Sudakova: Russia through Telegram aims to psychologically defeat Ukrainians

Russia’s disinformation about Ukraine has caused the motivation of the soldiers who are defending the territory from the Russian invaders to fall, says the co-founder of the SEOforMedia Agency, Natalia Sudakova, in an interview for The Geopost. She emphasizes that this is a problem they are constantly fighting.

Sudakova says that Russia is trying to break Ukrainians with constant disinformation on Telegram.

That Russia has found other methods to spread its propaganda and disinformation, according to her, it can also be seen on Google.

“If you google search in Russian, you’ll see mostly Russian websites. There’s only propaganda out there, only disinformation. We just don’t know how to get to better quality information, and that’s a big problem right now, and we even see that some media outlets are turning their website into Russian because they have realized that it is important, first, to reach out to those people and then maybe try to help them make up their minds or change their minds,” she says.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Can you please tell us about the latest situation on the Russian disinformation and propaganda in Ukraine?

Natalia Sudakova: For me, it’s not only one thing, because we are having this constant fight with Russian propaganda, for example, now we have this escalation in Vovchansk, it’s near Kharkiv, and we constantly see disinformation about our soldiers not being prepared, our defense not being prepared, and that we are losing, that we will lose tomorrow, or maybe the day after tomorrow, and so on. And not only people because of that starting to get more depressed, but soldiers, they read the news and disinformation works on all the fronts, it also works with minds of the soldiers, and I would say that it’s like the last one because it’s happening right now.

The Geopost: In your presentation you also talked about disinformation that is coming from Google, how do you see that?

Natalia Sudakova: Yes, but also about Telegram, if you saw the last results of the last analysis on the topic, currently, in Ukraine, people mostly take news from Telegram channels, not from the news channels itself. And in at all, 80% of people at some point get news from Telegram. In Ukraine, it’s huge. And only like 40%, if I’m not mistaken, I think like 39%, 40%, read the classic news.

So, for Google, the problem that is for media, traffic from Google, it’s the main source of traffic. And right now, this platform has become more and more important.

People get news from Google not only like usual search. We use our phones every day, and you can see Google Discover on it, Google News, it’s also Google platform, and you can get news there, but if you have a phone in Russian language or if you Google in Russian, you will see only Russian news.

And the beginning of the full-scale invasion, lots of media took down their Russian pages, and after that, more Russian websites have better results in Google, better views, especially on the occupied territory. If you Google in Russian, you will see mostly Russian websites. It’s like only propaganda there, only disinformation. They just don’t know how to get to the better, like more quality information and that’s a huge problem right now.

We even see that some media returning their Russian page because they understand that not only they’ve fallen down, but they understand that it’s important, firstly, to get to those people and then maybe try to help them decide or change their minds.

The Geopost: What’s your message for the journalists, I’m coming from Balkans, Kosovo, how to fight all this disinformation?

Natalia Sudakova: I would say, first of all, to know how to analyze your audience, to use your Google Analytics better, to understand what your people really read and how to make more of it. To understand how to spread it, not only to write, but to market after. How to work with Google, with Telegram channel, or like what you use in your countries, how to sell it to the audience, not only to make it first. Because journalism, it’s always about just like writing the text, but then we actually just move on to the next one, and that is the problem, because we can make 100 people or 1,000 people read this text, and it actually matters, because it’s like 900 more.

So, for me it’s now not about the quantity, but the quality, because we make more and more content every day. With AI it’s even like bigger speed and the only thing we can do with it it’s not like just trying to write even more and more. It’s to make more quality of the ones we’ve already wrote.

/The Geopost