Heading

In today’s information war, Russia uses not only disinformation but also real social problems to deepen divisions and manipulate public sentiment in Ukraine. How can these influence operations be countered and public trust maintained? These questions were discussed at the international conference “Minlyvist 2026: Learning, Adapting and Staying Human in an Era of Technological Change”.

Liubov Tsybulska, founder and director of the NGO Join Ukraine, took part in the event. The discussion was moderated by Tetiana Karas, Head of the Total Defence Programme. Other participants included representatives of the Center for Countering Disinformation and the Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communication, as well as Sander van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Cambridge.

Photo by Svitlana Shkurai

During the discussion, Liubov Tsybulska gave examples of how Russian propaganda exploits realities in Ukraine for its own information operations:

“Russia does not need to invent anything entirely new: it takes existing fault lines and widens them, deepening problems that are already there. When corruption is exposed, Russian propaganda tries to convince people that Ukraine is the most corrupt country in the world. When cases of injustice involving territorial recruitment centres arise, Russians try to convince people that the entire mobilisation system is unjust. It is important to talk about these problems not to set people against one another, but to find ways to address them and preserve our ability to act together,” she said.

Countering these information operations requires an understanding of how Russian influence works. This is one of Join Ukraine’s key areas of work: the team studies Russian information campaigns to identify threats and strengthen the resilience of Ukrainian society.