Russia is trying to sow disbelief within Ukrainian society through terror. This includes intensified drone attacks against Ukrainian cities, fake and manipulative stories around the issue of POW exchange and repatriation of bodies.
This was stated on national television by the chief of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Kovalenko.
Russia’s guidebook of destabilizing Ukrainian society is not changing. As he noted, compared to previous years, Russian terror has become more massive so it might seem at first glance that Russia has changed its approaches.
“Russian tactics have been around since imperial times: they choose a point on the wall and then try to break through it with your head. Here they are trying to break through (the resolve of – ed.) Ukrainian society,” he said.
In particular, recently this has been about Russian air raids targeting Ukrainian cities.
“They launched 400 (UAVs – ed.) and immediately in chat rooms in Kyiv and Odesa, bots are circulating reports – in Ukrainian, using ChatGPT or else – that there is supposedly some order not to shoot down the Shahed drones. So they try to spread this ‘word of mouth’ among our people. Of course, this is not true. Of course, the Shaheds are getting shot down. The Shaheds are simply flying at higher altitudes and the approaches to intercepting them down are changing. FPV interceptors are being used, and so on. No one is explaining this. In fact, they haven’t changed anything at all in their approaches. They are simply using more massive cases of terror to sow disbelief,” Kovalenko said.
Just as he added, the Russian method of influence is aimed at sowing doubt inside Ukraine regarding the exchanges, in particular, regarding the intentions of the Ukrainian authorities to take away the bodies of the dead.
“Everything that was agreed upon in Istanbul was moving clearly according to plan. Then the Russians immediately began to manipulate, show trucks loaded with bodies, claiming Ukraine didn’t want to take them, claiming there are no bodies of Russian soldiers in Ukraine for exchange, that someone does not want to pay compensation. All these manipulative reports were purposefully targeting certain segments of Ukrainian society. The Russians’ task now is to sow as much disbelief as possible within Ukraine regarding the actions of the military and political leadership,” Kovalenko noted.
He emphasized that these manipulations came in against the background of the strikes and were aimed at breaking the Ukrainian rear, pitting Ukrainian civilians against the army, against military and political leadership, and sowing chaos.
“Nothing new is really happening here, the narratives are just a little different. Well, there is a separate vulnerable group – these are the families of captured servicemen, families of the fallen soldiers. And, I think, the Russians use a separate technique toward them. … That is, this is such an FSB technique – to create a certain community of certain people with their certain problems, emotional experiences, and to try to lead them in a specific direction beneficial for the FSB. In this case, this direction is anti-Ukrainian to a certain extent,” Kovalenko said.
As Ukrinform reported earlier, the Security Service of Ukraine warned about the culmination of the campaign to discredit Ukraine in the context of POW exchanges. The decision to start it was approved personally by Vladimir Putin. The goal of the campaign is to provoke outrage among Ukrainianі (military personnel and their families) over the actions of the Ukrainian authorities, to demoralize people, while simultaneously compromising Ukraine before the international community as a party that fails to deliver on its obligations.
Source: Through terror, Russia aiming to sow disbelief among Ukrainians - watchdog
