Interview of Iryna Synelnyk the Ukrainian Journalist-in-Residence in Kosovo with Liobov Tsylbulska who is a hybrid war expert an advisor to the government of Ukraine, and founder of the Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine.
The conversation with Ukrainian hybrid war expert Liubov Tsybulska opened our eyes to the dangers of Russian propaganda and its impact on global audiences. Here are some key points from our enlightening discussion:
Iryna Synelnyk: How do the Russian officials articulate the shelling of medical facilities in Kyiv? Are they creating new narratives??
Liubov Tsybulska: We were shocked by what happened and by the reaction of the Russians. After all, Russian social media exploded with gloating comments, even though a hospital was shelled, where seriously ill children, including those with cancer, medical care. In this situation, we saw a repetition of the narratives that were spread during the shelling of the maternity hospital in Mariupol at the beginning of the war in 2022, that ‘Ukrainian soldiers were treated there’. We saw reports that it was a ‘staged event’, just like in the city Bucha, where Russian troops massacred civilians during the offensive on Kyiv. There were comments that it was a Ukrainian missile. In other words, the Russians came out with their traditional narratives, and we saw nothing new.
Iryna Synelnyk: Russian propaganda is a powerful weapon. The war in Donbas, the full-scale invasion, and the continuation of the war are accompanied by information attacks. What evolution of Russian messages do you observe in the hybrid war that has been going on for more than a decade?
Liubov Tsybulska: The Russians always play on contradictions, exploit our vulnerabilities, and inflate topics that cause debate. They skillfully raise topics that make Ukrainians quarrel with each other, although we see this in other countries, especially during elections. This technique works. They invest resources in the one narrative and the opposite one, bumping people’s heads together. They adapt well and quickly, but very rarely come up with something new in order not to invest resources in new promotions. They mostly use existing narratives. Among the most recent topics in Ukraine, for example, is the topic of mobilization and demobilization, those who left and those who stayed in the country during the war. In all existing discussions in society, Russians raise the temperature of the conversation, forcing people to quarrel and get emotional.
Iryna Synelnyk: Speaking of the Western audience, what channels are used to convey Russian or pro-Russian messages?
Liubov Tsybulska: The civilized world understands what is happening. But the Russians are going to audiences that know little about the war in Ukraine, who often do not have access to Ukrainian media. Therefore, they are successful in spreading their messages in some countries. This is often done on social media, where they spread conspiracy theories for certain groups, such as in the case of ‘Ohmatdyt’, that it was a ‘staged event’ or that the military were treated there, so the attack was justified.\They have little chance of influencing officials and reputable media with their narratives, but in certain small, remote, sometimes marginalized groups, they, unfortunately, have a chance of gaining credibility.
Iryna Synelnyk: Are there differences depending on the country or region? How does Russia, for example, ‘work’ with the Balkan countries?
Liubov Tsybulska: The propagandists take into account the specifics of the country, raising topics that are relevant at the moment. For example, elections in the United States or elections in France, the topic of support for Ukraine. In particular, they support and spread the narrative as much as possible: why should the taxes of Westerners go to help Ukraine, which is probably corrupt? They choose existing topics and promote them. Russia also uses international topics and events to its advantage in the information space. The methodology and goal are the same everywhere – to reduce support for Ukraine. In the Balkan countries, there is an anti-NATO, anti-Western sentiment, so Russian propaganda also plays on this sentiment. They say that this is the West’s war against Russia, that NATO is fighting Russia at the hands of Ukrainians, and this thesis fits into existing patterns in a particular country. By the way, Russian propaganda uses different channels to disseminate information. Somewhere they do have access to the media. In the Central European countries, they have difficulties with this, so they work in social networks. In Ukraine, these are Telegram channels, primarily Viber groups, because Russian propagandists do not have access to the media. They have adapted to the changes introduced by Meta and still find ‘needle points’ to spread their narratives on Facebook. They create clones of the official sources of information and promote them through advertising. This is manipulation, and the materials get into the feeds because they are advertising.
Iryna Synelnyk: Right-wing forces have come to power in some European countries, is this a result of the influence of Russian propaganda?
Liubov Tsybulska: Russia has long supported far-right and far-left movements to polarize society. Of course, in some countries, there is a certain demand in society and support from politicians. However, Russians see cracks in society and deepen them.
Iryna Synelnyk: To what extent are Europeans influenced by Russian propaganda?
Liubov Tsybulska: Everything is different, each country has its own peculiarities. Some countries are more protected, such as the Scandinavian countries, where systematic work is being done to counter propaganda and spread media literacy. There are southern countries, such as Spain and Italy, where Russian propaganda can get on the information agenda, and where there is less vigilance and counteraction to propaganda.This does not even depend on the level of development of the country, because, for example, in the United States we also see this problem. Rather, it is about the work of institutions, the desire to see this problem and confront it. Those who have dealt with Russia better understand the level of the threat and the need to fight it. For those for whom Russia has not historically been a threat, they do not understand the level of the problem. Successful action against Russian propaganda depends on the sustainability of civil institutions and cooperation between the state and the public sector.
Iryna Synelnyk: How to counter Russian propaganda globally and locally? Are there any successful cases?
Liubov Tsybulska: There are various methods of countering propaganda. First of all, these are methods of restricting and prohibiting access to certain resources or audiences. What Ukraine has done is to restrict access to the hostile social networks‘Одноклассники (Odnoklassniki) and ‘ВКонтакте’ (VKontakte), as well as to stop broadcasting Medvedchuk’s channels, which openly broadcast Russian propaganda. There is evidence that these channels were influenced by the Russian special services, and this was indeed interference in Ukraine’s internal affairs. As for these social networks, they have been under the full influence of the FSB (Russian special services) since 2014. They conducted targeted campaigns to discredit Ukraine and dehumanize Ukrainians. At the same time, we should be careful with restrictions, as if there is no evidence of hostile influence, the ban is questionable. We should have clear criteria for restricting or banning something. There is a method of restrictions and bans, while there are more proactive methods, such as media literacy and the promotion of our narratives, which make it impossible for Russian narratives to influence us. The stronger our narratives are, the harder it will be for Russians to break them. Freedom of speech is the strength of democracy and at the same time its weakness, which is being exploited by the Russians. They are looking for the ‘eye of the needle’, as I say, and trying to get through it.
Iryna Synelnyk: Is there cooperation among different countries in the fight against information threats?
Liubov Tsybulska: Russian propagandists do not stop their work, they are constantly looking for opportunities and vulnerabilities to penetrate foreign information space with their narratives. They are constantly looking for allies, both at the level of individual states and at the level of individual civil society and media actors. That is why there are different formats of countering Russian propaganda. We have cases of joint platforms and data exchange. There is cooperation within NATO and bilateral cooperation between individual countries. Cooperation is often carried out at the level of civil society. There is also interaction at the level of government institutions. By the way, there is a desire in Ukraine to create a coalition to counter Russian propaganda. Let’s see what will happen, what it will look like. But the initiative is good. After all, we have to understand that Russian propaganda is a huge machine that works to find allies and create its own alliances, to promote its narratives. We will definitely never have to relax, because this is a threat forever, even after the war is over, we will remain neighbors with the Russians. We have to be vigilant!
Author : Iryna Synelnyk/reports RKS.NEWS
