Ukraine's experience in the fight against Russian disinformation calls for caution in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Before the second anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the Detektor team visited Kiev, where the fight against Russian media misinformation about events in this area is considered part of the war, since untruths can be as destructive as weapons. Experts in the fight against disinformation warn that the intensification of Russian disinformation is usually a prelude to more aggressive actions by Russia, which calls for caution in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well.

When the Euromaidan protests took place in Kyiv in early 2014, official Moscow called them a coup and the end of Ukrainian independence. In Moscow, not long after, the government annexed the Ukrainian Crimea, and pro-Russian forces declared the independence of the eastern regions. Then even the most optimistic Ukrainian journalists began to look at the content of the Russian media with different eyes.

Disinformation is not only lies that need to be discovered, but also a chance to learn the unexpected truth, it was explained to us during a visit to one of the most influential Ukrainian news houses, whose activities are aimed at exposing untruths.

“It was March 2014 when [Viktor] Yanukovych, our former president, left the country. Then began some strange events in Crimea. Before that moment, we paid no attention to Russian disinformation. We thought - who cares about Russian disinformation, what they show on their TV networks, but then we realized that it was a big mistake," Ruslan Denichenko, director of StopFake - an organization that has been dealing with exposing disinformation created in Moscow for years - told Detektor.

According to him, a detailed and investigative analysis of disinformation, which is crucial in the fight against its spread, can indicate possible events in the future. He recalled March 2014 when, he says, there were no Ukrainian refugees in Russia, although the Russian media wrote about it.

"Thousands of Ukrainians are entering Russia and want to escape from Ukraine, neo-Nazis... When I started to check this information, I called the Russian Federal Immigration Service and asked how many Ukrainians have applied for political asylum or how many refugees from Ukraine they have. The lady I spoke with said that they only have five requests and that there are no refugees," he says.

He adds that the employee told him that they were ordered to buy food, tents and everything for the refugees. That's how they prepared, he says.

"A few months later, when they started the ground operation in Donbass, these refugees appeared - they were prepared," Denichenko explained.

Before the invasion in 2022, StopFake reveals that the rhetoric on Russian channels has become different and even more aggressive regarding Ukraine, including open promotion of war. The observation of media content at the time led StopFake to the conclusion that Vladimir Putin would have the support of the people if he decided to invade.

For years, the Russian television RT has been producing video and textual content in which it promotes narratives that do not match the facts, regarding the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Detektor previously wrote about how media controlled by the Kremlin, such as RT, often compare the murders of civilians and prisoners in Buca near Kiev and in Srebrenica, calling both events staged, that is, faked by the West. Deniers of the Markale events also explain the Sarajevo market massacre as a fabricated incident, copying and complementing Moscow's views.

Media under the control of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation or persons close to Vladimir Putin in recent months have intensified content aimed at the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, often accusing NATO of possible conflicts in the future, and presenting Russia as a factor of peace and stability.

Russian state media such as Sputnik have been operating in Serbia for years, and RT Balkans is also available in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At the end of 2023, RT announced the opening of a newsroom in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Maria Avdeeva is a communications expert at the Ukrainian state news agency, and since the beginning of the invasion she has noticed Russian disinformation, and she shares and explains her observations on social networks, where more than 150,000 people follow her. She notes that it is therefore very important to check the information coming from Russian and pro-Russian media and that it is important to recognize manipulation in the freedom of expression.

"It is very important not to allow Russia to win at this stage, because once they do, then they will surely go to the next stage," concludes Avdeeva.

Seeds of misinformation on anonymous networks

But Russian disinformation can no longer be seen by the citizens of Ukraine because Russian and pro-Russian media are banned in the territory controlled by Kiev. Instead of TV or websites, disinformation created under the baton of Russia is spread by other methods - applications like Telegram.

There are currently several government centers in Ukraine that fight against Russian disinformation. In an interview with Detektor Magazin, Avdeeva talks about how Ukrainians today discover Russian disinformation and what citizens in Bosnia and Herzegovina can learn from the Ukrainian experience.

"Disinformation will appear on some Telegram channel or some local source that people don't pay attention to. This misinformation will be picked up later in the day by major Russian media who will say 'as some media from Donetsk say, Ukraine is shelling and killing people again'. After that, some Russian officials will refer to this disinformation. At the end of the day, it will probably find its way into the Russian Ministry of Defense report where they will say that this happened. And so it comes full circle," explains Avdeeva, adding that the seeds of disinformation often originate from Telegram itself.

Miroslava Markova, an analyst at VoxCheck, which deals with checking the accuracy of information entering the Ukrainian information space, states for Detektor that anonymity and lack of control make Telegram perfect for disseminating disinformation.

“Many of the creators of these channels are anonymous and this platform allows them to do that, making them look like independent authors. Many channels on Telegram are controlled by Russia and special services. We in Ukraine do not have the power to go to Telegram and say: 'Please block some channels because they systematically spread disinformation or even hate speech at an extremely high level,'" explains Markova.

Other European countries as a target

Citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia also increasingly use Telegram channels as a source of information. Avdeeva says that Russia actually tailors disinformation for different audiences and that there is a separate approach for Russian citizens - for the audience for the occupied territories in Ukraine and for the West, i.e. other European countries.

"The fight against disinformation targeting the West is difficult. On the one hand we have freedom of speech and laws that allow everyone to express their opinion, and on the other hand we have Russia manipulating freedom of speech and using it against the West. So, Russia sees it as a weakness and tries to find loopholes that it can use to manipulate the information space," says Avdeeva.

Miroslava Markova monitors content for countries such as Germany, Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. He believes that Moscow's main goal is not only to prevent support for Ukraine in the fight against invasion, but also to help the rise of political parties and movements in Europe that are essentially pro-Russian.

"The most widespread narrative about Ukraine is an attempt to establish distrust in the Ukrainian authorities, that the Ukrainian authorities are corrupt, that aid to Ukraine harms your budget and your army, and that you become part of the 'third world war'," said Markova.

For Avdeev, the goal of such manipulation is not necessarily to believe in them, but to make the reader or viewer indecisive and his view of the problem become vague and vague.

"They just need you to become hesitant and say, 'Maybe there's something to it, maybe not.' After they shared a fake story about Ukrainian troops shelling their

cities, people began to wonder if this could really happen, if it could really happen. Of course, very quickly it turned out to be a complete lie," says Avdeeva, who states that the highly functional Russian disinformation system works 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Fact-checking is only part of the battle, Avdeeva adds, noting that Russian false narratives, which are often spread by Russian state media, are another part of the problem.

"These are false stories on the basis of which they continue this war. An example is when Russia says that Ukraine never existed and was always part of the Russian Empire," says Avdeeva.