Most analysts of information warfare work from desks. The Disinfolklore framework was forged at the actual zero-line separating two of the greatest armies in human history — on a bridge in a forest in eastern Ukraine, where a diplomat spent three years ensuring the safe passage of ten thousand civilians a day between Russia-occupied territory and the rest of the country.
The Bridge
In 2015 I had just arrived in eastern Ukraine to work as a diplomat. My job was to secure the safe passage of civilians over a bridge in a forest that divided Russia-occupied Ukraine from the rest of the country. Even in my first moments at that spot (where I was to spend three years), I intuited that there was something folklore about the situation.
Source: Book Proposal
The bridge at Stanitsia Luhanska was a literal and mythic crossing point. On one side, the biosphere reserve — an Arcadian landscape of meadow steppe, woods, and riverbanks overhung by willows. On the other side, what the author came to call the Rebel Troll Kingdom: Russia-occupied Luhansk, where a population’s identity was being systematically rewritten.
My job on that bridge was to ensure the safe passage of ten-thousand-civilians crossing from Russia-occupied Luhansk (what I referred to as the Rebel Troll Kingdom) into Ukraine government-controlled Luhansk, and back again.
Source: Origins of the Concept
The Mythic Landscape
I first encountered Russia’s Disinfolklore Apparatus on a bridge in the forests of eastern Ukraine where I was working as a diplomat between 2015 and 2018. That place, at Stanitsia Luhanska, was an Arcadian ‘Locus Amoenus’ (pleasant spot). An idyllic landscape, in a forest, among grassy meadows, running river water, song-birds, and cool breezes.
Source: Book Proposal
The Donets river beneath the bridge echoed ancient myth. In Iranian religion, at the time of death, we approach the Chinvat bridge, guarded by Daena. If she appears as a beautiful woman, we pass into the House of Songs; if the bridge narrows to a sword blade, we spend eternity in the House of Lies. The author was living inside a daily re-enactment of this archetypal pattern — the bridge as threshold, the river as boundary between worlds. See Inner and Outer Realms.
The Actual Zero-Line
It’s worth adding, perhaps, that while many anti-disinformation specialists describe themselves as working on the ‘front-line’ of the information war, I worked on the actual zero-line separating Russian from Ukrainian army combatants for three years. I worked at the actual physical and geographic separation point between two of the greatest armies in human history and at the intersection of In Real Life and information warfare trolling.
Source: Book Proposal
This is not metaphor. The author wore flak jackets and kevlar helmets daily. He recorded ceasefire breaches by Russia — sometimes thousands in a single day. He negotiated local ceasefires directly with Russian occupying officers. This physical experience of trolling — the gut-resonance of artillery fire — revealed something that desk-based analysis could never see: in-real-life trolling and online trolling produce the same emotional signature.
Over the years since 2015 I noticed a similarity between the structure of the fantastical propaganda in the information space that encompassed everyone in Russia-occupied Ukraine — what today I call the Disinfolklore Galaxy — and folklore. After a time on that bridge over the Donets River, I also noticed a similarity between the emotional resonance in my gut of the artillery duels which I witnessed between Ukrainian armed forces at one end of the bridge and the Russian occupiers at the other end had a Family Resemblance to the feeling I had when someone online was trolling me.
Source: Book Proposal
Watching Identity Transform in Real Time
From that bridge, I watched, curiously, as Russia gradually transformed the identities of Ukrainians living across the river inside the occupation (in an entity the Russians called the ‘Luhansk Folks Republic’), using Disinfolklore. In the manner of a nineteenth-century folklore collector, earnestly hoovering up tales from the folk, I collected the stories in all media formats in the Luhansk Folks Republic that Russia used to achieve this diabolical feat.
Source: Book Proposal
Russia weaponised the entire folklore-collection model. Where Herder collected existing songs in 1777 to unite the German tribes, Russia manufactured new stories at industrial scale. Schools, mass media, universities, the legal system — every institution in occupied territories was infiltrated with rhetoric designed to create a new identity from scratch. The goal was to convince Ukrainians in occupied territory that their fellow Ukrainians across the Donets river were monsters. See History of Disinfolklore.
Collecting Disinfolklore at the Front Line
As part of my job in eastern Ukraine, I collected thousands of such items of Disinfolklore with such archetypal characteristics from the Russian occupier’s media apparatus which it was my job to parse for information bearing on my diplomatic mission’s security.
Source: Book Proposal
Like a 19th-century folklorist cataloguing the tales of a community, the author catalogued Russia’s manufactured stories. But where the Brothers Grimm recorded genuine folk culture, this was artificial culture — deliberately constructed narrative designed to rewrite a population’s identity. This distinction between genuine folklore and weaponised Disinfolklore is the core insight of the framework. See Disinfolklore vs Disinformation.
The Cottage in the Woods: Archetypal Literacy Saves Lives
The field experience also provided a dramatic demonstration that archetypal literacy has practical — even life-saving — applications:
As we approached the cottage in the woods where the Mother and the Maiden supposedly were, I sent an SMS to the Mission’s head of security in Kyiv: ‘Confirm manager’s order to approach cottage in the woods where Mother and Underage Daughter are reportedly being cut into pieces.’ That linguistic formula, replete with its primordial archetypal identities triggered the normally reticent head of security to call me immediately. Clearly I had engaged his emotions. He reacted in the exact way I hoped he would. He called off the operation while we were still on the outskirts of the woods.
Source: Book Proposal
By deliberately deploying archetypal language — “cottage in the woods,” “Mother and Maiden” — the author triggered the security chief’s Inner Realm, producing an immediate protective reaction. The suspected trap was averted. This is Counter-Disinfolklore in action: using archetypal awareness not to manipulate but to protect.
The Factiva Research: 65,000 Mentions
After returning from the field, the author undertook systematic research:
In February 2020 I started to look at the use of the terms “troll” and “trolling” in contemporary culture. So I read through sixty-thousand media articles with those terms in the Dow Jones Factiva database of thirty-three-thousand sources going back to the early 1970s.
Source: Disinfolklore (5)
Three research routes converged on one definition: the Factiva database (65,000 media mentions), the word-origins route through millennia of Indo-European culture, and the contemporary culture route from troll dolls through Silicon Valley’s early internet. All three pointed to the same conclusion: trolling is emotion-moving activity of body, speech, and mind. See Factiva Research and Three Billy-Goats’ Gruff.
From Field Experience to Framework
The seven-year arc — from the bridge at Stanitsia Luhanska through the Factiva research to the completed Twelve Tools — represents a journey from instinct to method. The initial intuition (“there is something folklore about this”) was confirmed by thousands of collected items, cross-referenced against 65,000 media mentions, and grounded in six thousand years of Indo-European etymology through the Finding Manuland research.
At the time I detected that archetypal Disinfolklore Galaxy I had been a diplomat posted to eastern Ukraine for over a year. Russia’s army, cosplaying as Little Green Men, Polite Folk and Odin-worshipping soldiers from its Nazi inspired “Wagner” corps, had been occupying part of Ukraine since 2014. My job was to establish the facts about security incidents caused by Russia’s Disinfolklore-justified military occupation of part of Ukraine.
Source: Book Proposal
The result is a framework tested not against theory but against the reality of artillery fire, identity theft, and industrial-scale narrative warfare. The Twelve Tools exist because a diplomat on a bridge needed them to survive — and then codified them so that others could use them too.
Key Takeaways
- The framework was forged at the actual front line — not at a desk, but on the zero-line separating Russian and Ukrainian forces
- Three years on the bridge (2015-2018) provided direct observation of Russia’s identity-rewriting Disinfolklore apparatus
- In-real-life and online trolling produce the same emotional signature — the gut-resonance of artillery and the gut-resonance of a troll are kin
- Russia weaponised the folklore-collection model — manufacturing identity through artificial stories at industrial scale
- 65,000 Factiva articles confirmed the field insight — three research routes converged on one definition of trolling
- Archetypal literacy has life-saving applications — the Cottage in the Woods incident demonstrates Counter-Disinfolklore in practice
- The Twelve Tools exist because they were needed at the front line — then codified for universal use
Go Deeper
- Origins of the Concept — how the insight first emerged
- Little Green Men — the founding case study of modern folkloristic trolling
- What Is Disinfolklore? — the complete definition
- Complete Guide to Information Warfare — the strategic context
- Frontline Reports — dispatches from the field