vilnius.
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The keyboard warriors gathered in the dimly lit room as Kallas, who had previously identified herself as one of the "fellas," spoke via video link. She claimed that NAFO is an illustration of how to combat "Russian disinformation and bad takes with good humour, intelligence, and enthusiasm."
She urged the audience to "keep fighting the good fight," adding that "NAFO expansion is non-negotiable, and Ukraine will win."
The US Congressman Adam Kinzinger, the Ukrainian Defence Minister Aleksey Reznikov, the British Defence Minister Ben Wallace, and a host of Western analysts and spies are among the "Fellas" of NAFO, which has become a worldwide phenomenon on the internet in the past year. The group's membership list has increased rumours that it is connected to Western intelligence services.
However, some pro-Ukrainian commentators contend that the group's online activities, such as their outspoken mockery of a Russian citizen who was killed by a shark in Egypt, are harmful to the Ukrainian cause. The fact that NAFO's founder, a Polish Twitter user by the name of Kamil Dyszewski, had a long history of postings endorsing Nazi Germany, demeaning Jews, and denying the Holocaust also did NAFO's reputation no favours.
There were other NATO officials who spoke at the "summit" on Saturday besides Kallas. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis delivered the opening remarks at the gathering, and the Ukrainian government gave them a shout-out on Twitter.
The occasion raised $3,000 for various Ukrainian military and civilian organisations, according to NAFO's official Twitter account.