Disinformation as a form of aggression: Ukraine and its partners amidst the Russian fake news (early 2021)

Abstract

The various disinformation-related issues are now of the greatest relevance, as evidenced not only by the emergence (especially over the past few years) of a number of basic scientific studies on the analysis of the phenomenon, but also the development by both Western countries and Ukraine (in the conditions of daily struggle against hybrid Russian aggression) of the strategies that provide not only resistance (detection and refutation) of Russian disinformation, but also an adequate response – punishing Russia for the damage done to democracy by relentless “dispersal” of the fake news, in particular – in early 2021. Taking into account the differences in the interpretation of the concept of “disinformation” and using the guidelines of the European Commission on its content, we conducted the analysis of data, concentrated in the “Disinfo Database” (created by East StratCom Task Force within the project “EUvsDiSiNFO”), according to the following algorithm: - the languages were established, in which Russia disseminated disinformation about Ukraine and its support by European states, the United States, etc.; - calculations were made of both the number of Russian fake news created and disseminated in the world information space (in the period from 01.01.2021 to 30.04.2021) regarding Ukraine and the states that provide it support (to a greater or lesser extent) in the fight against the aggressor, and the number of information resources used in disseminating disinformation; - there were identified and analyzed the dominant issues of Russian disinformation, the peculiarities of the construction of fake news by the aggressor state (in particular, by returning to imperial and Soviet propaganda narratives, distortion or fabrication of facts, insinuations, etc.) and it was proved that Russia carefully carried out “disinformation support” of the states and their leaders, actions of international organizations aimed at supporting Ukraine; in addition, it disinformed the international community about Ukraine’s domestic policy. The opinion was justified that the development and dissemination of disinformation is one of Russia’s course of action on the international arena, a form of its aggression (in the context of hybrid wars) against Ukraine and Western democracies and their leaders, as well as international democratic organizations, a means of discrediting and defamation of opponents and adversaries.