FISU Warns: russia Is Scaling Up the Information Operation Against Ukraine

The first five days of April have seen a new wave of information attacks against Ukraine. russian special services’ actions are aimed at trying to persuade the EU and the USA that Ukraine allegedly  is not willing  to negotiate an end to the war.

In this way, russia is trying to shift the responsibility for the duration of the hostilities onto Ukraine, while simultaneously creating a false image of a “peacemaker” who is allegedly ready to negotiate, but not with the current government.

russian state-owned and affiliated media (gazeta.ru, sputnik, vedomosti, voennoe obozrenie) are involved in the information attack. russia is also trying to penetrate the global information space, create the impression that “fatigue from  Ukraine” has become a general trend, and thus to exert external pressure on Kyiv. For this purpose, it involves foreign proxy media, which it uses presenting them as independent sources. Among them there are Reseau International (France), Magyar Hírlap (Hungary), L'AntiDiplomatico (Italy), Ereport (Slovakia), and others. These resources promote theses similar to russian ones: “there is no democracy in Ukraine”, “the West is disappointed with Kyiv”, “peace is possible only after the change of the Ukrainian Government”.

In parallel, there is a targeted infiltration of the Ukrainian information space – through anonymous Telegram channels, pseudo-patriotic TikTok accounts, YouTube content imitating the opinions of the Ukrainian military or “independent experts”.  To make the campaign look large-scaled, proxy resources repost the same messages in different interpretations: in the form of author’s columns, fake interviews, “analytical” blogs, graphics, and videos on social media. This approach creates the illusion of a multi-voiced debate, which is in fact orchestrated by a single center, the kremlin.