Simulacra and fakes in the information warfare

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Ðàçìåùåíî íà http://www.allbest.ru/

Simulacra and fakes in the information warfare

Maryna Kolinko, Borys Grinchenko, Kyiv University; Halyna Petryshyn, Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of political communication, inscribed into the new soc iocultural and political systems of relations, into the wartime conditions. It has been proven that information media and network communications not only influence the behavior of social subjects, but can also destroy ideas about order, justice, and morality if they are exposed to the propaganda technologies of an aggressive state. In the structure of information influence, propaganda plays a decisive role, its task is to spread ideas and views, true or half-true facts, outright lies or rumors with the aim of manipulating public consciousness. The special relevance of this problem in the context of information support of the actions of the Russian authorities during Russia's war against Ukraine is emphasized.

Keywords: propaganda, manipulation, information warfare, information space, fake

Ñèìóëÿêðè ³ ôåéêè â ³íôîðìàö³éí³é â³éí³

Ìàðèíà Êîë³íüêî, Êè¿âñüêèé óí³âåðñèòåò ³ìåí³ Áîðèñà Ãð³í÷åíêà; Ãàëèíà Ïåòðèøèí, Òåðíîï³ëüñüêèé íàö³îíàëüíèé ïåäàãîã³÷íèé óí³âåðñèòåò ³ìåí³ Âîëîäèìèðà Ãíàòþêà

Ñòàòòþ ïðèñâÿ÷åíî äîñë³äæåííþ ïîë³òè÷íî¿ êîìóí³êàö³¿, âïèñàíî¿ ó íîâ³ ñîö³îêóëüòóðí³ òà ïîë³òè÷í³ ñèñòåìè â³äíîñèí, â óìîâè âîºííîãî ÷àñó. Äîâåäåíî, ùî ³íôîðìàö³éí³ çàñîáè, ìåðåæåâ³ êîìóí³êàö³¿ íå ëèøå âïëèâàþòü íà ïîâåä³íêó ñîö³àëüíèõ ñóá'ºêò³â, à é ìîæóòü çðóéíóâàòè óÿâëåííÿ ïðî ïîðÿäîê, ñïðàâåäëèâ³ñòü, ìîðàëüí³ñòü, ÿêùî ï³ääàþòüñÿ ïðîïàãàíäèñòñüêèì òåõíîëîã³ÿì àãðåñèâíî¿ äåðæàâè. Ó ñòðóêòóð³ ³íôîðìàö³éíîãî âïëèâó ïðîïàãàíäà â³ä³ãðຠâèçíà÷àëüíó ðîëü, ¿¿ çàâäàííÿì º ïîøèðåííÿ ³äåé ³ ïîãëÿä³â, ïðàâäèâèõ ÷è íàï³âïðàâäèâèõ ôàêò³â, â³äâåðòî¿ áðåõí³ àáî ÷óòîê ç ìåòîþ ìàí³ïóëÿö³¿ ãðîìàäñüêîþ ñâ³äîì³ñòþ. ϳäêðåñëåíî îñîáëèâó àêòóàëüí³ñòü ö³º¿ ïðîáëåìè â êîíòåêñò³ ³íôîðìàö³éíîãî ñóïðîâîäó ä³é ðîñ³éñüêî¿ âëàäè ï³ä ÷àñ â³éíè Ðîñ³¿ ïðîòè Óêðà¿íè.

Êëþ÷îâ³ ñëîâà: ïðîïàãàíäà, ìàí³ïóëÿö³ÿ, ³íôîðìàö³éíà â³éíà, ³íôîðìàö³éíèé ïðîñò³ð, ôåéê.

Introduction

In the contemporary world, the selection of information and the ability to present it affects the processes of perception and attitude of people towards the events of social life within the limits set by the customer of information. The political space of each society creates its own information environment that reflects the internal and external processes of the country. Our scientific research offers an analysis of political manipulations during the tragic time of Ukraine's war against the Russian invaders. Information warfare not only accompanies hostilities, but also has become a separate direction of Ukraine's struggle for its freedom long before the full-scale invasion.

The research task is to generalize the methods of distorting the information space of Russian society, which are connected with the understanding that the basis of political processes in Russia is the fear of democratic changes, marking them as a threat, chaos, the destruction of established traditions and an attempt on the so- called “skrepy”, the desire to eliminate them by returning to archaic forms of social organization. Wanting to preserve the traditional mechanisms of government, Russia produces the narrative of the “post-Western world order”, which is dangerous because it destroys the principles of the democratic world and tries to attract other traditionalist worlds, e.g. Chinese, Islamic worlds etc. to its concept. The orientation of society towards narrowly interpreted national values, the formation of an image of the outside world as hostile one takes unattractive, dangerous forms, which affects communication strategies. The Russian information space is distorted in accordance with the country's imperial goals, the means of disinformation also work in favor of creating an information bubble for its own society.

The purpose of the article is to identify the factors of propaganda influence in the information field of Russia's contemporary war in Ukraine and to determine the most effective mechanisms for countering these manipulations in order to learn lessons and build an effective policy of containing propaganda challenges.

Research methods

Social topological methodology is used as an umbrella philosophical strategy in the study of the differences between the narratives of Ukrainian and Russian societies, the determination of Ukraine's place in the informational and social world space, the formation of mage of the enemy by Russia and the understanding of the forms of Russian propaganda. Social topology is an effective integrative system that combines and connects various methods of studying information space and political communication, which we proved in past studies (Kolinko, 2017, 2019a, 2019b). It allows presenting the meanings of the concepts “political world”, “information space”, “propaganda”, “fake”, etc. in a relevant way. To achieve the purpose, the methods of discourse analysis and content analysis, logical and linguistic procedures of text exploration are used in scientific research. The methodological basis of the study was supplemented by the provisions of social constructivism, which allow considering the political space as a system of sociocultural and political codes, which gives it uniqueness and forms the initial cultural and political matrix of society as a set of algorithms that determine the political consciousness and behavior of people.

With the help of these methodological guidelines, it has been found that the political space of Russian society is self-contained in its own descriptions, it lives in its own reality of an “information bubble”, which to some extent is inaccessible to other political worlds, creates an inadequate perception of the goals of the Russian invasion of Ukraine by the population.

Results and Discussion

A society in which people are clearly aware of the dangers of subtle psychological manipulations and covert psychotronic technologies can resist their influence. Depersonalization in a totalitarian culture is accompanied by the development and constant empirical verification of techniques and methods of dispersing personal integrity, suppressing a critical attitude to the world in the public consciousness. In the era of postmodern simulacra and post-truth, the formation of public consciousness and public opinion is connected with the technologies of constructing the image of the enemy, the use of linguistic tools (syntactic forms, lexical semantics of metaphors and euphemisms), vivid visualization of events, and the use of their personification. “The language of enmity inherent in the leaders of Russia and Belarus creates a narrative of a people surrounded by enemies, an image of a fortress country and border walls. The image acts as a means of communication within the framework of certain political events. The well-known phrase “a wall has grown between us” means ceasing, making communication impossible. The idea of a limited social space surrounded by a wall makes people living in it feel isolated, experience a lack of development and prospects, hopelessness and broken communication ties” (Kolinko, 2022: 57).

In the information warfare, rational and irrational methods of influencing the audience are used. The use of emotional reactions instead of a rational description of events is a common method of influencing the average person. In everyday life, an ordinary person is guided by certain ideas about “our native” understandable world, creates a certain valuable picture of the world. If the information does not coincide with one's values, a person is able to refute the obvious things in favor of preserving personal value preferences.

The method analyzed by Zarina Zabrisky, an American expert on Russian propaganda, belongs to the same methodological propaganda toolkit. She characterizes the method of Rapid Fire Conspiracy/Overload, which “contributes to the promotes an overflow of images of violent protests, vandalism, fire, injuries, deaths intended to shock the nervous system and cause stress in the target audience. Repetition of triggering words and images, rapid switching of stories and inconsistency are intended to result in depression, panic, fear and confusion... large amounts of conflicting information disorient the target audience and it seems that their programmes deliberately create an atmosphere of danger and crisis. With sufficient exposure, PTSD symptoms develop and cause the inability to think critically and act rationally” (Zabrisky, 2022).

The method of dispersing the phenomenon in a set of variations

In the interpretation of the event, real facts are blurred in a multitude of “alternative versions”, there is a powerful and persistent influence on emotional perception, which refutes the work of analytical tools, obvious evidence, judgments based on laws and methods of logic. In order to hide the actions and atrocities of the Russian army on Ukrainian territories, Russian propaganda resorts to blurring the truth, offering its audience several versions of the same event or spreading several false reports at the same time, for example, the Russian media coverage of the bombing of the maternity hospital in Mariupol has the following variations: “There were no staff and women in labor in the maternity hospital, but there were Azov soldiers”, “The right sector fighters bombed the maternity hospital”. The destruction of the civilian population in Bucha is presented as a fake “production” of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a “planned media company”. All this is nothing but manipulation of the consciousness of the average Russian citizen. Of course, the multiplication of options for presenting one event affects the ability to critically think about what has been done.

In his book “The Art of War”, Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu noted that “the highest perfection is to break the enemy's resistance without fighting”. For this, the gaslighting method is used in modern warfare. It is based on an idea demonstrated in Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play “Gas Light” and the famous film “Gaslight” starring Ingrid Bergman. The heroine is forced to doubt the adequacy of her perception of events. When a person is not sure that their ideas about the world are real, they do not see the degree of control that another person has over them. Gaslighting is a classic tactic used by abusers, cult leaders, and dictators to change the victim's reality in their favor. This is a method of psychological violence aimed at disorienting people in the political and information space.

Russia massively and extensively uses cybertechnologies in the war against Ukraine to lobby its interests and interfere in the politics of other countries: cyberattacks on the banking system and state websites of Ukraine, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, hacker attacks during the American and French elections, etc. It covertly finances the mass media and officials in various countries to convey its narratives, which is why in the countries of the democratic world, the focus on the detection and expulsion of Russian agents has recently been sharpened. Jane Lytvynenko, a researcher at the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard's Kennedy School, expressed her opinion about the influence of Russian propaganda in the West: “Russia has been working with audiences for a very long time. I think it is too early to say that Russia was defeated in the West in general. The Ukrainians did a really powerful job of repelling Russian propaganda. Pro- Russian narratives are unpopular in many Western countries. But this does not mean that they cannot become popular with time” (Butsko, 2022).

The social and political role of network communications before the outbreak of war consists in quick responding to the creation of fakes of political mythology. According to a well-known philosophical maxim, “the sleep of the mind creates monsters”. Uncertainty of information causes the play of a person's imagination, they themselves complete the event as suggested by their experience and expected by the value system. The game of imagination creates assumptions and fantastic assumptions that do not correspond to the truth of history, mythologizes the life-world. It generates rumors within a single informational and emotional matrix that characterizes social tension, collective despair (which may be related to a real danger to the community or the need to mythologize the world). The creation of an “information bubble” is an important algorithm for introducing ideas beneficial to the aggressor. Russia created such an information space not only in its own society, but also in other countries: the post-Soviet space, Asia, Africa, Latin America. The work was carried out for decades and today these technologies are being exposed all over the world.

J. Lytvynenko notes that social communications were not prepared to resist a full-scale invasion and describes the actions of social networks as “emergency”, although at the same time powerful. “At the same time, there were some, I would say, harmful approaches that social networks have used before and that are showing up now. One of them is that Russian propaganda, even an external one, such as the Russia Today website, does not stop working in Spanish and Arabic, and in general in nonWestern parts of the world. We observe this uneven approach from the side of social media, it is about global application of the law” (Butsko, 2022). Over time, there is a weakening of the response of social network administrators to propagandists stuffing, which is also facilitated by the non-obviousness and veiled nature of disinformation. For example, the accounts of officials, diplomatic institutions, and opinion leaders are used to introduce false narratives. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are taking measures to verify facts and combat disinformation, but the dispersion of the information product across different platforms requires the development of joint complex algorithms.

Ukrainian political scientist and blogger Ihor Petrenko singles out three main directions in Russian propaganda prior to the start of Russia's full-scale attack on Ukraine: the formation of a positive image of Russia and its policies; the formation of a negative image of geopolitical opponents of the Russian Federation and international partners of Ukraine; the spread of destructive information messages about events in Ukraine (Petrenko, 2022). In addition to the above, Kremlin narratives should be noted, the content of which is the rewriting of Ukrainian history. For example, the following messages can be found in the Russian mass media: “Modern Ukraine is a complete child of the Soviet era”, Ukrainians are “the Little Russian branch of Great Russia” (Lyzanchuk, 2021). Or “Ukraine is an artificial project of the West”, and Crimea, Donbas and the south-east of Ukraine are Russia. Each of these messages is aimed at producing both an inferiority complex and a revision of Ukrainian history.

One of the fundamental ideas on which the entire public ideology of the Russian government is built is the idea of the “Russian World”, the seeds of which can be traced back to Russian-centric currents, particularly Slavophilism. Since the main thesis of the ideology of the “Russian World” is the need to unite compatriots who live abroad and have a common history, it is not at all accidental that there is a strong criticism of the European choice of Ukraine.

The implementation of the “Westsplaining” technology is being observed, i.e. the persistent opinions of some Western commentators about Ukrainians in the colors of disappointment, about the end of the Ukrainian war on Russia's terms, there are attempts to discredit Ukraine in the EU countries. The war is reflected in the following messages spread abroad by Russian propaganda: “Ukraine has failed to live up to the EU's expectations by failing in the fight against corruption”, “Ukraine threatens liberal values by promoting nationalist ideas”, “Ukraine is a threat to stability on the continent due to noncompliance with the Minsk agreements”. However, sociological surveys “testify to a serious advantage of European integration: almost two-thirds (64%) of citizens believe that the main integration direction of Ukraine should be accession to the EU” (Solodkyy, 2022). In the Russian mass media, the interpretation of current events in Ukrainian social and political life and the issue of Ukraine's international relations with Western countries and the USA are presented as “external management” of Ukraine and “absence of Ukraine's sovereignty”. Misinformation about events in Ukraine is being tried to be built on individual examples with negative consequences, which are positioned as a nationwide trend. For example, using conflict situations that arise on issues of the language and culture of national minorities, they designate it as persecution of the Russian-speaking population or denial of the Ukrainian national minorities' right to their own culture and language by the authorities. The Russian media's fueling of the story of the burning of the “Center of Hungarian Culture” in Zakarpattia in 2018 and its presentation from the point of view of the actions of radical nationalist groups is illustrative.

In the concepts of information struggle developed in Russia in recent years, considerable attention is paid to the spread of disinformation, the purpose of which is to influence the evaluation, intentions and orientation of the population of Eastern Ukraine, where the TV air is monopolized by Russian TV channels, to the benefit of the Russian authorities. In particular, the course of the antiterrorist operation in 2014 is presented in the following way: “In Shchastya village, a mass cleansing is currently taking place, the civilian population is being destroyed, women and children are being massacred, all of them - aged from 16 to 50” (Television news service Ukraine, 2014). Outright lies, prepared and fueled by propaganda channels, are built into the established simulative construction of the world.

The analysis of open sources in ORDLO, conducted by the NGO “Eastern Human Rights Group” from November 2018 to July 2019, allows to state that the information disseminated among the population aims to build the image of a friend in the face of the Russian Federation, spread hatred for Ukraine and European values, and form “ideals of war” among children and youth (UKRINFORM, 2019). A special place is occupied by the topic of the deployment of hostilities allegedly through the fault of Ukraine, which is supported by the filming of fake reports about the strengthening of the protection of administrative buildings and the need to introduce martial law. War propaganda is carried out by indirect methods through the ideas of “advantages of Russian weapons”, the need to “protect peace” and its citizens, etc.

All this rhetoric is aimed at justifying the military invasion of Ukraine and forming the opinion about the need to fight for the so-called “historical territory”, the unification of Russian lands and the protection of the Russianspeaking population from the “Nazis” and “Banderites”, the conviction that there will be no tangible consequences of the war for the population thanks to the propaganda of “powerful Russian weapons” among ordinary Russians. Distorted reality is presented to the internal resident of the Russian Federation in soothing tones, the image of the “second army of the world” is formed, which “protects” and “does not abandon others” (which is easily refuted by the facts demonstrated by independent sources of information); the armed forces of Ukraine, on the contrary, are demonized. In the spring of 2022, Russia adopted the Criminal Code on fake news, which prohibits the spread of “falsehoods about the Russian armed forces”, that is, any opinion that differs from the official one cannot be expressed. Thus, the Russian authorities have been given all the instruments of pressure to silence the opposition media.

Russia justifies the beginning of its intervention in Ukraine with the following messages: “If the Russian Federation had not attacked Ukraine, Ukraine would have attacked Russia”, “We do not want war, but the insidious enemy has left us no choice”, etc. The technology of logical paradox is used here. Here is an example of this manipulation. Before the Russian invasion of the territory of the Ukrainian Crimea in 2014, opinions were formed for a certain period of time about the possible murder of Crimean residents by nationalists from the western regions of the country. A narrative of enmity between separate regions of Ukraine was formed, and the separation of the territory of Crimea was prepared. Rumors about the murder of Russian-speaking people, the expropriation of housing and land had been circulating for years in various interpretations. If people do not assume such a scenario, an emotional premonition of something bad grows. The panic stuffing fell on fertile ground in 2014: “The Right Sector is heading to Crimea. Danger: they will kill the Russian-speaking population”. The average population living in the Russian-speaking information space consumed political concepts proposed by the Russian mass media, even if they did not believe in the murder of all Crimeans, they already trusted this partial version. This is how the logical paradox works.

During Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine, the Kremlin produces streams of disinformation every day, building new or using old narratives about Ukraine depending on successes or failures at the front. At the beginning of the war, the Russian mass media spread the thesis that the war in Ukraine is a “special military operation” the purpose of which is “denazification and demilitarization”, and later - messages: “Ukraine is conducting a policy of genocide against the inhabitants of Donbas”, “Ukraine must be cleansed of Nazis and of Nazi ideology, which pose a threat to the entire civilized world”, “laboratories for the development of biological weapons operate on the territory of Ukraine”, “Ukrainians are waiting for liberation from the 'Kyiv regime'”, etc. The core message of the Kremlin is the thesis that the so-called “"special operation” is a preventive measure for self-defense and protection of the world from “Nazism”.

On July 20, 2022, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Lavrov announced the “expansion of the geography” of the military annexation (perhaps referring to the Donbas and southern Ukraine) and cited Western support for Ukraine and the supply of weapons as an argument for the “change of position”. But this propaganda passage does not take into account that since February 24, 2022, the unsuccessful attempts of the Russian Federation to seize Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, and Kharkiv show that the territorial ambitions of the invader go far beyond the borders of Donbas. Russia launched an attack on the northeastern regions of Ukraine and proclaimed the goal of “demilitarization and denazification” of all of Ukraine, that is, the destruction of state independence. The invasion was thrown back, the Russian army was expelled from the northeastern territories, and the confrontation continues in other regions, so Lavrov's statement does not show the expansion of ambitions, but the recognition of the failure of the previous goal.

With the beginning of Russia's full-scale intervention in Ukraine, the Russian authorities faced the need to conceal war crimes committed by its troops on the territory of Ukraine. For this purpose, Russian propaganda builds several narratives at once, with the aim of demonizing the actions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: “Ukraine itself is shelling cities and the civilian population, and blames Russia for this”, “Ukraine is responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe and victims during the war”, the Armed Forces of Ukraine uses the civilian population as a “human shield”, purposefully blocks the work of “green corridors”, etc., and the large-scale destruction of Ukrainian cities is fabricated by Ukraine itself. As for Russia, fake videos on the topic “How Russians are warmly welcomed in the territories 'liberated from the Nazis'” are being spread. The key task of such messages is to show the “peacefulness” of the actions of the Russian army and the “aggressiveness” of the actions of Ukraine, and that it is Ukraine that is responsible for the escalation of the war. Russian propaganda actively uses the method of accusing Ukraine in order to shift responsibility for its actions and plans to another. This also applies to the shelling of Russian border territories by its own troops, with the aim of introducing a general military mobilization in Russia, and the dissemination of information through Russian telegram channels about the preparation of various provocations by the SBU, and the Russians will be blamed, in particular in Odesa, in order to start a military campaign in Transnistria or in Polissia to force Belarus to use its armed forces in the war.

One of the main directions of Russian propaganda is also an aggressive information campaign in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, the purpose of which is to reduce resistance to the Russian occupation, and its media accompaniment is, for example, the narratives: “Kherson is no longer Ukraine”, “Ukraine abandoned Kherson to its fate” etc. Active campaigning for the “Russian World” and all kinds of pseudo-referendums is being conducted on Russian channels in the Kherson region. Recently, disinformation about the general forced mobilization of all men who enter the territory controlled by Ukraine has been spreading among the residents of the temporarily occupied territories. The purpose of this disinformation is to prevent the male population from leaving the temporarily occupied territories (Informatsiyna viyna: voroh zapustyv..., 2022). But the rallies, protests that Ukrainian residents were able to hold in the occupied territories, the actions of partisans, leaflets and Ukrainian symbols that appear in the occupied cities (as is happening, for example, thanks to the activists of the “Yellow Ribbon” in Kherson) destroy the simulacra of the Russian information field.

After the publication of numerous facts of crimes committed by the Russian military in the Western press, Russian propaganda's coverage of the “Ukrainian issue” underwent significant changes. Its narrative about the need to liberate Ukrainians from the “Nazi Kyiv regime” failed. The total resistance of the Ukrainian people to the occupiers prompted the Russian propaganda machine to change its rhetoric from the “denazification of Ukraine” to its “denationalization”. Due to the fact that it is becoming more and more difficult for the Russian authorities to explain the protracted nature of the “military campaign”, it resorts to another injection of disinformation into its own information space: “NATO entered into a proxy war with Russia”, “Russia is at war with the whole world, which has turned against it” etc.

The information coverage of the war started by Russia against Ukraine is “a war of meanings, all the variety of information delivery channels are used for the broadcast of which. The main structural element in this war is simulacra - images of what does not actually exist” (Petryshyn, 2022). To win the information war, we should carefully study the propaganda techniques directed against us, and expose them. It has become more difficult for Russia to spread Kremlin fakes, but it is too early to declare victory over its disinformation in the world. We should agree with J. Lytvynenko that “Russia adapts its narratives according to the audience it speaks to. They will be different in each country or even part of the country... Russia targets an audience that has been prone to conspiracy theories in the past. For example, people who believed in the QAnon conspiracy that was prevalent in the US, or groups who believed in anti-vaccination narratives, or who believed that many of the attacks in Syria were also staged, or that Russia was not responsible for the downing of MH17. These narratives worked among many such audiences” (Butsko, 2022).

The awareness of the possibilities and mechanisms of the information society used by the enemy in war, the exposure of a fake invasion against our country testifies to Ukraine's ability to wage a fourth generation war (“4th Generation Warfare”), according to the concept of military expert V. Lind. The traditional forms and methods of waging war are increasingly being supplemented by new tactics and tools of the information society: hybrid war, cyber war, asymmetric war (in which the side with smaller military resources turns to information resistance, partisan movement, counter-terrorist operations, pre-emptive actions, detection of weak sides of the enemy). The boundaries between combatants and civilians, between wartime and peacetime are blurring.

The former editor of TIME magazine Richard Stengel notes the importance of supporting Ukrainian cyber forces: “when you are inferior in armaments, you need to find other ways of fighting, and they did it”; “Ukrainians talk about their country's struggle against aggression in a modern and sincere way. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google remove Russian disinformation from their platforms. And in Europe, access to Russian state channels and online platforms was blocked” (Avetysyan, 2022). Stengel compares how the leaders are presented in this war: Zelenskyy is “an example of how a modern leader should behave during a war. He writes down his appeal to his people at night. He explains everything. Its presence is evident in [real] war and in information war. This is a real revelation not only of excellent leadership, but also of very intelligent information warfare. Compare him with Vladimir Putin who gives standard speeches, sitting at a table several meters away from others. Old school, last century” (Avetysyan, 2022).

Passive sympathy can also be added by us to the list of information manipulation. When the Pope of Rome calls to “pray for Ukraine” and for “ceasing war and restoring peace”, without mentioning the aggressor who caused the war and should be the first to lay down arms, this is a concealment of the truth and a veiling of Russia's actions. We agree with Solveig Mineo, who writes: “It reminds me of Christians reacting to scandals of sexual abuse by praying only for the souls of victims of paedophile priests. It allows them to preserve their own reputation without lifting a finger to help the victim get justice and stop the ongoing abuse. This is the typical technique of people who, above all, want to preserve a certain social order. Catching the criminals and bringing them before a court would disrupt their social order. These people appear peaceful but their vision of “peace” is nothing but mandatory obedience to abusers in positions of power” (Mineo, 2022).

Flexibility, the ability to adapt to changing circumstances are important qualities of Ukrainians that help to build both military and informational resistance, adapt everyday life to the dramatic conditions of war. In this regard, the study of Ukrainian scientists (Yereskova at all., 2020) regarding social uncertainty as a pattern of the modern existence of Ukrainians is interesting. They came to the conclusion “that the majority of members of Ukrainian society not only do not perceive the state of social uncertainties as a threat to society, but are also ready to use the opportunities of such a state to satisfy their own needs (70.8%). Based on the fact that the prevention of uncertainties can act as an indicator of the extent to which members of a certain society have a need for social structuring (norms, values, a national idea, defined vectors of development in certain spheres of life, etc.), it can be assumed that a certain destructuring of contemporary Ukrainian society contributes to establishing a state of social uncertainty among members of society as a certain model of interaction between social subjects” (Yereskova at all., 2020: 244). This model of social existence allows a person to quickly respond to social challenges, wartime risks, identify and remove fake content from the information field. It is necessary to learn this, to train one's consciousness to be critical, to form trust in information sources with the help of logic, comparison of facts, and analytics.

In order to expose propaganda messages, verification of the content is necessary, namely verification of the authenticity of the news: the correspondence of the text about the event based on comparison with other texts about this event, the credibility of the source providing this content. An analysis of the communicative environment in which information is disseminated is conducted: sociopolitical space, communicative flows (media, social networks, direct interpersonal communication). A familiar environment tested by life and scientific practices builds trust in the information it disseminates. An important component of this process is the degree of independence of sources. In addition, it is important to determine whether the source can be held responsible for the content being published.

Conclusions

The external goal of propaganda methods of Russia's information war against Ukraine and the civilized world is an attempt to undermine the system of democratic values, trust and solidarity within Ukrainian society and in the country's relations with the world, to weaken support for the Ukrainian resistance. The internal goal is to promote the narrative of the “post-Western world order” for the sake of political disorientation and zombification of Russian society, in order to prevent critical processes regarding the actions of the authorities and to mobilize material and human resources for the purposes of war. The article proves and summarizes that Russia uses the methods of lexical semantics (pseudo-clarification in the definition of concepts, euphemisms, metaphors) in conducting information warfare; replacing rational critical perception of phenomena with emotions; dissemination of the event in a broad context; social depersonalization; creating images of enemy countries and fortress country, Westsplaining; personification of the event; a quick conspiratorial presentation of the phenomenon, which leads to an overload of consciousness; gaslighting as the deliberate manipulation of people to create a false reality that is then used to control the victim.

propaganda information war

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