Chief of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Kyrylo Budanov, participated in the Third International Forum on Strategic Communications, Kyiv Stratcom Forum 2024.
The annual event is organized by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.
During a conversation with Yarema Dukh, the head of Ukrainian intelligence:
- He talked about Russia's strategic information and psychological operations.
- He outlined the main tasks of Ukraine in the information sphere.
- He shared thoughts on the messaging app "Telegram."
- He commented on the reasons for and consequences of the terrorist attack in the Moscow region.
- He explained the role of the intelligence service in countering the aggressor in the information sphere.
STRATEGIC INFORMATION OPERATIONS OF THE RF
There are several strategic operations of an informational-psychological and propagandistic nature conducted by Russia. One of them is called "Perun." This is its official name in Russia. In turn, it is associated with a large-scale operation they called "Maidan-3" - they do struggle a bit with imagination.
Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that it essentially works. And it is necessary to understand what and whom such disinformation campaigns are directed at. Yes, from our perspective, it is absurd to listen to and besides eliciting a smile and surprise, such stories do not evoke anything else. But in Russia, this is perceived quite seriously.
In countries that take, let's say, a more or less neutral position, all this is circulated. It is officially presented as propaganda, it is shown at official events through Russian embassies, and so on.
Unfortunately, it must be acknowledged that this yields certain results. So, this is not such a funny story after all.
The main task here in Ukraine is to protect Ukrainian citizens from all this misinformation, excuse me, and provide the correct explanation - where there is at least some probability of truth and where it is just an outright fake.
“CROCUS CITY MALL”
Russians changed their versions three times. In addition, there were, let's say, conclusions from Belarus that slightly undermine the latest statement [from the Kremlin]. Although it should be noted that the official statement supposedly made by Putin sounds like it was supposedly Islamists, but there is still some "trace" there.
After that, there were explanations from Patrushev and Bortnikov, who blamed me personally and said that Ukraine was behind it all. This is nonsense.
By the way, if we touch on this painful issue, although they are enemies, I do not approve of terrorist acts against civilians in principle. It's fundamentally wrong. That's my personal opinion. Maybe not everyone will agree with it, but that's what I think.
Regarding how all this happened. First of all, I want to say to everyone: at least since February 15, 2024, Russia knew about the preparation. Perhaps at that time they did not know exactly which shopping center [would be targeted]. Maybe they didn't know the scale. I allow for that they might have thought it would be a bit easier. But since February 15, Russia definitely knew that a similar operation was being prepared.
They knew where the combat groups would come from. How they moved to Russia through two countries. In one of them, they underwent pre-training, and they also knew that. So now to say that we did it - it's not serious.
There are several options for why they allowed this to happen. First - as is customary for them, it's a "tower" struggle, to now remove a few high-ranking officials. Another option is that they actually underestimated the scale of what would happen. They thought it would be more local and wanted to blame Ukraine for everything.
There is a stable expression, even the truth. It always works in the environment of special services: everyone tries to create controlled chaos. Absolutely all more or less serious organizations have tried to do this at different times. And the axiom is that everyone tried to do it, and none of them could make it controlled. The same thing happened here.
PARTICIPATION OF INTELLIGENCE IN PUBLIC COMMUNICATION
For disrupting certain actions, this is a standard practice for many countries; it involves issuing informational warnings. Partial information is made public so that individuals planning something understand that it's already known and their plans won't succeed. This is a standard approach for any intelligence agency.
PRINCIPLES OF STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION OF INTELLIGENCE
We never turn white into black, and black into white. That's where we stand. In other words, we never engage in distorting reality, as Russia does.
It's quite possible that sometimes we might try to explain a certain point more, emphasize something we deem necessary. However, we've never twisted information.
So, presenting a fact that doesn't exist, portraying it as the truth, and basing all actions around it - we never do that. And it works because Russia throws out countless fakes, and against the backdrop of the genuine information coming from us, it somewhat loses its effect.
If they had made fewer such throw-ins from the beginning, they would have been taken more seriously in reality, but thankfully, they made such a mistake.
IMPACT OF COMMUNICATION ON THE COURSE OF WAR
I am all for leading if you can't stop. That's my approach. But there are certain issues that are impossible to either lead or stop. It's something we have to accept.
No matter what we do here, we won't be able to completely destroy the line of Russian propaganda. It will still exist. They have enough financial and human resources in many countries around the world for this purpose. This comes not only from Russia but also from their agents of influence in other countries.
It's a huge machine, with a massive amount of media resources; for example, "Russia Today" - just look at how many offices they have and in which countries. And that's just the visible part. How much covert activity is there, how much is done under the guise of art, and so on.
Look at Russian movies that aren't even related to war: almost every one of them has at least one moment of propaganda of enmity. Take any one you want, and you'll find it. Even in comedies.
"INFORMATIONAL ISOLATION" UNITS
In Russia, there's a completely non-trivial, as they say, concept, it's an official concept - "informational isolation." There are corresponding units for this purpose. They certainly exist within the Ministry of Defense system [of Russia]. They operate in areas of combat, they exist in many different branches of government.
The task of "informational isolation" is to, what I call, "turn the world upside down." Completely cut off the population from truthful information and provide only what is needed at the right moment. Positions often change, but nobody cares.
Fighting this on our controlled territories is real. On uncontrolled territories - unfortunately, it's unreal. And this will also be a big problem after their liberation. Because the brainwashing is quite serious.
INFORMATION RESISTANCE IN THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE
It's unreal, unfortunately. That's my opinion. Perhaps someone doesn't share it. But knowing how the units of "informational isolation" work, seeing how they've already operated there...
By the way, these are algorithms that Russia has been using for nearly 500 years, strange as it may sound.
The first thing they do is remove all literature, textbooks, and so on. This is all called "destroying national identity."
Then comes the switching of television broadcasting, restricting the internet, and replacing them with their own content. All these factors have already been implemented.
So when a person is disconnected from one historical-cultural and informational cluster and replaced with another, negative processes occur. Unfortunately, this happens. There's no need to fear it, because it all comes back in the same way. It will take time for this.
Counteractions need to be taken against the Russians, but it must be understood that the effect everyone dreams of won't happen. A person is under the influence of this propaganda 24/7. And if some small message reaches them, it might support someone, giving them hope. But not more than that.
Work needs to be done, but one should not overestimate what will happen. This is an objective reality. When you simply turn everything off for a person and give them two or three channels showing the picture you want 24/7, they start to believe in it.
"TELEGRAM"
"Telegram" ― everyone reads it. It has a destructive effect in many ways internally, but thanks to it, you can also convey something to people in the occupied territories. That's something that more or less works.
From the perspective of national security, "Telegram" is definitely a problem, although I am absolutely against suppressing freedom of speech. But this is too much: anyone can create a channel, start "broadcasting" whatever they want on it. Absolutely everything they feel like, and they can cover it up by claiming it's freedom of the press. That's not freedom of the press. It's called something slightly different.
In my opinion, one option is to require everyone to register. Officially. You want to be a mass media outlet - please register. There's nothing to hide if you want to convey what you believe is the truth to people. This will slightly improve the situation.
COUNTERING ENEMY CONTENT
We won't be able to block everything they do. It's absolutely unrealistic, and whoever tries to do it is just wasting their time. It's impossible. Technically impossible. You can't just shut them off. That's not realistic anymore. So the only option left is to counteract.
Regarding counteraction: here, consolidation around any body that manages this activity will play a big role. For example, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security. If it has a real handle on the situation, and if there is normal communication among all the participants in this process, then a more or less unified message can be developed.
And that will work.
COMMUNICATION REGARDING "INCIDENTS" IN RUSSIA
We never directly say, "look, we did this." You won't find that on our official resource.
Yes, when ships were being sunk, then it's understandable: we published footage from underwater drones. That's an element of propaganda. You have to understand me too. In all other cases - some hint may be given, some experts may say something, but I have never said, "look, we did this." That's a bit incorrect and unprofessional, in my opinion.
I'll say it again - there are hints. Why is this necessary? Perhaps to support ourselves, because after two and a half years of war, people also need to believe in victory, to believe that it's achievable.
FAITH IN VICTORY
People must believe in victory. To win without faith in victory is impossible. Of course, weapons and money are needed. But without faith in victory, it's absolutely unreal.
Give a person the most modern weapon, but if they don't believe, they'll simply turn around and move in the wrong direction, so to speak. Faith is the foundation.
UKRAINE'S TASK IN GLOBAL COMMUNICATION
We have a "hot," as they say, topic - "Krokus City," the tragedy that occurred. This needs to be explained now because Russia is currently launching its massive attack on mostly Western media, explaining to Western society that this is some kind of terrorist act organized - interestingly they say - "by the Western world and Ukraine," and they direct this to the Western audience. This is a task that is not strongly executed, but they are trying to do it.
And in what concerns Western society, they will believe it quite quickly in principle, and there may be mixed perceptions about Ukraine. So this narrative needs to be broken.
Again, I'll say it - at least since February 15, 2024, Russia knew about the preparations. I'll tell you more, this information went through the intelligence unit of the [Russian] grouping in Syria. From there it went to Moscow. And let them not tell fairy tales that this somehow materialized out of nowhere.
Secondly - it's breaking the narrative that Russia is a huge country that has never lost anything, it will not give up what it once captured, etc., and that fighting Russia is generally an unrealistic task; it's a waste of time, money, resources, people, etc.
This is the second main narrative, which, unlike the first, situational one, is constant. And it also needs to be broken.
The inability of Ukraine to win and the inability of Russia to lose - this is not true.
If you just look at history, not ancient, not even very ancient - there are countless cases where what is now called the Russian Federation has lost very painfully. So these two narratives are now, in my opinion, key.
[Regarding Russian assets and weapons for Ukraine] - these are all serious processes that will somehow depend on the information background, but there are absolutely different levers of influence on this.
There's no need to waste time on this specifically because it will be as it will be. It will be not bad for us, I'll tell you frankly. But that's not the main thing. The main thing is [to break down] the narrative that Russia cannot lose, and from this, it follows that Ukraine cannot win. That's the whole point.
WILL ANYTHING CHANGE FOR UKRAINE IF PUTIN DISAPPEARS?
A rhetorical question. Nothing will change quickly, I can tell you that right away. With abrupt changes in Russia, their attitude towards the world, their worldview cannot change abruptly. Understand that they have truly become victims of their own propaganda. It happened, they admit it, so to speak.
Publicly, this will never pass anywhere, but they have been "pumped up" to the maximum. They have a saying, in the original language - "We have overestimated our army to the maximum, pumped it up, and believed in its might. We have severely underestimated our economy to the maximum. As a result, it turns out that our army, to put it mildly, is not very good, while the economy, in principle, is actually quite decent."
Society is pumped up with hatred towards the collective West and Ukraine. Even if someone appears now and says, "Stop!" even if everything stops - this hatred will still seriously influence decision-making for many years because they will all proceed from the position that they are enemies.
And, by the way, we will have the same thing. You should understand this too. Because it is absolutely not hidden here. [Let's imagine], everything stops, Russia apologizes - who will believe Russia in a year? These are irreversible processes that have already taken place in society. It takes years and work for this.
The Second World War ended. Now, I think, few people see Germans as enemies. But time has passed, and everything has become normal. But in the 1950s, it was hard to find a person who would see the Federal Republic of Germany at that time as friends. So everything passes with years. And these are not easy processes.
APPEAL TO COMMUNICATORS
Work, colleagues. Work, and please, finally unite, because there are many problems from this multi-vector approach, believe me.
Come together, at least around this Center for Strategic Communications. A neutral structure that, in my opinion, does not provoke any negatives from anyone. This is not cooperation with intelligence services, not cooperation with other agencies, and so on.
Let's together protect our society from the destructive propaganda through which Russia and other countries, we should not forget this either, are forcibly trying to achieve their goals.
Just unite, it's not such a difficult task. Come together. Communicate together. Meet. Develop some basic plan. There's no need to tell anyone what to do - you are all professionals and adults, serious people. But there must be a general line - without it, nothing will work.
