Information policy of Ukraine: sympathetic, but often inaccurate

In the fight for information and opinion sovereignty, Ukraine is in a good position with the sympathizer Zelenskyj as president. However, hasty and inaccurate statements also cause difficulties for allies.

Ukraine as David against the overpowering enemy Russia as Goliath – that’s how it appears not only in reality, but also in the struggle for information and opinion sovereignty, which began long before the tanks rolled into Ukraine.

The Russian leadership has a well-rehearsed apparatus in which the state-affiliated media see themselves as information weapons and government officials make claims that can often be exposed as false. There are also networks in EU countries that business people close to Vladimir Putin have established over the years. Former politicians like Gerhard Schröder and François Fillon have taken on board posts in Russia and hold pro-Putin positions.

In Ukraine itself, the Russian president has a close friend in the oligarch Viktor Medvechuk, whose media railed against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government until the authorities shut it down. When pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych was in power in Ukraine, Paul Manafort, an American with ties to Moscow, lobbied for him. Former politicians in the EU could also be harnessed for this.

years of experience

But even if Russia has an established and sophisticated apparatus with tried-and-tested instruments ranging from covert lobbying to brutal war propaganda, the Ukrainian leadership around Zelenskyy is gaining sympathy worldwide.

Pro-Western and Russia-critical forces benefit from many years of experience in the fight against this apparatus. For example, during the Maidan Uprising in 2013-2014, students from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy founded the StopFake project to combat Russian disinformation.

The foundation of the oligarch Viktor Pinchuk organizes annual events with prominent representatives from the USA and the EU at the security conference in Munich and on other occasions. Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko has connections to conservative parties in the EU, which the CDU-affiliated Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation helped establish. As tensions with Russia increased, lobby organizations in Washington stepped up their work on behalf of Ukraine. Since the war, some lobbyists have been working without a fee.

Believable protagonist

Now that Ukraine’s survival is at stake, the Ukrainian leadership’s information policy serves to keep the morale of the population high, to find support worldwide and to inform about war crimes committed by Russia. But it is also about finding support within Russia.

There is hardly a better protagonist than Selenskyj. He comes from a Russian-speaking Jewish family in southern Ukraine. He was long known to television audiences in Russia as well as an actor in a comedy series in which he anticipated the role of the president who struggles with the Ukrainian language and kicks out the International Monetary Fund.

When he promised an end to the war in eastern Ukraine during the election campaign and as president from 2019, there were great fears that he might go too far to accommodate Putin. In this respect, his growing frustration with the Russian president seemed credible, as did his direct speeches to the people of Russia. In his video appearances, Selenskyj personifies the contradiction to Putin’s brutal speeches, for example about the denazification of Ukraine.

Hasty, inaccurate and false statements

However, sometimes statements by Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian armed forces turn out to be premature or inaccurate. They also put pressure on allies. For example, on February 26, Zelenskyy thanked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a tweet for Turkey’s closing access to the Black Sea to warships under the Montreux Treaty. From Turkey, however, it was initially said that no decision had been made. The government in Ankara only announced the closure two days later.

A similar problem arose with a post by the Ukrainian Air Force on Facebook that said Ukraine was receiving 70 fighter jets from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Poland. However, this was also claimed by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and foreign media. How sensitive the topic is is shown by the fact that a week later it has not yet been clarified whether and how MiG-29s will be brought from Poland to the Ukraine. It is clear here that everything should be avoided that could give Putin an excuse to take military action against Poland or another NATO country.

That’s why a tweet from an account that goes by the name Armed Forces of Ukraine on Twitter was sensitive. A video showing Georgian soldiers stepping out of a US Air Force plane was followed by the sentence “the ranks of fighters for the freedom of Ukraine are filling up.” This suggests that the US is bringing foreign soldiers into Ukraine. However, the video shows Georgian soldiers deployed in Afghanistan in 2021.

myths and legends

Other allegations are less problematic but still false, for example that Putin’s meeting with Aeroflot employees was faked because a video shows Putin’s hand “going through” the microphone in front of him. However, fact checkers from the BBC, for example, showed that playing the video in low resolution and high compression is an optical illusion.

Other videos, such as of Ukrainian tractors towing Russian tanks, provide a sympathetic image of heroic civilians triumphing over the overwhelming but seemingly faltering Russian armed forces. In addition, there is the difficult to verify information from the Ukrainian secret services and armed forces about massive material losses and high numbers of fallen and arrested Russian soldiers.

Stories like the one about the “Ghost of Kyiv” suggest that they could be legends with a core of truth. It is said to be a Ukrainian pilot who is said to have shot down six Russian fighter jets. The case is similar with the “Panther of Kharkiv” – a tomcat who is said to have discovered four Russian snipers.

Between patriotism and objective reporting

Such legends arise in wars to maintain perseverance and fighting spirit. Exaggerating and omitting information, for example about one’s own losses, also serves this purpose. Media professionals find themselves in a difficult situation between patriotism for their country on the one hand and the right to objective reporting on the other.

The extent to which journalists appear too activist has been an issue in Ukraine for years, but also in Armenia, for example, which was at war with Azerbaijan in 2020. There was initially great optimism because the government announced positive things, while the enemy’s reports of success were considered implausible and a clear overview of the situation at the front was not possible. However, when Armenia’s defeat in the war could no longer be denied, people became even more angry with the government. A serious domestic political crisis followed.

Even the ex-president of Georgia, Mikhail Saakashvili, could no longer hide the fact that his style of government was becoming more and more authoritarian, despite great lobbying efforts at the end of his second term. Some of his advisers also worked for Ukraine.

In addition, during the war in Ukraine, the Russian side uses false information for fact checks in order to cast Ukraine in a negative light. Such fact checks are used on the “War on Fakes” website to enrich it with Russian propaganda, for example that Russian forces would not bomb civilian installations.

This shows how important a credible and legitimate approach to information policy is, even in the extreme situation of war.