Dr Adam Ure
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, one of its priorities was to take hold of Ukraine’s media space. Its forces and security services rushed to capture media outlets, seizing television studios, radio towers and telecommunications infrastructure. Reports of violence against journalists – from detentions to killings – have been widespread.
Moscow was intent on controlling information networks in order to oversee and manipulate what Ukrainians were reading and hearing about the invasion, and to manufacture support for its occupation.
Mastery of the information space plays a key role in Russian security and military strategy, and Moscow has long emphasised the role of “information warfare” – a term that its protagonists frequently use – in its various foreign invasions over the years.
Russia’s seizure of parts of the Ukrainian information space after February 2022 marked an intensification of methodologies that it had been honing over a longer period. Moscow relied on techniques used in its initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and in its invasion of Georgia in 2008.
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