GUR warns of Kremlin's new campaign against Ukraine

The Kremlin is preparing a new batch of lies about Ukraine in order to spread disinformation through a number of mass media outlets. A representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence, Andriy Yusov, told LIGA.net in an interview.

He also noted that the intelligence agency knows through which publications the Russians intend to spread lies.

Yusov pointed out that Moscow had intensified propaganda and spreading disinformation about Ukraine and its leadership since November 2023. In this way, Russia is trying to achieve several goals - to strengthen the split among Ukrainians themselves and to deprive the country of support at the international level.

It consists in destabilising the situation, demotivating society and trying to sow divisions. The Russians also carry out such operations from the outside in order to weaken financial and security support for Ukraine in the world or to complicate further provision of this support," he said.

Yusov stressed that it is important for the Kremlin to sow discord among Ukrainian citizens by artificially dividing them along regional lines. Among the enemy's key goals is to disrupt mobilisation and facilitate a large-scale exodus of the population from Ukraine.

"The southeast is fighting for the interests of the Banderites", "Galicia without separatists has long since joined the EU", "In Kiev they do not mobilise - everyone is partying and having fun", - the intelligence officer named the main theses for the Russian disinformation campaign.

According to the GUR, the Russians are now actively trying to build an information network to work in Ukraine with the involvement of opinion leaders, experts, commentators, bloggers and political analysts.

The bet is not on the openly pro-Russian segment - people with such positioning do not have any influence today. The Kremlin is looking for outlets for the Ukrainian-speaking segment, people with relevant backgrounds, perhaps even activists and combatants," Yusov says.

Russian propagandists are also preparing disinformation against Ukraine's top leadership for foreign media.

"These are theses about Ukraine's 'excessive corruption', lack of motivation of Ukrainians to resist, multiple repetition of the thesis 'Ukraine is a failed state', unmotivated Ukrainian army and other topics that Russian propaganda presents as 'facts' in order to create a rift between Ukraine and our allies," Yusov said.

He noted that Western partners had been informed about the upcoming information attack and were working together with Kiev to prevent such propaganda.