Ukraine’s cyberdiplomacy in countering Russian information aggression

Abstract

Ukraine’s counteraction to Russia’s information aggression in the international arena after its intervention in 2014 in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea to discredit everything Ukrainian requires the search for effective tools, considering the intensification of processes in cyberspace and the globalisation of communications. The purpose of this study was to prove that one of the effective tools for Ukraine’s counteraction to Russian information aggression of an anti-Ukrainian nature in international communications is cyberdiplomacy in its public diplomatic format. The research methodology included a set of general scientific methods (logic, induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis) and specialised methods, such as structural-functional, typological, narrative, and generalisation methods. Since the 1980s, the revolution of information and communication technologies and the cyberneticisation of the global information field have been shaping a new reality – cyberspace. As a communication medium in public diplomatic practices, it substantially affects the communication of governments with the public of foreign countries to influence foreign governments by promoting national ideas, values, institutions, culture, and policies in the information field of the target audience, which affects the image of the state through its perception by the foreign public. In this context, the aggressive policy of the Russian Federation, based on the achievements of the information age, demonstrated how authoritarian countries manipulate people’s minds and form beliefs that are favourable to them. Specifically, anti-Ukrainian information activities and the spread of false narratives around the world create a negative image of Ukraine to undermine its international authority and slow down Western assistance to it. Ukraine should actively counter these hostile narratives within the international cyberspace, with cyberdiplomacy in its public diplomatic format being an effective tool, and public/people’s diplomacy involving scientists, politicians, students, and the public as one of the instruments, as well as the creation of multichannel media platforms that will host relevant information and educational content with open access to foreign recipients in their languages. In terms of practical value, the findings of this study will serve to develop optimised models of Ukrainian cyberdiplomacy