Ukraine is currently winning the information war against Russia - expert

RIGA - Ukraine is currently winning the information war against Russia, Marcis Balodis, a researcher at the Center for East European Policy Studies, told TV3 this morning.

He explained that the Ukrainian side's information is able to reach and address the audience, thus suppressing Russia's attempts to break into the information space. The significance of daily addressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also important - they express the determination to fight and make Ukraine morally attractive in the eyes of the world, the researcher said.

Russia's disinformation, on the other hand, tends to recur, as long-established stereotypes are being used without inventing anything new, Balodis said. For example, Ukrainians are being deemed Nazis and claiming they are producing biological or nuclear weapons, but these attempts by Russia do not reach too many hearing ears, Balodis explained.

At the same time, he emphasized that this misinformation of Russia is one of Latvia's challenges, because Russia has long considered Latvia and the other Baltic states to be in its sphere of influence.  ''So we are quite a big target in Russia's extended information war,'' the researcher warned.

He also reminded that within Russia, the information space now operates according to wartime logic, shutting down and isolating any independent media, as the Russian authorities are aware that any independent information could harm their power and begin to change public sentiment, which is currently living in an "alternative reality".