Danchenkova: Ukraine is fighting two fronts – Russian attacks and the disinformation war

Ukrainians face intensified attacks and thousands of drones every day, and in addition to Russia's war of aggression, they also face another front: Russian disinformation. This is what Olha Danchenkova, co-founder of the organization "Calibrated" in Ukraine, says in an interview with The Geopost. She emphasizes that Russian psychological operations and disinformation directly target the emotions, trust, and morale of the population.

About 60% of Ukrainians, according to a recent study, remain susceptible to manipulation, she says, among other things.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Can you tell us a little about the current situation in Ukraine?

Danchenkova: Thank you for inviting me. Indeed, Ukraine is living in the fourth year of a full-scale occupation, but decades of Russian information operations and hybrid warfare. It has been even longer than that. It is the active part of the war. But now it is a grueling war, and all the people feel it in their bones, in their minds. Every day you wake up, every night you wake up to new information that the attacks are intensifying.

There used to be hundreds of Shahed drones, now there are thousands of Shahed drones. And this information space is really populated by Russian manipulative psychological operations, targeting people's resolve, their feelings, before we think, we feel. And these feelings, they go beyond war. This is emotional, a bunch of emotions. The latest research published in Ukraine about disinformation showed that about 60% of Ukrainians are ready to believe manipulative statements.

It was a questionnaire, “true or not true”, it’s practical. It’s not just self-esteem that I think I’m good, I don’t know anything, I distinguish truth from falsehood, but it’s a real test. It showed that the majority of the population is still susceptible to disinformation, but Ukraine is still strong. How is this possible? Because we are finding ways to combat fear with humor, fights, memes, songs, content that really helps to cope with fear, anxiety, and also content that gives us confidence that we are in a position to win, like Operation “Spider Web” or the targeting of Russian air bases inside Russia shows that examples, actions that really show that Russia is not that strong. It’s a paper tiger, but how it’s communicated, that’s the most important thing, is how we perceive this message. So we can see that Russia has not achieved a complete victory of Ukraine in more than three years. It’s such a big country. It didn't achieve dominance on the kinetic battlefield, so it's trying to win us over in the psychological battle, targeting us with missiles that are narratives, that go inside our phones and are sent to every citizen of Ukraine. So the Ukrainian StratCom, the civil-military resistance groups, the grassroots initiatives, they're all coming together to build this to explain to, let's say, parents how their children, their teenage children, can be recruited by Russian saboteurs via telegram to set fire to military trucks.

They, the Russians, rely on undermining trust in the authorities. So people don't trust the government, they don't trust the armed forces. So people feel hopeless that they are abandoned by their allies, that NATO won't help you, that the allies have abandoned you. You are a failed state. This is exactly the tactic that they are targeting every day, through the news, through real acts of sabotage, through cyber operations. So our preparedness as Ukrainians relies on communication resilience in crises, even when the Ukrainian railway operator was targeted by cyber attacks and millions of people couldn't get on a train because the online ticketing system was down. You can imagine what chaos the country would have if we weren't prepared for this, if the communications team and the risk management team weren't ready to put messages on Instastory, on every social media channel, to explain to people what to do, because we were prepared. And that's my message to our European colleagues, our allies. Prepare, prepare to be targeted by Russian hybrid attacks, because they are already attacking your civilians through social media, through cyberattacks, through disinformation. They will undermine your resolve.

And it's up to you, your government to decide how strong you are, how ready you are, because you will be attacked, but you can be prepared. And the example of Ukraine shows that you can still stand your ground, you can still be prepared for this. And yes, there will be casualties. I mean, in the cognitive space, there are people who will believe these narratives, amplified by AI, they're everywhere on TikTok, on Instagram, it's flooded. If you've heard it a hundred times, maybe you'll start to believe it.

But our resilience and our preparation build another story, a more powerful and compelling story about the projection of the future that we are all creating. It is empowering every person who is part of this, part of the resistance, part of the resilience. Each of us, if we see a manipulative statement that makes you feel “Oh, my attention is growing, I want to share it, I want to repost it”. This is 99% manipulation if you feel this kind of state. So, all of you can resist at this level and double check what you share, who you trust.

/The Geopost