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Vadym Skibitskyi, a representative of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, identified three external information threats to Ukraine during a discussion at the Kyiv StratCom Forum 2024, organised by the Centre for Strategic Communications:

• russia’s information influence on our population and state authorities, in particular, military structures;
• conducting disinformation campaigns, creating and spreading fakes;
• information dominance in the temporarily occupied territories.

Vadym Skibitskyi also commented on the causes, consequences and target audience of the information impact of the terrorist attack in the moscow region. He explained the role of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine in countering the aggressor in the information sphere, and outlined the main ways to counter russian disinformation in Ukraine and around the world.

Why Did Intelligence Officers Start Speaking?

I am very pleased that the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine is now on the front page, but believe me, it was not an easy job. It began in October 2015.

At that time, the strategic communications of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine were perceived in our country as follows: “How can it be that intelligence officers are on the screen and say something?”.

But that period of time was very difficult. It was necessary [...] to destroy all the narratives that were presented by the russian federation at the time. We are talking about the narratives that we are allegedly in a “civil war”; we are allegedly in a “coup d’état”, and so on.

It was necessary to prove [the truth] to the public with examples, with real information, because if you do not enter the information space with real, reliable information, it is immediately occupied by the russian federation. This is the accomplished fact.

Let’s go back to 2022 year, when all the intelligence agencies of the USA, Great Britain and other countries began to go to the media and talk about their intelligence assessments and give their forecasts. This is another good thing from the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.

Main Threats to Ukraine in the Information Area

I will focus on the three main external threats in the information area that exist today. We all see how powerful russia is working here, using not only its own resources, but also the resources of Europe, the leading media and leading companies around the world.

And we felt this, perhaps, before the [large-scale] war in 2017-2018, when all these russian mass media channels, created by the corporation, simply flooded the entire Europe.

Back then, it was impossible to break into the russian information area because everything was blocked. They also flooded the European media space, spreading their narratives there.

They talked about the same things they do today: that Ukraine is an “artificially created state”, that it is unstable, “incapable” of defending itself, let alone resisting.

There are three main external threats.