“I cannot believe it’s the 21st century, and we have to fight this again,” says Lauri Shreve, barely in her 60s, shaking her head in disbelief, in the shadow of the Washington Monument.

It was a sentiment repeated over and over Saturday, in hundreds of cities across the country, as abortion-rights protesters rallied. After nearly 50 years, the nationwide right to abortion appears set to end, following the recent leak of a draft ruling that would overturn the 1973 precedent, Roe v. Wade. 

For the first time in her life, Ms. Shreve says, “I had to march.” She and her husband, Randy, who own a landscaping business, traveled 2 1/2 hours from Cumberland, Maryland, to take part in the Washington protest. 

“I actually had to tell [my grown daughters] how important this was,” Ms. Shreve says. “They didn’t see the big picture, that never before has a constitutional right been taken away.”

The thousands who rallied near the monument and marched to the Supreme Court were a diverse group in many ways, including gender, age, and race. But perhaps most striking was the large number of “women of a certain age” – those in their 50s and beyond. Women no longer in their childbearing years, but who felt so passionately about the possible demise of Roe that they had to do something public. 

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Randy and Lauri Shreve of Cumberland, Maryland, stand with their homemade signs at the abortion-rights rally and march in Washington on May 14, 2022.

Many younger women, of course, were here, too. Some came with friends, others with parents, husbands, partners, small children. A few were visibly pregnant, some making a point: They were having a baby by choice. 

But the large number of older women in the crowd points to a possible paradox: that older women who favor abortion rights, many with firsthand memories of life before Roe, may feel more intensely about the possible loss of that right than the women who could be directly affected. 

“Younger people didn’t grow up in a non-Roe world,” says Jennifer Butler, a 50-something Presbyterian minister and outgoing CEO of the advocacy group Faith in Public Life, standing near the “faith tent” at Saturday’s “Bans Off Our Bodies” rally. “They’ve always taken that right pretty much for granted.” 

For older American women, the memories can be visceral – the illegal and sometimes dangerous abortions they or their friends had; the women who died from a botched abortion; the sadness and shame of giving birth as a teenager, then in some cases placing the baby for adoption; the fight to make abortion legal nationwide. 

Part of the paradox is that many polls show younger women are generally more supportive of abortion rights than older women. A March survey by the Pew Research Center found that support for abortion rights at six weeks of pregnancy is strongest among the youngest women and declines with age – 61% among women ages 18 to 29 versus 38% among women over 65. 

Then there’s the importance of abortion as a “voting issue.” This could be critical in the November midterm elections, with Republicans – who typically oppose abortion rights – already with the wind at their backs. Combined Gallup data from between 2014 and 2021 show that among female voters age 55 and over who identify as “pro-life,” 27% vote only for candidates who share their views; among women in this age cohort who consider themselves “pro-choice,” the figure is 20%. But among younger voters, it’s women who identify as “pro-choice” who say more often than their “pro-life” sisters that they will vote only for candidates with whom they agree on abortion.

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Jennifer Butler (left), outgoing CEO of the advocacy group Faith in Public Life, and Jeanné Lewis, who will become CEO on June 1, stand near the "faith tent" at the abortion rally in Washington on May 14, 2022.

This raises the next question: Can Democrats use the overturning of Roe, expected next month, as a tool to galvanize young voters – a cohort notorious for not turning out in midterms – to vote in the November midterm elections?

For now, abortion-rights advocates are working every demographic they can, and see ground for mutual learning – not just the older women teaching the younger about life before Roe, but also younger women teaching their elders about modern-day advocacy, including the use of technology and social media, and about the changing rhetoric.

“Students are much more likely to talk about reproductive justice than abortion rights,” says Laury Oaks, chair of the department of feminist studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I want to focus on the unity, the coming together, the places of consensus over the places of difference.” 

Standing outside the Supreme Court after marching down the Mall in Washington on Saturday, two middle-aged women are discussing generational differences in approaches to activism on abortion.

“There are fewer young people here than I would have expected,” says 50-something Samantha Shofar from Silver Spring, Maryland. “Maybe they’re just complacent.” 

Her friend Cindy Jacobs sees something larger at play. 

“There have been several years of things just eroding,” says Ms. Jacobs, also in her 50s and from Silver Spring. “Democracy is crumbling and rights are crumbling – and it’s leading to this path of something even worse.” 

Ms. Shofar’s 25-year-old daughter is in Israel, she says – otherwise, she would have been here to protest. But her other child, who she says is nonbinary, “has what I consider a very nihilistic view. And I think it could be somewhat typical of this generation. They don’t think anything good is going to happen.”

The view from Austin

Patricia Kruger, standing on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin on Saturday, holds a sign that says simply, “1973.” 

It is a reference to the year the Supreme Court found, in Roe v. Wade, that the Constitution’s concept of personal “liberty” protections included a woman’s right to choose abortion. 

Taking part in the Austin protest, where the crowd numbered in the hundreds, seemed to carry extra meaning: Roe was based on a Texas case, and in 2021, the so-called Texas Heartbeat Act dramatically curtailed the right to abortion in the state to about six weeks’ gestational age – far shorter than the 2018 Mississippi law that is currently before the court and the vehicle for Roe’s likely demise. 

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Patricia Kruger holds a sign celebrating 1973, the year the Supreme Court recognized the right to abortion, at a protest outside the Texas Capitol. “I have a daughter, and I think it’s important to fight for her future,” Ms. Kruger says.

To the protesters in Austin, as elsewhere in the country, the message is simple. 

“I have a daughter, and I think it’s important to fight for her future,” Ms. Kruger says, noting that her views haven’t changed over time. She recalls writing a “pro-choice” article in high school 30 years ago.

“We’ve come a long way since then – but we’re moving backwards, and this is a very scary time,” Ms. Kruger says. 

Some of the women here are old enough to remember friends going out of state – or out of the country – for an abortion.

“When I was in high school in Ohio, I had a friend who got pregnant despite being careful, and they had to go to New York because it wasn’t legal in Ohio,” says protester Carol Goodwin. 

Bonnie, a University of Texas grad who declined to give her last name, shares a similar story: “I had a roommate at college who had to go to Mexico to get an abortion, and it was very dangerous.” 

There’s also nuance to protesters’ views. 

“I’m disabled, and the concept of carrying a pregnancy to term is not viable for me,” says Caitlin Dalton. 

“We look at abortion as one thing; it’s about aborting this potential life,” she adds, tugging at the grass as she talks. “I understand people who feel sincerely about that. But I want people to understand this will affect many different things; it will lead to many other dangerous things.” 

Her mother, Tiffany Almeida, seems to have a more brass-tacks approach: “Women are waking up,” she says, suggesting that “women start taking their money and their skills out of states they don’t agree with.”

Henry Gass/The Christian Science Monitor

Tiffany Almeida (left) and her daughter, Caitlin Dalton, attend an abortion-rights protest outside the Texas Capitol. “Women are waking up,” Ms. Almeida says, suggesting that “women start taking their money and their skills out of states they don’t agree with.”

A first time protesting in Washington

Back in Washington, 60-something Julie is wearing the pink hat she wore at her hometown women’s march back in January 2017. 

She asks to withhold her last name, out of fear that protesters “will look me up.” And for the record, she says she opposes the protesters who have shown up at the homes of conservative Supreme Court justices over the expected overturning of Roe. Others at the march make the same point. 

This is the first Washington protest Julie has ever attended. 

“I’ve never felt like I had to,” Julie says, mentioning that she had a medically unsustainable pregnancy that had to be terminated, before having her son. “I’m not for abortion, but I’m not against it. I’m for the right to choose. ... Just being able to make our choices about our bodies. And it’s a lot more than just a physical body. It’s your mental state. It’s your family situation. It’s your financial situation.”

Marge Matthews, who’s in her 80s and here with her 60-something daughter, is a veteran of marches – against the Vietnam War and for women’s rights. Her observation of how younger protesters are behaving at the march: “They’re more outspoken. They say it like it is – dirty language and all.”

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Marge Matthews of McLean, Virginia, at the abortion-rights rally in Washington on May 14, 2022. A veteran of marches – against the Vietnam War and for women’s rights – she observes that younger protesters are "more outspoken. They say it like it is – dirty language and all.”

Indeed, many of the homemade posters on display here are not suitable for a family newspaper.  

But generational change is inevitable. The organization Faith in Public Life is about to get a new CEO, as Ms. Butler shifts to “founder-in-residence.” 

Jeanné Lewis, who is in her early 40s and Roman Catholic, will take over on June 1. She seems excited about the possibilities – of seeing people of faith who support abortion rights come to the fore and discover their agency in the event that Roe is overturned.

“There’s a lot of mythology around who’s having an abortion and why,” she says. And the move in some states to ban abortion without exceptions for rape and incest, she adds, is only pushing more people into their camp.

She says that 1 in 4 women have had or will have an abortion, and the majority are mothers, or will be mothers.

“I’m not sure that everyone is clear about the implications” of the Supreme Court’s pending action, Ms. Lewis says. “I have never lived in a world without Roe v. Wade. And because there’s still so much stigma attached to having an abortion, there aren’t a lot of narratives.”

Darin Oswald/Idaho Statesman/AP/File

Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin announces her candidacy for governor at a rally on May 19, 2021, in Boise. The Republican, who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, is challenging her own party's sitting governor, Brad Little, in Tuesday's GOP primary. Limited polling has shown Governor Little with a healthy lead, and he has had a substantial fundraising advantage throughout the campaign.

A chain saw revs as the governor slices through a log.

“Idaho’s economy is booming, because we cut government down to size,” Gov. Brad Little declares in a campaign ad, as sawdust spews. 

Not to be outdone, his opponent, Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin, fires a gun in a campaign ad of her own. “The Second Amendment wasn’t ratified into the Bill of Rights so that we could bird hunt,” she says.

Idaho’s top two officials – both Republicans, and both of whom come in for some chiding from online commentators for their lack of eye protection, not to mention form – are making their final appeals to voters in Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary as they square off in an unusual intraparty brawl.

As in many heavily Republican states, whoever secures the GOP nomination is expected to win easily in November. And as elsewhere, the race reflects deeper divisions within the national party – many of which still revolve around former President Donald Trump.

The governor and lieutenant governor (who run on separate tickets here) have been publicly feuding for more than two years. In the early weeks of the pandemic, Lieutenant Governor McGeachin drew national attention for her vocal opposition to Governor Little’s stay-at-home order. Twice, when Mr. Little was out of town, she issued her own executive orders banning mask and vaccine mandates. Twice, he rescinded them.

Ms. McGeachin has also pressed for a 50-state audit of the 2020 election. Last November, Mr. Trump, who lauded Mr. Little as a “terrific gentleman,” supercharged the race when he endorsed Ms. McGeachin the following week, calling her “a true supporter of MAGA since the very beginning.”

Many Republicans here say Idaho’s unique brand of Western conservatism has been undergoing something of an identity crisis, as it grapples with Trump-inspired populism and absorbs a steep influx of new residents, many of whom have relocated from blue states like California. If the first-term governor beats his Trump-endorsed lieutenant – as limited polling predicts he will – it could signal a growing resistance to a further-right pull in a deep-red state long known for an extremist streak. 

“We’re seeing a little bit of fracturing of the Republican Party at the national level, particularly with respect to Trump. ... I would probably argue that we’re going through a political realignment,” says Markie McBrayer, assistant professor of political science at the University of Idaho. “It’s no real surprise that we’re seeing similar sort of factions occur at the state level.” 

“We love Donald Trump”

Mr. Little is one of only two Republican governors nationwide who’s facing a Trump-endorsed challenger. The other, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, incited Mr. Trump’s ire over his refusal to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. In Idaho, however, the former president’s decision to weigh in seemed less a rejection of Governor Little than an embrace of Ms. McGeachin.

Other groups – including the Republican Governors Association and the National Rifle Association – are backing Mr. Little. Still, for many voters, Mr. Trump’s endorsement may count more.

Otto Kitsinger/AP/File

Idaho Gov. Brad Little leaves after delivering his State of the State address at the state Capitol building in Boise on Jan. 10, 2022. The Republican governor, who's seeking a second term, touts a pro-business record that includes tax relief, slashing regulations, and investment in education, with literacy as a top priority.

“Part of the reason why we are leaning towards McGeachin is because Donald Trump endorsed her, and we love Donald Trump,” Lori Johnson says with a chuckle in the parking lot of a WinCo Foods supermarket in Twin Falls. 

She and her mom, Peggy Mills, are conservative Christians and strongly opposed to abortion. Ms. Johnson says they moved to Idaho from Oregon in 2018 in part because they objected to public funding for abortion there. They also are concerned about inflation. 

Mr. Little, on the other hand, has the vote of Sam Sandmire, a progressive activist and former gymnastics coach at Boise State University. Without contested races for Democrats on her ballot, she changed her registration from Democrat to Republican in order to vote for Mr. Little and others in the closed GOP primary. Although she considers him “very, very conservative,” she says she felt compelled to vote for the “less extreme” candidate in the race.

“I would say he is a more pragmatic voice,” she says outside a cafe in a tree-lined Boise neighborhood one blustery afternoon. “He’s more into governance than the other candidates on the ticket.”

A rancher and former state lawmaker as well as lieutenant governor, Mr. Little touts a pro-business record that includes tax relief, slashing regulations, and investment in education, with literacy as a top priority. Under his watch, Idaho has enjoyed low unemployment and a budget surplus that benefited from federal pandemic aid. The governor is the top fundraiser in the race with over $2 million raised – around triple that of Ms. McGeachin. 

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Progressive activist Sam Sandmire is seen in Boise, Idaho, April 25, 2022. Without contested races for Democrats on her ballot, she switched her registration to Republican so she could vote for GOP Gov. Brad Little in the gubernatorial primary, seeing him as the “less extreme” candidate in the race.

As in many places, divisions that sprang up in Idaho over COVID-19 still rankle. Governor Little’s stay-at-home order, announced on March 25, 2020, was criticized by some conservatives as anti-business, and Ms. McGeachin has continued to attack him as a tyrant who used the pandemic to flex his powers. The state began to reopen on May 1, 2020, and Mr. Little’s supporters say the uncertainty in the early days of the pandemic called for caution. Citing a limited-government approach, the governor has never issued a statewide mask mandate, instead deferring to local jurisdictions and school districts. He has also challenged the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates in court.

“There was no playbook,” says Idaho Republican Party Chair Tom Luna, who has stayed neutral in the primary.

That spring, Ms. McGeachin publicly protested the governor’s policies, aligning herself with small businesses that resisted shutting down. The business owner – her family runs an Irish pub and automotive enterprises – has also served in the state legislature and is the first female lieutenant governor of Idaho. Her campaign promises include lowering taxes, fighting public health mandates, and reducing dependence on Washington.

Critics have linked her to “extremists.” In 2019 it was discovered Ms. McGeachin posed for a photo with Three Percenters, part of a militia movement, at the statehouse; she said her presence was in support of Todd Engel, who was sentenced to prison for an anti-government standoff. (His conviction overturned, Mr. Engel is now running for state representative as a Republican.) This year, she drew criticism for addressing, via recording, a conference affiliated with a prominent white nationalist, in response to which she bemoaned the media’s tendency to assume “guilt by association.”

An “anti-extremism” push

This spring, a political action committee called Defend and Protect Idaho popped up with the stated mission of “combating political extremism.” Its website is almost entirely devoted to attacking Ms. McGeachin. The group’s focus is “civility, doing the right thing,” says Gary Raney, retired Ada County sheriff and chair of the PAC, who also praises Mr. Little as “not bowed down to the pressures of the right wing.” In an interview, Mr. Raney declined to name the group’s initial backers, noting some involved wish to “remain behind the scenes.” 

Another PAC called Take Back Idaho is training its sights on the Idaho Freedom Foundation – an ultraconservative group that political observers say has had considerable influence in state politics and has been accused of stoking divisions within the GOP, for example by labeling fellow Republicans as “RINOs.”

“There’s more contention than there really needs to be,” says Ed Humphreys, a financial adviser and former Trump delegate who’s running a distant third in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He describes himself as “not with either faction of the party.”

Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor

Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Humphreys speaks at a campaign event at a library in Caldwell, Idaho, April 25, 2022. He describes himself as “not with either faction of the party.”

Speaking to a small group at a library in Caldwell, Mr. Humphreys rails against critical race theory, vows to end state income tax, and pledges to curb the political influence of multinational corporations.

Roger, a retiree who moved to Idaho from California six years ago and calls himself a “political refugee,” says Mr. Humphreys has his vote. 

From his job in court security in Northern California, he says he grew weary watching repeat offenders cycle through the justice system. He describes an improved quality of life here in Canyon County, including safer, cleaner parks for his visiting grandchildren.

People like Roger, who asked that his last name not be used, have helped make Idaho among the fastest growing states in the U.S. in recent years. For many, the reputation for conservative values is a significant draw, and some real estate firms cater explicitly to far-right buyers.

Of course, to those on the other side of the aisle, the Republican rift is more a matter of style than substance. “Janice McGeachin really personifies the far right, while Brad Little panders to it,” says state Rep. Lauren Necochea, chair of the Idaho Democratic Party. 

She points to a bill Mr. Little signed that limits abortion after around six weeks and lets families sue abortion providers, though the governor expressed concern that allowing such civil enforcement could be “unconstitutional and unwise.” The Idaho Supreme Court has stayed the law’s rollout following a petition filed by a Planned Parenthood affiliate. An Idaho “trigger law” would criminalize abortion after the potential overturning of Roe v. Wade, with exceptions related to the life of the mother and cases of rape or incest. Ms. McGeachin has called for a “more comprehensive” ban on abortion. 

Mr. Luna, the state GOP chair, agrees that there’s far more that unites the party than divides it. “As I travel across the state, it’s more obvious to me than ever that Republicans still agree on 80% of the issues.” 

Still, he concedes wryly, “It is unusual to have a sitting lieutenant governor run against a sitting governor in the same party.” But once this primary’s finally behind them, Mr. Luna says, “we will begin the process of coming together.”

AP

Employees of the Emergency Situations Ministry for the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic clear rubble at the side of a damaged theater building during heavy fighting in Mariupol, Ukraine, May 12, 2022. The city, now mostly occupied by Russian forces, had seen devastating fighting for much of the early part of the Ukraine war.

The letter circulating on Telegram recently offered an explanation for why Ukrainian fighters in Mariupol continue to resist despite overwhelming odds. Ukrainian soldiers, it said, face execution if they are found to have surrendered to Russian forces.

But Ukrainian fact-checkers quickly leaped into action to debunk it – a task that proved relatively easy. The letter contained layout anomalies when compared with other National Guard documents, as well as linguistic errors. That, combined with the illogic of the letter’s claims – why would the Ukrainian military threaten to execute soldiers no longer within its command structure? – showed it was another instance of Russian disinformation.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been accompanied by a high-volume, multilingual disinformation campaign that has jolted fact-checking experts in Ukraine and the West into action. But experts have been surprised at just how unsophisticated that campaign has been. They say Russia has been taking the same approach to deploying fakes as it does to soldiers on the battlefield: large numbers, but with poor ammunition.

“The strongest side of Russian disinformation is not the quality, but continuation and repetition,” says Ukrainian fact-checker Oksana Iliuk, on a Zoom call from the southwestern town of Chernivtsi, near the border with Romania. “They do not care about each fake being sophisticated and deliberate. They just want to flood the information space.”

That doesn’t make them less dangerous. The atrocities against civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha – which Russian officials and media falsely claimed were staged “fakes” involving the use of “crisis actors” – underscored the seriousness of separating fact from fiction in times of war.

“The strategy of the Russians is what they call the fire hose of falsehood,” says Sam Gregory, program director at Witness, a New York-based organization using technology and video to defend human rights. “Basically pumping out lots of different, contradictory accounts. You are not trying to establish a conclusive truth. You’re trying to muddy the waters, make people believe that they can’t really believe anything, and then make it easier for people to throw their hands up in the air and say, ‘Well, we just don’t know what is going on here.’”

“It’s almost absurd”

Many expected that Russia’s disinformation campaign would be sharper and slicker, drawing on technological advances and lessons learned in Syria. But the quality of the fakes circulated by pro-Kremlin, Russian-language accounts on platforms like Telegram has been underwhelming. Often the material is recycled from earlier stages of the conflict and quickly debunked.

Fakes – news without clear sources of information or facts – have been constant in the war and have taken many forms. They spread across messaging platforms like Viber and Telegram and social media networks like Facebook, which is particularly popular with Ukrainians. On TikTok, video game footage quickly emerged claiming it was from the Ukraine conflict. Early on, Ukrainian soldiers received SMS messages urging them to lay down their weapons and go home. That did not happen in part because they knew that kind of attack could be coming.

“It’s actually been surprising how bad Russian disinformation has been,” said Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group focused on social media fact-checking and open-source intelligence, at a Chatham House event. “I mean, we’ve had years of disinformation from Syria and Ukraine being debunked and kind of thought we would see Russia upping its game. ... Russia’s disinformation has not improved. It’s almost as if they’ve swapped the words Syria with Ukraine and jihadists with Nazis in many cases. It’s almost absurd, but it’s still very important to address that information.”

In the case of the Bucha massacre, Russian authorities tried to cast doubt on Russian military involvement by challenging the timeline of events, as well as claiming that the arm of one of the dead seen in a video of the scene moved. Analyzing Telegram channels – a major vehicle for Russian-language disinformation in Ukraine – Ms. Iliuk says she identified 18 variations of the message that the massacre was staged by Ukrainians. They advanced theories such as this was a ploy to get more weapons from the West and Bucha’s civilians were killed by the Ukrainian territorial defense forces.

Efrem Lukatsky/AP

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stands near a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, May 10, 2022. The suburb of Kyiv was a major focus of Russian disinformation after Russian troops withdrew from it, leaving behind evidence of multiple war crimes against civilian residents.

But on-site media investigations and multiple cross-checks of photos and videos succeeded in debunking Russian claims. Experts concluded that the seeming “movement” was an optical illusion caused by a rain droplet on the windshield of the car from within which the video was filmed. And a New York Times investigation backed by satellite images conclusively showed that the corpses were already there when Russians controlled Bucha.

“The war is not just on the ground; it is in the information space,” says fact-checker Alona Romanyuk, who launched the website putinlies.com.ua. “A lot of the fakes for February and the first days of March aimed to spread panic. ... A lot of Russian fakes were stillborn. But a lot of these fakes [did] spread panic.”

Equipping an international audience

Russian disinformation is not a new phenomenon. Ukrainians have been dealing with it since 2014; indeed, the country boasts a healthy constellation of fact-checking and media-literacy organizations.

But the Russian messaging isn’t solely for Ukraine. “Russia uses the information space to explain to their own audience and foreigners why they brought about a war,” says Ms. Romanyuk, who is also an analyst at Detector Media, a Ukrainian think tank focused on media literacy and battling misinformation. “There were no reasons to invade Ukraine and do these terrible things, to destroy Ukrainian cities and kill civilians. There isn’t any reason. But in the information space, Russia explains it.”

But “the international audience is at a bigger risk of believing Russian fakes than Ukrainian people because we have faced Russian disinformation for years,” she adds. “We [Ukrainians] are used to how aggressive it can be.”

So Ukrainian fact-checkers are working to educate broader audiences, too. One key example is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s now infamous essay on the so-called historical unity of Russia and Ukraine, published about a month before putinlies.com.ua was launched. The article has proved a foundation for Mr. Putin’s efforts to justify war against Ukraine, including its theme that Ukraine is a failed state run by Nazis.

Ms. Romanyuk worked with a team of historians, journalists, and teachers to review the 130 claims contained in the article. Within those claims, they found 105 manipulations – statements mixing truths with lies, things taken out of context, misinterpretations of the facts, or labeling – and 58 fakes, or falsehoods. Now they are working to translate that website into English to offer the Ukrainian take on history to international audiences.

European fact-checkers are also busy battling Russian disinformation. The European Digital Media Observatory, a disinformation expert network and online platform, created a specialized 14-person task force to tackle Ukraine. Fake stories that appear in one European country – such as a report that Polish clinics were kicking out cancer patients to accommodate Ukrainian refugees – typically take a day or two to spread to another language or geography.

“The same networks that were spreading COVID-19 disinformation are now spreading disinformation on the war in Ukraine,” notes Paula Gori, the organization’s secretary-general. “The same accounts and also the same channels ... and often the same strategies: It’s a fiction. So COVID-19 doesn’t exist. The war is staged.”

The flood of information

Ultimately, experts say, the risk from Russia’s disinformation campaign isn’t in its sophistication, which is lacking. (Ms. Romanyuk notes that one of the few apparent Russian uses of a “deep fake” video forgery, of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy allegedly surrendering, was “school level” and “really funny.”) It’s in the sheer volume of it, and how easily it seeps into the already massive amount of news information that people already consume, especially via images.

“Disinformation spreads more with images because images have a powerful impact on our brains,” says Ms. Gori. “That’s why we see lots of videos or pictures, and unfortunately, in a war, this is even more impactful.” Part of the problem is that average news consumers rush through information and rarely stop to look at images critically, she says. They lack or are unfamiliar with tools that fact-checkers use to identify fake or recycled images.

And even well-intentioned amateur efforts can sometimes muddy the waters even further, warns Mr. Gregory. The best defense? He highlights the SIFT method: stop, investigate the source, find alternate coverage, and trace the original. Ms. Iliuk highlights that many of the fakes in circulation now have already appeared and been debunked before, allowing for easy cross-checks through a simple Google search.

“If you read emotional news, don’t share it,” says Ms. Romanyuk. “Go to the kitchen, have a cup of tea or a coffee. When you calm down, only then you can make a conclusion. Is it true or fake?”

AP

People march to the scene of a shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., May 15.

Mass tragedies often bring a community closer together, as Buffalo, New York, discovered May 14 after the killing of 10 people at a neighborhood store. Crowds gathered in prayer vigils, many singing “Amazing Grace,” near the Tops Friendly Market. Muslim and Jewish leaders gave support to the Black community, the target of a young white man’s violent, racist rage. Those affected were offered free meals along with free funeral services and free grief counseling.

“You can see how vibrant our community is,” local activist Tyrell Ford told Reuters, in citing the acts of kindness aimed at helping people transcend the crisis.

Yet amid the trauma and the calls for action against online hate and gun access, some leaders in Buffalo viewed the public’s response as the start of a better, stronger community.

“We will not be defined by this incident,” Mark Poloncarz, executive for Erie County, which includes Buffalo, told NPR. “We will be defined by how we rally around the families who’ve lost loved ones and to assist others who are in pain as a result of this traumatic experience.”

The city, he added, can be defined by “how we recover.”

That lesson fits the responses in many other places struck by mass killing and that have sought renewal alongside resilience.

After a mass shooting last year at Oxford High School in Michigan, for example, the executive for the local county, Dave Coulter, told The Macomb Daily: “The Oxford community may be destined to be remembered for this tragedy, but it doesn’t have to be defined by it. Let our legacy be the strength we showed in meeting this challenge and the resolve we have to make sure it never happens again.”

Scholars have long studied how tragedy-hit communities – from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to Newtown, Connecticut after the Sandy Hook school shooting – can achieve “crisis renewal.” According to a 2012 article in the Review of European Studies by three American academics, “In communities, a common vision and a focus on healing and higher values appeared to be key components to community revival and potentially renewal.”

In other words, each community, based on its unique heritage, can find its way to a renewed identity. For Buffalo, that may mean a new focus on uplifting the city’s Black community. After the shooting, for example, many leaders called for financial support of Black-owned businesses. That will be one more opportunity to turn a tragic event into a renewing experience.