Russia’s information wars against Ukraine are not limited to the past eight years of hybrid aggression, which 200 days ago evolved into a full-scale war. For decades, the Kremlin has spared no petrodollars for developing its TV networks, news agencies, swarms of online trolls, bot farms, and agents of influence. All this time, the propaganda machine has either been spreading narratives favorable to the Kremlin (like the ones of “coup d’état” in 2014, “rampant Nazism” in Ukraine, or “originally Russian” Crimea), or manipulate the reality and distort the truth to the point of absurdity (like those multiple faux versions of the MH17 disaster cause) in order to completely confuse audiences and divert incoming arrows from Moscow.
From the first days of the full-scale invasion, Kremlin propaganda climaxed in its «victorious rhetoric.» Its pundits have been celebrating victory almost immediately after February 24. Prilepin and the like claimed Russia would complete its blitzkrieg «within one and a half to three days», while Skabeeva promised Kyiv would fall «in two days.» Moreover, some of such reports were drafted and put on scheduled publication, as was the case with articles by RIA Novosti about a “quick victory” in the war with Ukraine, which were published on February 26 before being removed shortly afterwards.
Pro-Russian propaganda kills people’s minds, so it has no place in civilized countries. That is why, with the start of the war, the countries of the anti-Putin coalition one by one started banning TV outlets and YouTube channels incorporated in a country that endangers the territorial integrity and independence of another nation. Now such disinfo monsters as Rossiya24, Sputnik, Russia Today, and a number of others are banned across the EU. In an attempt to isolate its citizens from the «Western» Internet influence, Russia began to block social networks (Facebook, Instagram) as well as VPN applications. But, fearing extremely negative feedback from the population, the Kremlin stopped short of imposing a ban on popular services offered by Google. The latter continues to operate in Russia and retains access to its services for Russian citizens, to ensure that Russians have access to high-quality information.
Today, Russia is agonizing in the information war. Their desperate efforts boil down to simply denying the involvement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Russian military failures on the battlefield, even in the most obvious cases. For the heralds of the pro-Kremlin factory of lies, all that remains is to sculpt an alternative picture of what is happening for their domestic audiences, hushing up information that would be unpleasant to the ears of their patrons, such as the Ukrainian strikes on Russia’s military infrastructure in occupied Crimea (the “loud pops” and “accident due to someone ignoring the ‘smoking forbidden’ sign” references have already become internet memes), concealing Russian combat losses (the Moskva flagship), or presenting retreat from previously gained ground as “goodwill gestures” (such as the wwithdrawal from Kyiv region or flight from Snake Island). Propaganda says the latest defeats of the Russian army in Ukraine is a tactical move, clinging to the version that the front line may be altered, as western weapons are playing against Russia.
In contrast to this, from the very onset of the full-scale aggression, European and Ukrainian media, in unison with average citizens, have been resisting the Kremlin on the information front. From the first day of a full-scale invasion, they’ve been telling the world the truth about what’s happening in Ukraine. The war on the information front may be far from over, but at this stage Ukraine and civilized countries are successfully repelling Russian attacks. All this helped unite Europe and the whole world and bring to the agenda the message of what Ukraine is fighting for.