Four theories on Ukraine support and an invisible payroll

Support for Ukraine: four theories and a payroll no one has seen

There is a figure used to explain everything, yet it appears in no official document: twenty cents per message. This price dismisses any argument that doesn't fit the narrative. It is claimed that behind support for Ukraine lies a campaign of paid commentators, and that those defending this position actually work for a foreign power. No one has shown the payroll yet.

The issue goes beyond dinner table arguments. In discussions about the war, at least four distinct explanations coexist regarding why part of the Spanish public sides with Kyiv, with no proof for the most repeated version. Reviewing them helps understand how public opinion is manufactured today.

Where does the accusation of paid commentators come from?

The salary theory has one virtue: it avoids debating the opponent. If the other side is paid, their argument collapses without rebuttal. The circulating figure —20 cents per post— is repeated as if it were a signed agreement, though not accompanied by a single contract, transfer, or verifiable identity. It is a suspicion that has become a mental framework.

One side accuses the other of being paid Atlantic bloc commentators; from the opposite side, the response is usually labeling rather than arguing. Result: defending a position out of conviction ceases to be an option. Those who disagree are paid, or so it seems. And if they are paid, they don't need to explain themselves.

The narrative absorbed since childhood

The second explanation requires no conspiracy: popular culture suffices. It is argued that generations grew up with an imaginary where the villain came from the East and the hero spoke English, in media and pop culture, and that this legacy weighs more than any analysis. A longstanding misunderstanding is also pointed out: the idea that Russia remains a communist country, when it ceased to be decades ago.

The third pillar is more grounded: headlines. Those informed only by what appears on screen adopt the provided frame without being paid for it. The mass man needs no payroll; the evening news is enough.

Empathy for the underdog and its reverse

The most intuitive argument is the schoolyard one: when the small, scrawny kid defends himself against the bully, the crowd takes his side. Translated to the map in this reading, Ukraine plays the role of the underdog. Sympathy for the weaker is an ancient reflex and, according to proponents, alone explains much of the support for Ukraine, without campaigns or budgets.

The problem is that this reflex oversimplifies. Against the image of the lone bully rises another, defended in the thread: that of a country acting as the spearhead of a military alliance and economic club with a record of interventions —Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria—. Even respect for humanitarian corridors in Mariupol is disputed, both ways. Each side chooses the photo that suits them.

From ELbichito passports to the Ukrainian flag

The fourth thesis is the most sociological: camps weren't created, but recycled. It is claimed that the same bloc aligned with pandemic health policies has repositioned itself in the Atlantic orbit, and that those who distrusted vaccines now distrust the dominant war narrative. According to this reading, the correspondence is nearly perfect.

It is an elegant hypothesis difficult to verify: there is no census of defectors moving from one camp to another. What exists is the repeated intuition that pandemic and conflict blocs overlap, and a practical consequence: each discussion inherits the temperature —and tone— of the previous one.

The New World Order, a weapon for both sides

An irony runs through the whole. The label "New World Order" is used to discredit both camps simultaneously: some accuse Kyiv supporters of serving globalism and pogre; others respond that Moscow is hardly a refuge from that same order. Each side sees the other as a tool, and neither accepts being one.

In this intersection appears the underlying debate, which isn't about Ukraine: it's about the distribution of power in the coming decades. Warning is given that underestimating China —abundant labor, influence in Southeast Asia, struggles in Africa and South America— is a miscalculation, and that what is underway is a second Cold War with two increasingly separated global economies. It is also recalled that neither Russia nor China are paradises detached from what both call the new order.

The retreat of those who bet on Moscow

A fact remains that none of the theories well explain: many who anticipated a quick Russian victory have lowered their volume. They are attributed a change of profile as setbacks accumulated on the ground, and the phrase that, according to another participant, best captures the mood is that victory always has a hundred fathers, while defeat is an orphan.

That retreat has a cost. If aggressive forecasts are withdrawn without review, the discussion stays with headlines and loses exactly what was needed: clear accounts of what was right, what failed, and with what data.

We must see who dares to ask the uncomfortable question. If no one has found the twenty-cent payroll, why does the salary explanation remain the favorite? Perhaps because it is the only one that saves the trouble of facing the other three.