The fight against disinformation requires a synergy of international efforts, - StopFake.org Editor-in-Chief

Fighting Russian disinformation requires a synergy of international efforts at the global level.

Yevhen Fedchenko, Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief, StopFake.org, voiced this idea the 15^th annual Kyiv Security Forum, established by Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s “Open Ukraine” Foundation.

“Information war has been going on for many years, and it will continue for a long time. As soon as Russia loses at the frontline, it will turn to over-subtle and sophisticated non-kinetic tools – disinformation, cyber attacks, information leaks, etc. This is exactly what Russia stands ready to do and knows how to do,” the expert noted.

According to Yevhen Fedchenko, the West hardly embraces the vibrant level of Russian disinformation system and the massive scale of its integration at the global level across countries.

“I believe it is wrong for the issue of disinformation disappearing from the political agenda radars. We witness rather dangerous tendencies of fast-track restructuring of Russian disinformation agenda. They disintegrate the whole system into small segments, and triage them as a pointed effort onto selected countries of Europe or South America,” the expert added.

“Noteworthy, in Spain, for instance, there is such a disinformation subsystem operating either on the extreme left or on the extreme right, and adapting to specific audiences. This way disinformation ceases to be purely Russian, and becomes quasi-local. So, it is much more difficult to fight it, as it is more difficult to define it. And this is exactly the kind of disinformation that Russia now propagates proactively,” he said.

Yevhen Fedchenko emphasized that Russia spends a lot of resources and effort to support and disseminate disinformation.

“There is a lot of euphoria that we are winning and, hence, can switch to doing something else. This is an erroneous approach, as it is impossible to ascertain a final and definitive victory,” he said.

Noteworthy, the 15th annual Kyiv security forum “For Our and Your Freedom / Fighting for NATO” will be held on May 25-26, 2023, with the participation of well-known international figures. In particular, at the Forum, the KSF Security Council will be formed and a policy document will be adopted with recommendations for the NATO summit in Vilnius to be held this July.