Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Russian companies are creating 'patriotic' board games based on the Ukraine war, such as a version of Monopoly where the squares are Ukrainian targets instead of streets, or a game where players hold cards representing the forces of "good" (Russia) and "darkness" (NATO). ⬇️

2/ The Russian online store Wildberries is selling a number of board games with themes referencing the war in Ukraine, such as 'Special Operation on the Outskirts'. The game is based on Monopoly, with the usual streets replaced by 8 cities and 14 strategic locations in Ukraine.

3/ These include Donetsk, Luhansk, Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa, as well as strategic targets such as the Crimean Bridge, the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, and the Kakhovka Dam. According to the manufacturers:

4/ "The game immerses you in a world where the eastern cities welcome the liberators, and the central and western cities have succumbed to enemy propaganda, which makes their liberation a real challenge. Each of your decisions is a step towards victory or defeat."

5/ It requires the player to "manage a single currency, build bridges, restore infrastructure and supply battalions with resources" and comes with banknotes depicting Vladimir Putin, General Sergey Surovikin and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

6/ 'Dobble Z' is a version of the popular British picture-matching card game Dobble, themed around patriotic Russian symbols. The player has to match symbols on the cards (such as the Kremlin, tank, AK-47, map of Crimea, etc).

7/ The manufacturer says: "This patriotic game has everything that is close to Russian people - birch trees, traditions, great people, sights and more." It recommends the game for "a noisy group, a birthday, Russia Day and any other holiday."

8/ 'I Serve The Fatherland' appears to be based on the Hasbro game Guess Who? – it operates similarly, with players asking questions to identify which cards the other players are holding. These are divided into "forces of good" (Russian) and "forces of darkness" (America/NATO).

9/ Video game developers are also getting in on the act. The Moscow-based Studio SPN is developing 'Squad 22: ZOV', a tactical action game produced with the aid of the Main Military-Political Directorate of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

10/ The GVPU VS RF is the organisation within the Russian Ministry of Defence that is responsible for instilling ideological loyalty to the regime within the military. It directs the work of the armed forces' political officers (zampolits) to politically indoctrinate servicemen.

11/ The game offers players the opportunity to play through four scenarios: "Battle for Mariupol", "Donbass Spring", "Repulse of the Ukrainian Counteroffensive" and "Battle for Avdiivka".

12/ It was "created in active cooperation with active fighters, veterans and heroes of the Special Military Operation, including visiting the sites of real events and reconstructing battles." It portrays Russian soldiers, rather inaccurately, as heroic defenders of civilians.

13/ It remains to be seen whether these games will be any more commercially successful than Russian movies about the war, which have been dismally unpopular. The 2023 film 'Witness' was a huge flop, costing 70-200 million rubles but making only 15 million at the box office. /end

Source:
t.me/mozhemobyasnit…