Russian propaganda as an instrument of foreign policy strategy towards Ukraine

Abstract

The annexation of the Crimea and the war on the Donbas were not a coincidence or a spontaneous action of Russia, but were a clearly planned strategy to weaken Ukraine in order to make its Eurointegration and Euroatlantic progress impossible. This was preceded by years of information campaigns and the massive use of propaganda in Ukraine through the wide presence of Russian media in the domestic information space. Due to the dominance of Russian audiovisual and electronic media among a large part of Ukrainians formed formation of stereotyped and sometimes completely obscured perceptions of European values, as well as about events of the “Revolution of Dignity”, which resulted in a high degree of distrust of Ukraine's European aspirations and contributed to the annexation of the Crimea and war in Donbas.

The author comes to the conclusion that against the backdrop of such a coherent, consistent and pre-planned information war, Ukraine was unprepared to confront Russia. It is obvious that for this purpose the state needs clear and consistent steps to protect the information space and, at the same time, to promote patriotism and European values among Ukrainian citizens, to create and spread Ukrainian and English-language content in the world about events in Ukraine, to create the preconditions for building a positive image of the country struggling against corruption and the implementation of effective reforms.

Keywords: Russian propaganda, Russian media, Euro-integration aspirations of Ukraine, Donbas, Euromaidan