CARDBOARD PROTESTS
Grassroots Self-Organization or a Paid-for Phenomenon?
What really lies behind the youth demonstrations with handwritten placards — and why society should discuss not only the fact of the protest itself, but also the mechanisms by which it is organized
By Andrii Smyrnov
Yesterday evening, Deribasivska Street was seething in a way it normally does not. The air was filled with angry voices, rhythmic chants, and a kind of energy that spilled across the street, making passers-by slow their steps.
As we crossed that noisy current, we caught sight of something strange: right in the middle of the street, arranged in three — or perhaps four — neat rows, stood a group of very young men and women. Thirty or forty people in all. In their hands they held ordinary homemade cardboard signs with handwritten messages — the sort of thing one used to see only in footage from foreign news reports or on the evening news.
I moved closer to one of the young women in the front row to make out what the protest was about, and what had brought them beneath the evening Odesa sky. The words on her makeshift sign were clear. On the pieces of cardboard around her, equally pointed and eloquent slogans fluttered in the night air…
“Respect for the people is respect for the country.” “Corruption kills the future.” “Fedorov is the future.” With phrases like these, the young protesters were expressing their anger at personnel decisions, the opacity of government, and society’s unwillingness to accept political deals made behind closed doors.
On the surface, it all looks simple: several dozen young people gather in the center of Kyiv, Odesa, or Lviv, hold homemade signs, and communicate with one another through social media. But I believe that beneath this apparent simplicity lies a more difficult question: is this a genuine civic reaction, or an organized and paid political campaign?
There is no definitive answer yet. There are, however, enough facts to reject an overly simplistic alternative — that a protest must be either entirely spontaneous or entirely paid for. In real politics, there are many possibilities between these two extremes.
What We Know for Certain
According to regional and national media reports, demonstrations in Odesa have been continuing since July 16. Young people make up the majority of participants, and the protest is part of a broader wave in other Ukrainian cities. Ukrainska Pravda reported that in Kyiv and other cities, people took to the streets in July to demand that Mykhailo Fedorov be returned to the post of defense minister and to protest personnel decisions in the country’s military and political leadership. According to Suspilne, one of the Kyiv rallies drew approximately 500 people.
These facts confirm several important points. First, this is neither an isolated incident nor merely a local Odesa initiative. Second, the protest is recurring. People did not come out just once; they returned to the streets in different cities. Third, the cardboard sign has become a recognizable symbol — one that allows a participant to join in without a party membership card, an expensive banner, or a professional campaign headquarters.
Yet these facts do not automatically prove that the movement is entirely spontaneous. A protest without party flags may still be organized. The absence of a stage does not mean the absence of coordinators. And a simple placard is proof neither of sincerity nor of payment.
An Important Distinction: Organized Does Not Mean Paid For
One of the central mistakes in this debate is the tendency to conflate two different things. Organization means that someone creates a channel of communication, proposes a time and place for people to meet, helps spread information, and maintains the regularity of the action. Payment means that participants or organizers are compensated for carrying out a political assignment or manufacturing the appearance of public support.
These are not the same thing.
The student protests of 1990, known as the Revolution on Granite, also had organizers, coordination, clearly defined demands, and negotiations with the authorities. The 2013 Euromaidan began with calls on social media and the involvement of activists, journalists, and students. After protesters were beaten by the Berkut riot police, it grew into a mass movement. In time, the Maidan acquired a stage, volunteer headquarters, and medical and legal aid. That does not mean every person who joined it had been hired for money.
On the contrary, a large-scale social movement almost always requires some degree of organization. People need to know where to meet, how to inform others, who will be responsible for security, and who will speak to the media. The existence of a core group of activists therefore does not disprove the sincerity of a civic protest.
The “Protest” Chat: Evidence of Organization, Not of Payment
New information allows us to speak with considerably more confidence about the movement’s organizational structure. According to reports by the human-rights center ZMINA and The Insider, one of the main coordination channels was a Telegram chat called “Protest,” which had approximately 770 members. The administrator is said to have been Vitalii Kamka, known on social media as Vitalii Pavuk. The chat was used to coordinate people who regularly joined the demonstrations .
This is an important clarification. It is no longer accurate to describe the protest as completely unorganized. It had a specific administrator, a communication channel, and, presumably, a circle of co-organizers. One of the organizers, Arkadii Petrosian, reported that the chat was deleted on August 7 during a demonstration on Ivan Franko Square .
But even here, we should avoid drawing conclusions that the evidence does not support. A Telegram chat with 770 members is not the same as 770 people taking part in a street protest. Some may have been regular demonstrators, observers, journalists, people from other cities, or simply those following events. Nevertheless, the existence of the chat demonstrates that the movement had a potential mobilization base and a certain degree of coordination.
By contrast, none of the available materials proves that participants were paid. There are no published payment records, no lists of hired “extras,” no advertisements recruiting people for money, no evidence of centrally arranged transportation, and no participant testimony that anyone received compensation.
The Disappearance of the Chat: What We Know — and What We Do Not
On August 7, 2026, after the administrator was detained, a message appeared in the chat in his name. It said that he had decided to return to military service and abandon his previous course of action. The chat was deleted afterward.
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Vitalii Kamka himself said that he had not written the message and had not deleted the chat. He suspects that an investigator gained access to his Telegram account. Serhii Motrenko, a participant in the protest, told ZMINA that the message did not sound like Kamka, although he also acknowledged that he could not know for certain under what circumstances it had been written .
The police version differs. A spokesperson for the Kyiv police said that Kamka had been stopped during a document check and was found to have the status of a servicemember absent without leave. According to her, he voluntarily agreed to report to the Military Law and Order Service, and his phone was not confiscated .
Thus, the sequence — detention, message, deletion of the chat — is confirmed by several publications. But the mechanism by which the chat was deleted, and the authorship of the message, remain disputed. Technical evidence is needed: account login history, active sessions, information about whether the phone was confiscated, witness testimony, and legal documents.
This story matters for more than the fate of one individual. It reveals the vulnerability of modern protest movements. When coordination is concentrated around a single chat and a single administrator, the loss of that node is enough to plunge the movement into informational chaos. It may be the result of state action, a technical breach, a decision by the administrator himself, or an internal conflict. Without verification, it would be dishonest to name the culprit.
Why Suspicions of a Paid Operation Arise
There are understandable reasons for distrust toward youth protests. Ukrainian society has repeatedly witnessed political campaigns in which mass participation was artificially manufactured and ordinary citizens were used as scenery in struggles between powerful groups. The absence of visible leaders, party symbols, or transparent financing can therefore arouse suspicion.
But suspicion is not evidence. It becomes a substantiated hypothesis only when it rests on verifiable facts: who created the channel, who financed it, who paid for advertising, who formulated the slogans, whether there were contacts with political headquarters, and whether participants received money or material support.
At the same time, another possibility should not be ruled out: the protest may be sincere at its core, while different political actors attempt to use it for their own purposes. Some may amplify demands directed at a particular official. Others may shift the debate toward corruption. Still others may spread the claim that the demonstrators are a “paid crowd” in order to discredit the protest. And some may use it as evidence of the central government’s weakness.
In contemporary politics, genuine civic action and political exploitation can exist simultaneously. People take to the streets for their own reasons; only afterward do different groups try to appropriate their energy.
Cardboard as a Generational Symbol
Why cardboard? Because it is the cheapest and most democratic form of expression. To write a slogan, you do not need a political party, a printing press, or an advertising budget. All you need is a piece of a cardboard box and a marker.
Cardboard creates the image of a personal rather than bureaucratic voice. A professionally printed banner says, “There is an organization behind us.” A cardboard sign says, “I decided to come out here myself and write what I think.” That is precisely why cardboard can be so appealing to genuine grassroots self-organization.
But there is a paradox: the same simplicity can also be exploited by political operators. If an organizer determines the format, location, and basic slogans in advance, the action may still look spontaneous from the outside. The visual language of a protest therefore cannot, by itself, answer the question of where that protest came from. We need to examine the communications network, the sources of resources, and the chain of decision-making.
What Conclusion Can We Draw Today?
Based on the facts currently available, the most balanced conclusion is this: the “cardboard protests” are organized grassroots actions with a specific activist core, but there is currently no evidence that they are paid for.
This does not mean that financing or political influence is impossible. It means only that such claims must be proven rather than inferred from the mere existence of a chat or an administrator.
Nor should we romanticize the movement as entirely spontaneous and free of internal interests. It has organizers, channels of influence, people who shape the agenda, and perhaps different groups with different political sympathies. But the presence of an organizer does not turn participants into puppets.
Today, society should ask several concrete questions. Who created the main chat, and who had access to its administration? How were the slogans formulated? Were there contacts with political parties, foundations, businesses, or political headquarters? Did participants receive money, transportation, or any other form of compensation? Who deleted the chat, and from which device was the final message posted? Were the regional demonstrations independent, or were they coordinated from a single center?
The answers may lead to very different conclusions. We may discover an ordinary story of civic self-organization born of youthful anger. We may find that a sincere protest was partially exploited by political actors. Or we may uncover evidence of deliberate financing or an information operation.
But any of these conclusions must be grounded in facts. A democratic society must be able both to defend citizens’ right to protest and to demand transparency from those who organize that protest.
That is why the central question today should not be limited to, “Are these protests paid for?” It should be framed more broadly: “Who is organizing civic activity, how and for what purpose — and where does sincere self-organization end and political exploitation begin?”
This is the question that deserves open discussion — without automatically excusing the protest, but also without unjustifiably branding young people as a “paid crowd.”
Postscript
The “cardboard protests” are still continuing today. But I am not urging anyone to stock up on popcorn! We may yet witness an unexpected turn — or, God forbid, discover the “puppeteers” behind these undeniably peculiar social processes. In any case, I call on society — and on the discerning reader — to discuss the subject. Perhaps someone knows something, saw something, or took part personally… Assuming, of course, that we are a democratic society…
Odesa, August 2026
