Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Feb. 27 approved a new information security doctrine for the country, to fight “the aggressive information war” being waged by Russia against Ukraine.
The doctrine was approved by the National Security and Defense Council on Dec. 29.
One of the doctrine’s goals is to counteract Russia’s “dangerous information influence” on Ukraine, against the background of Russia’s “hybrid war” against the country.
“The need for an information security doctrine is due to the emergence of current threats to national security in the information field,” reads a statement on the presidential website. It is also necessary “to apply innovative approaches to the formation of systems of defense and development in the information in conditions of globalization and the free circulation of information.”
According to the decree, legislation is required for the monitoring of the Ukrainian segment of the internet, and the country’s media, in particular, to detect information that “poses a threat to the life or health of Ukraine’s citizens; propagates war, or national or religious enmity… (or) promotes the Communist or Nazi totalitarian regimes and their symbolism.”
The implementation of the doctrine, according to the document, is only possible if there is “proper coordination between all the state bodies.”
They will have to take part in defending against “the audiovisual and printed content of the aggressor country (Russia) by developing Ukrainian cinematography, television content, and book printing,” the decree reads.
In addition, the doctrine says the Ukrainian agencies and ministries concerned with the information sphere have to “give coverage to the heroic resistance of the Ukrainian nation to Russian aggression.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected].
