At one of the recent online events on disinformation in Ukraine, one of the speakers emphasized that Western countries providing Ukraine with weapons to defeat the Russian army could in return take advantage of Ukrainian experience in countering disinformation and use it as a weapon against the Russian Federation in its territory.
On the one hand, I fully support this thesis, since no other country in the world has been subjected to such unprecedented pressure in the information space as Ukraine. The purpose of such pressure was to achieve a total psychological breakdown of Ukrainian identity arguing that Ukrainians never existed.
Think what would happen to you if they were trying to prove for decades that you did not exist? What would happen to your mind and awareness of your identity? And yet, Ukraine not only survived, but also became an example in the context of perceiving its Motherland and its people as one of the highest values.
However, on the other hand, as we have already written, the phenomenon that we have been calling “disinformation” since 2014 has practically ceased to exist, or at least has significantly changed.
At the same time, the attempts to create new terms such as “misinformation” and “malinformation”, as experts from the Meta social network do, only aggravate the situation and disorient the information users. What are the main changes in this phenomenon that we can note over the past 18 months?
Firstly, most online messages previously could be characterized by two criteria — “true” or “false”. For example, all the versions voiced by Russia about the crash of flight MH17 were false. The only truth was that the passenger plane was shot down by Buk-M1 missile launcher. One of the most famous fakes of Russian propaganda, “the crucified boy in Slaviansk,” was also a lie. He never existed.
Thus, one of the obvious tools to counter Russian disinformation was OSINT and fact-checking tools. We only needed to check the disseminated message using available tools and establish the facts. Therefore, the fight against disinformation turned into a kind of zero-sum game where you can either be right or wrong. If fact checkers could prove that this news was fake, then they were right, and the one who had spread it was wrong.
This situation has changed dramatically in the last 2 years. Russian propaganda no longer disseminates only made-up facts. Of course, there is a place for them in the information space but the number of such facts has become less. Instead, Russian botnets and pro-Russian media in EU countries disseminate value judgments, expert opinions and emotional attitudes to reality.
When making decisions, a man (homo sapiens) is only 10-20% guided by abstract and critical thinking. Up to 80% of their actions are a consequence of their emotional, rather than analytical, side. That is why the Russian disinformation has ceased to be disinformation in the form in which we understand it. Now, its goal is not to convince the audience of some non-existent events but to change the audience’s attitude towards existing reality.
Disagreements between Poland and Ukraine, which may be of a different nature, are an objective fact. But the question is how do we take them? Are we using our dialogue to become stronger together and strengthen our countries and nations, each for its part? Or are we mutually weakening each other to the delight of Belarus and the Russian Federation?
The strategy that the Russian intelligence services have chosen is not to create new “crucified boys” but to use existing problems to maximize the degree of discussion on them.
Secondly, although Ukraine continues to be the target of Russian special information operations (for example, in the context of mobilization failure), but the main strategic emphasis in Russian information operations is on the EU countries, the USA, Canada and the UK. After all, the survival of Ukraine and the defeat of the Russian army largely depend on the geopolitical decisions of these international actors.
The war has a chance to end only if Western countries accept the inevitability and, most importantly, the “profitability” of the defeat of the Russian Federation in the war unleashed by Putin.
Unfortunately, now communication with Western experts shows that Western elites are afraid of three potential scenarios.
The West is afraid that Ukraine will be defeated because then the “European idea” will be very shaken and there will be no question of any international security.
The West is afraid that Russia will be defeated because its defeat can lead to cataclysms and destabilization within the Russian Federation, which may bring even greater risks than continuing the war.
The West is also afraid of the endless continuation of the war, since slowly but surely this leads to potential processes of stagnation in the world economy, when, after a short post-Covid recovery, large budgets have to be refocused on weapons and defense.
Thus, the only thing the West is not afraid of is a ceasefire and the start of negotiations. That is why, among other things, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is enforced to hold elections during missile attacks which is a complete absurdity.
However, this particular scenario is the Kremlin’s strategic goal which is being promoted through massive work in the information space. Western elites are frightened by nuclear escalation, problems from destabilization within the Russian Federation, etc. The only purpose is to force them, under the influence of fear, to choose an option that is beneficial to Putin.
Is this comprehensive approach to special information operations a disinformation? I think it’s not. This is manipulation. However, as I said above, this is not a “true or false” dichotomy. This is the space of the possible and the impossible things.
Can Vladimir Putin use nuclear weapons? Probably, this is physically and technically feasible task.
Is he able to make such a decision? It is possible due to his hopeless situation and dementia.
Will he do it? The likelihood of such an outcome is negligible since it will be a suicide for the Russian people, which makes them total outcasts not only in Western countries but throughout the world.
Thus, the Kremlin’s game of fear and the vulnerabilities of democratic communities is no longer disinformation but much deeper work.
Thirdly, the only available and acceptable way out of the current situation for Putin is an endless war. In any other case, he will look like a loser and weak. War is the key to his power. And power is the key to his life. Therefore, if he wants to live he must fight.
However, by doing this, the Russian diplomats declare on international platforms that the USA and NATO are to blame for everything, and they themselves are ready for negotiations. But now, almost no one believes Russian representatives. They said the same thing before the Minsk agreements which ended in full-scale aggression. I emphasize that it’s not an escalation in the Donbass to conquer the so-called LPR and DPR but an attempt to occupy the whole Ukraine.
And yet, this is also not a lie. The Russian side needs negotiations to hold presidential elections which Vladimir Putin is guaranteed to win and to build up its military potential by restoring equipment and mobilizing soldiers.
That is why we should remember that the information sphere is very changeable. And there is no more disinformation that can be combated and counteracted. In fact, we find ourselves in a dystopian science fiction novel where two opposing sides see reality in radically opposite ways. This is why the “true-false” dichotomy that has been important for fact-checking no longer works.
That is why the only way to survive in this confrontation can be the availability of our own goals, scenarios, visions of the future and work to achieve it. The most important tool to “counter disinformation” is not studying what the enemy said about you but what you want to be known about yourself. Only internal focus can influence the state of things.
Autor: Dmytro Zolotuchin
Public task financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within thegrant comp etition “Public Diplomacy 2023”
