Special Services

The Russian aggression against Ukraine continues, although the situation on the battlefield is not going according to the Kremlin’s plans. It was supposed to be a swift and easy war. However, Ukraine is putting up a stiff resistance and the invasion is slow. What is gaining momentum, though, is the information warfare that Russia is waging not only against Ukraine but also the world.

The Kremlin is trying to distort the image of the aggression, it is misleading the public opinion in Russia and the West by pushing manipulated narratives. Moscow knows that promoting a coarse propaganda and disinformation is a key to maintaining power over Russians who have been fed with lies for years.

But Russia needs these lies also to infect the international public opinion. This allows the Kremlin to trick the West and makes it harder to provide a real response to the war, while promoting the narrative suggesting the necessity to return to doing business with Russia.

In recent days, more and more deceptive content has been making its way into Western audiences. The media have started publishing pieces suggesting that Russia will win, that what we are dealing in Ukraine is a conflict between two equal adversaries or that the eastern areas of Ukraine are now returning to normal. What is even worse, some pieces imply that Russia is the guarantor of a return to normality, stabilization, and security.

The aforementioned manipulations often take the form of the Kremlin’s most blatant propaganda, but not always. Sometimes these are little lies, the selection of vocabulary that paints Russia in a positive light or attempts to present this Russian war against Ukraine as a mere conflict between two equally engaged parties. Such activities will indeed produce very dangerous outcomes. For this is the very step to develop a consent to the aggression and to the impunity of war criminals.

Russia is waging war against Ukraine in various ways, including with the help of propaganda. Today, preserving the integrity of the message about the Russia’s war against Ukraine is part of the response to genocide.

Spokesman for Poland’s Minister-Special Services Coordinator