MEDIA IN THE CONTEXT OF RUSSIA’S INFORMATION AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE AGAINST UKRAINE

Abstract

The article analyses the key characteristics of Russia’s information and psychological warfare against Ukraine. It emphasises that the aim of this existential aggression is the radical destruction of the being of Ukrainians – their mentality, identity, and civilisational foundations. On this immoral, anti-human, and anti-Ukrainian postulate rests the expansionist and colonial policy of the neo-Nazi Putin, the chauvinistic State Duma, and the manipulative functioning of the media, which widely employ disinformation, fakes, slander, and post-truth to erode the national consciousness of Ukrainians.

The aggressive rhetoric of the ‘Russian world’ (Russkii mir) is exposed. It is convincingly demonstrated that under the deceitful slogans of a ‘special military operation’ against Nazis, fascists, Mazepists, Petliurists, and Banderites – who allegedly seized power in Kyiv and supposedly persecute ‘Russian-speaking citizens’, thereby creating a threat to the Russian Federation – Moscow’s inquisitors at any cost seek to destroy the revived Ukraine independent state and Ukrainians as an ethnic group, people, and the nation.

It is substantiated that Putin’s deranged imperial ideas of reviving the Soviet Union in the guise of Muscovy have captured the Russian masses. They approve of and support the terrorist anti-Ukrainian war and together with priests loyal to Kirill bless soldiers to apply savage methods and forms of subjugation against spiritually free, nationally conscious Ukrainians, including prisoners.

It is proven that legions of Moscow’s bots and fake accounts brazenly multiply lies dressed as truth on social media. Through fabricated narratives, they permeate not only Ukrainian society but also Europe, America, and even Africa, portraying Ukraine in a distorted light.

Therefore, under the contemporary conditions of the existential and geopolitical Russian-Ukrainian war the functional humanistic mission of Ukrainian journalistic integrity grows exceptionally important: to bring the truth about Moscow’s policy of spiritual genocide, terror, and the demoralisation of Ukrainians to the hearts and minds of every person in Ukraine and citizens of foreign countries – a policy that has lasted for more than 850 years, beginning in 1169 with the first ominous destruction of Kyivan Rus’/Ukrainian golden-domed Kyiv by the northern Zalesian, Moksel tribes under Andrei Bogolyubskyi of Suzdal.

Keywords: propaganda, educational propaganda, historical truth, manipulation, media, post-truth, mass communication, information and psychological war.