Pomerantsev's latest book, "How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler" (2024) has been translated into Estonian. It charts the work of British-Australian journalist Sefton Delmer (1904–1979), born in Berlin, who became an effective propagandist for the British government during World War Two.

Fluent in German, Delmer became friendly with leader of the SA Ernst Röhm, who arranged for him to interview Adolf Hitler as early on as 1931, well before the Nazi seizure of power and Röhm's later assassination. This all made him ideally placed to operate a highly sophisticated, not to mention successful, disinformation war within and aimed at Nazi Germany, decades before the internet came along.

Of lessons we can learn today and specifically in relation to Putin's Russia and the invasion of Ukraine, Pomerantsev and moderator Harri Tiido, a long-serving Estonian diplomat, discussed the question of whether and how far we need to engage in 'black' info ops that Russia itself uses. In other words, to terrorize the terrorists.

We must do this, Pomerantsev finds, but there are many caveats. One misconception he pointed to, for instance, is that propaganda constitutes "brainwashing." Pomerantsev finds this to be a misleading term, noting that in the Ukraine invasion, the tired old trope of Ukraine being infested by Nazis is not done to brainwash anybody, but as a cover for what Russia is doing – i.e. practically committing an act of genocide in Ukraine, and as justification for the public in shoring up support for the costly war.

Delmer did not brainwash anyone either, nor – and here is the key difference – did he deceive people. His project involved an ingenious setting up of radio stations, made to look or rather sound like genuine Nazi radio stations, using mainstream wavelengths and with cutaways to speeches by Joseph Goebbels.
However, tucked away there was true information – for instance stories from the front line, about what was really happening.

Delmer even wanted the Germans to know this was being done, while the broadcasts aimed to get ordinary German people to think and act for themselves, creating a safe space for doing so (if being caught listening by nosy authorities, it was quite straightforward for the listeners to claim that they thought the station was genuinely sanctioned by the regime).

It was effective too, particularly in the latter years of the war. Pomerantsev noted that up to as many as 50 percent of German soldiers were familiar with the stations.

Replicating the Delmer efforts in today's world, even with AI, social media and other advances, would be no simple matter however. Pomerantsev said it would be "very impressive" if we managed to accomplish that feat.

But we should be focused – on Russia's main risk areas, which Pomerantsev identifies as oil prices and exports, and social control.

The latter case is crucial for Putin – an army of disenchanted babushkas would not be something to take lightly, while there is an ever-growing tide of disaffected veterans returning from the Ukraine war to contend with too. Tiido noted that much the same thing happened 40 years ago, during the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Russia's propaganda – for instance the perpetual victim narrative about being surrounded on all sides by hostile countries or the West being hell-bent on spreading "black magic" – is nonetheless effective within its own domain. Pomerantsev notes that Putin in particular has been keeping up the seemingly contradictory narrative of wanting peace as soon as possible, while vowing to fight to a victorious end in the war come what may.

Ultimately, Pomerantsev says, we need to admit we are already in, have been in for some time, a hybrid war.

The rest of the panel includes a look at Pomerantsev's own experiences in the liberated Chernihiv, in the north of Ukraine, and a longer Q and A session.
The discussion in its entirety can be viewed by clicking on the video player above.

Other videos with authors at the HeadRead Festival from 2025 and previous years can be found here.

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