While Ukraine has done a lot to overcome Russia’s propaganda over the last year, much more is needed, including building an effective communication strategy instead of simply engaging in counter-propaganda.
How Ukraine can win the information war with Russia is the topic of one of the panels at the Kyiv Post Tiger Conference to be held at the Hilton Hotel in Kyiv on Nov. 19.
The panel will be moderated by Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner and features Dmytro Kuleba, Ambassador-at-Large for Strategic Communications at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine; Macon Phillips, coordinator of Bureau of International Information Programs at the U.S. Department of State; Timothy Ash, the London-based head of emerging market research for Standard Bank; and Ariel Cohen, director of the Center for Energy, Natural Resources and Geopolitics at the Institute for Analysis of Global Security.
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“In the information war, the fight is not for territories and economic wealth, but for public opinion or, to be more precise, for the opinion of every single individual,” said Volodymyr Poleviy, deputy head of the newly founded Information Analysis Center of the National Security and Defense Council. According to him, to win the information war, Ukraine’s leadership has to reach three different audiences – Ukrainian, Western and Russian.
For the first time in modern Ukraine’s history, the nation has a president, prime minister and foreign minister who speak not only Ukrainian and Russian, but also fluent English. This helps in discussions with Western officials and journalists, but can be no match for Russia’s comprehensive global propaganda network.
While Russia spends tens of millions of dollars on RT, a state-funded English language television channel formerly known as Russia Today, and other state-owned media, Ukraine’s resources are much more modest. Many successful initiatives in the information sphere in Ukraine come from private or nongovernmental organizations, not from the government.
During the EuroMaidan Revolution that toppled President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, many groups arose to supply information or PR to cover the protesters’ version of events, including an unprecedented volume of English-language materials. One of the most successful was Euromaidan Press, with its well-visited Facebook page Euromaidanpr and online newspaper euromaidanpress.com.
Another successful project, StopFake, was launched by participants of the Digital Future of Journalism and supported by Mohyla School of Journalism. Its first video podcast that refuted fake news from Russia went online at www.stopfake.org in March, soon after Russia started its military operation in Crimea.
“The website was created in two hours, and the news about it was shared by tens of thousands people in the social media the same night,” recalled journalist Olga Yurkova, who first got the idea of collecting fake news on one website. “The next day when the website was down due to thousands of visitors, we understood that the demand for such information is much greater that we could imagine.”
Yurkova said that the monthly audience of the website with its English and Russian versions is two million people now. Significant numbers of users are from Russia, which was the aim of the project. Around one third of all donations also come from Russians.
The first Ukrainian international channel, Ukraine Today, started broadcasting through satellite in Europe and online on Aug. 24. Now it broadcasts only in the English language, but a Russian version is expected soon. Ukraine Today belongs to 1+1 Media Group, owned by Ukrainian billionaire and Dnipropetrovsk Oblast governor Ihor Kolomoisky.
In October, hromadske.tv, a public internet channel, launched its English language weekly program Hromadske International. The show starts every Sunday at 8 p.m. Kyiv time and aims to explain “the Eastern European geopolitical storm in English.” The broadcasts are funded by various public and private grants.
After some delay, Ukraine’s government has tried to score some victories in the information war with Russia.
After the EuroMaidan Revolution, Russia’s military invasion and subsequent annexation of Crimea in March, as well the Kremlin’s instigation of a separatist war in the eastern Donbas in April, brought new challenges to the information war front.
Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council started the Information Analysis Center to coordinate its policy in the information sphere. On its website mediarnbo.org, one may find official information in three languages – Ukrainian, English and Russian – regarding events in Ukraine’s east and Crimea, as well as a continually updated map of the occupied territories.
Together with Ukraine’s state-owned information agency Ukrinform, the Information Analysis Center launched website with official information in three languages. At its website atocrimea.ukrinform.ua/ there is a media support section which goes to the Foreign Media Unit, another structure within the Information Analysis Center. The Foreign Media Unit supports English-speaking journalists with access to stories, places, speakers and credible news sources, including military and law enforcement experts.
Spokesmen of the Information Analysis Center give regular press briefings on the recent developments of the government’s anti-terrorist operation and other topics at the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, a press center located at Ukraina Hotel in Kyiv. It was organized by PRP, a local public relations agency and funded by international grants and private donations. The center runs a daily schedule of live press briefings and moderated discussions on the events in Ukraine with simultaneous English translation. Live streams from the events in the center as well as news announcements and other information in several languages can be found at uacrisis.org.
Despite significant progress in fighting Russian propaganda, Ukraine has still a lot of things to do to improve. They range from small technical issues, such as poor English language versions of the governmental websites or no English translation at all as in case with the Defense Ministry, to global tasks such as building effective international and domestic communication strategies.
While some experts say it is good that in Ukraine there is no monopoly on information others criticize the state for its poor information policy.
“Ukraine in the information war lacks consistency,” believes Yurkova from StopFake. “All successful projects are private initiatives. … But there is a lack of a “single voice” of the state.”
Another criticism goes to effective communication inside Ukraine, between Donbas, Crimea and other regions of Ukraine. There are no honest discussions of the topics that are important for average citizens. These are not only war, but also the hryvnia rate, price for gas and hot water, lustration of state officials.
Ukrainian officials are often reluctant to explain why firing back at Russia-backed separatists, Ukrainian military inadvertently hit residential quarters in Donbas; why Ukrainian military have difficulties with getting an official status of a participant of military actions; why there are problems in army supply.
Dealing with inconvenient topics Ukraine should not resort to counter-propaganda, Volodymyr Yermolenko, director for European programs at the Internews-Ukraine, believes. As soon as the world community realizes Ukraine is lying same as Russia, it will be disappointed in the nation.
“We should tell the truth,” Yermolenko said. “Governmental bodies should not be afraid of talking about mistakes of Ukraine, about problems of Ukraine, in particular about problems in the army. To take the position that we all are good and they all are bad is a failure as nobody will believe us.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Lyachynska can be reached at [email protected].
