As much as 80% of the Russian population support the war in Ukraine. Anyone who may be against the war in Russia despite the propaganda faces the threat of punishment for any criticism. People are afraid and feel disempowered to protest. Creating space and informing Russians who can break through this fear is critical to any attempt to stop Putin.

Knowing Putin would accelerate his moves to cut off all potential sources of the truth, including independent news social media, Call Russia turned to one channel Putin would be hard-pressed to cut off - telephone calls for direct communication with Russian people.

The initiative’s success depended on a massive global media launch, in multiple markets and languages, with the aim of earning widespread coverage that could connect on an emotional level strong enough to motivate Russian speakers to make the most difficult and important calls of their lives.

The creative idea was simple: one phone call won’t end the war, but 40 million might. The Russian people themselves, armed with the truth, had the power to stand against Putin.

Execution, however, was immensely complicated. For Call Russia to work, Russian-speaking volunteers need to invest significant time and emotional effort into a seemingly impossible task. Early volunteers said it would be much easier to donate money than to make these draining calls.

Our compelling assets and authentic voice rallied volunteers and supporters around the word to make “the most important call of your life,” and we set an ambitious goal with the 40 million phone numbers in our database, even though it is difficult to reach. Call Russia volunteers and supporters know that, like the war, the scope of the challenge is immense, but every conversation matters.

Call Russia assessed from the outset that recruiting callers would rely on massive earned media, as well as active and authentic social media presence, to compensate for its lack of advertising budget and no pre-existing name recognition.

The strategy highlighted Call Russia’s massive scale (more than 40 million phone numbers) and its uniquely in-depth approach. Call Russia is far from an impersonal or automated campaign. It is deeply reliant on human perseverance and connection.

The Call Russia’s cutting edge, bilingual web platform and moving video anthem, complemented by an attention-grabbing press release to be distributed widely via newswire and personally-tailored pitches for top media targets.

A small team of professionals worked pro bono around the clock over a single weekend to create multilingual assets, execute media engagement, and prepare dynamic social media. Planning and execution reached around the globe from Vilnius to London to Washington and beyond.

High-priority media had access to organizers and volunteers while the release and website were embargoed, followed by a globally coordinated launch. Top-tier coverage appeared near-simultaneously in global media and markets with large Russian diasporas (e.g., U.S., UK, Lithuania, Poland). A 24/7 virtual press room triaged inquiries and secured additional print, broadcast, and audio coverage (e.g., the popular BBC Ukrainecast and NPR’s This American Life).

Call Russia’s guerrilla social media presence put particular emphasis on Twitter for reaching journalists and influencers. Without any paid promotion, reach (823,000 impressions with an average 2.4% engagement rate) far exceeded results of large, massively-funded campaigns.

Call Russia is a civic activation campaign with very little budget and no pre-existing platform or infrastructure, still it successfully executed a media-first strategy focused on capturing the attention of top-tier journalists and earning massive global media coverage.

Call Russia’s PR-focused strategy, based on compelling assets and carefully targeted engagement, has achieved an earned media result that dwarfs some advertising campaigns with budgets in the tens of millions of dollars.

More than 800 top tier global articles reaching an audience of 1.7 billion people have featured Call Russia in the span of just four weeks, including CNN, BBC, CBS News Reuters, the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse, RTL News (Germany), and many others.