Arseniy Yatsenyuk: Leadership of Free World Must Defeat any Fake News

The leadership of the free world should establish the principles of democracy and freedom. If this leadership does not exist, the dictators would restore their spheres of influence – through cyberattacks, information technologies and overt aggression,” Arseniy Yatseniuk, the leader of the People’s Front Party, said at the opening the 11^th Kyiv Security Forum on Thursday, April 12.

Arseniy Yatsenyuk stressed that in some member states of the EU, the democracy received a new name – non-liberal democracy: “This exactly means that the classical democracy in common understanding is decreasing.”

“The elected governments in democratic countries have many times less power, authority and responsibility than totalitarian governments and dictatorship governments. The elected national governments and presidents sometimes have less power than Facebook or Twitter. The informational progress certainly has more influence on the world processes than the United Nations Security Council,” he said.

The leader of the People’s Front Party emphasized that the key values of the world were threatened: “Citizens of all our countries are suffering from a new kind of political weapon – Information technologies that penetrate the minds of people with fake news in the language of hatred. This is done with the aim of capturing the thoughts and voices of our citizens in order to destroy democracy from the inside. At this background, such persons as Putin and Kim Jong-il are rising.”

“That is why the world now faces very big challenges, as well as the authorities in every country. The leadership of the free world should replace any fake news. The leadership of the free world should establish the principles of democracy and freedom in the world to persuade citizens that the elected leaders are on the right track and to restore the trust of their citizens in the lawfully elected authorities,”Arseniy Yatsenyuk emphasized.

“If this leadership does not exist, the dictators will restore their sphere of influence. Previously, the spheres of influence were restored through negotiations, closed or open. Nowadays there are the new technologies – spheres of influence are restored through cyberattacks, information technologies, and overt aggression. This is what Russia has done in relation to Ukraine, in relation to Georgia and Moldova. This is what the Russian president is doing in Syria today. This is the right of force, not the power of law,” the leader of the People’s Front Party stressed.

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The annual international event Kyiv Security Forum was launched by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation Open Ukraine in 2007 as a platform for high-level discussions on the current issues in Europe and the Black Sea region. The Forum aims at increasing security cooperation between the EU and the Black Sea region, raising awareness about regional developments among key regional players, promoting the role of independent and non-governmental actors in setting the security agenda in Europe.

The event is being held with the support of NATO Information and Documentation Center in Ukraine, the German Marshall Fund, The Victor Pinchuk Foundation, The Royal Institute of International Relations, Chatham House (UK), and The Regional Representative Office of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Ukraine.