The Russian Federation Information Influence (the Czech Republic case study)

Abstract

Nowadays the hybrid attacks that use propaganda and fake news and are actively inculcated by the information centers under the control of Russian Federation on the territories of EU countries present serious threat not only to Ukraine in the view of disseminating false information about the events in our country but to the population of EU countries who are the final users of such information as well. On the basis of examples fixed by the European representatives concerning a great number of facts when Russia interfered into the process of elections in France and Germany, hackers attacks on social networks of Great Britain during public discussions and referendum on Brexit, we ascertained that the informational presence of the RF propaganda schemes played the decisive role in choosing the European policy, presaged Brexit and ensured the growth of European populists rating on the eve of the important political processes in a number of countries. The aim of the article is to show the means and methods of Russian information propaganda in EU countries on the example of the Chech Republic. Such methods of Russian information propaganda as strict following the multilingual principle while disseminating the same information to different resources in different countries; active usage of English as a mediator; usage of local internet resources; broadcasting the reiterative stories about the migrants from Arab states, the threat of Islamism for Europe, criticism of Western political elite, military crises in Ukraine; forming the image of Russia as the main opponent of aggressive US policy, the symbol of stability; focusing on the negative news, i.e. on protests, political rows, notorious retirements in EU and Western countries; ignoring the success and achievements etc. have been defined. We came to the conclusion that hybrid war in Ukraine drew attention of not only the European population but of the whole world to political, media and social phenomena that is the information war of Russia vs. Ukraine and in broad aspect – to a modern propaganda of Russia which has already challenged the whole democratic world, with an impact on public opinion formation and views of young people. Key words: hybrid war, misinformation, information influence, information propaganda.