Countering Informational Influences of the Russian Federation: National Experience

Abstract

The urgency of the chosen issue is due to the fact that since the beginning of the hybrid aggression in 2014, the domestic information space has been subject to various interventions from Russia: from biased Russian media coverage of events in Ukraine to outright lies from the Russian authorities. At the same time, such attention to our state by Russia has led to the formation in Ukrainian society of a certain level of resistance to hostile information influences and the acquisition by domestic state and public institutions, as well as scientific circles of unique experience in countering Russia in this area. The methods of counteraction developed so far are quite diverse in nature, and therefore require critical evaluation in order to improve the foundations of information security of both Ukraine and the world democratic community. The purpose of this article is to assess the state of information security of the nation and to determine further directions for its improvement on the basis of a retrospective analysis of the process of counteracting Russian information influences on Ukrainian society and the state. Reflective approach was chosen as the main one to study the national experience of counteracting the information influences of the Russian Federation, as it provides an opportunity to comprehend Ukraine's experience as a purposeful and organized process of strengthening the resilience of domestic state and public institutions to clearly planned multilevel aggression and creation of the foundations for the development of own information space. A comparison of main information operations of the Russian Federation targeting Ukraine, of the described in the article stages of Russian aggression with the measures taken by the Ukrainian state and society gives an opportunity to allege that the crisis stage in the information struggle and the formation of domestic sovereign information space as a phenomenon is over. So, if at the early stages of information aggression the Kremlin relied on the attractiveness of its civilizational concepts, such as "Russian World" or "Moscow - Third Rome", which should have led to Russia's victory by "soft power", today we observe the change of course towards cluster influences, tendencies (problems in the Ukrainian energy sector, "anti-vaccination" campaigns, etc.) aimed at destabilizing the domestic political situation in the country and bringing discord in relations with foreign partners. Currently, the information campaigns of the Russian Federation from an individual phenomenon (operational line of hybrid war) have been transformed into secondary (service) tool of other areas of aggression: military, economic, etc. Under the difficult conditions of multifaceted opposition to the aggressor, Ukraine managed to create a basis for the development of its own information space and its protection from unfriendly influences not only of Russia but also of other potentially interested geopolitical actors. At the same time, both the state and society need to focus on further development of their own system of counteraction - to improve existing legislation, build appropriate institutions, form a scientific and methodological basis for the use of adequate and possibly asymmetric means of counteracting Russia.