Almost 84% of Ukrainians notice increasing Russian propaganda in media field - expert

An increase in the amount of disinformation from the Russian Federation after the start of the full-scale invasion was noted by 83.8% of respondents.

Executive Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communication Diana Dutsyk said this during the presentation of the results of the study "Effectiveness of Countering Russian Disinformation in Ukraine" at the Media Center Ukraine - Ukrinform.

"Our citizens fully agree that after February 24, the amount of disinformation that Russia started spreading against Ukraine has increased. Our fact-checkers especially spoke about this, because they had a huge workload after the start of the full-scale invasion," Dutsyk said.

According to the survey, 68% of respondents "strongly agree" that the amount of propaganda has increased, while another 15.8 percent "rather agree".

About 50% of respondents said that Ukraine acted "partly effectively and partly ineffectively" in this situation. At the same time, 42.7% of respondents believe that the president has been most effective in countering Russian propaganda. The second most effective is the military, with 34.4% of Ukrainians noting their work. According to Dutsyk, the top positions of the president and the military are due to the fact that they have well-developed communication with the audience through various platforms, which helps to convey messages about the war in Ukraine.

The study found that information about Russian disinformation from the authorities would help 38.7% of respondents recognize fakes from Russia. At the same time, only 4.5% of people believe that media literacy will lead to learning.

Dutsyk noted that the very wording of the question about the effectiveness of countering fakes is debatable. That is why this study is a pilot one, which "should give an impetus to think about the problems in the system of countering disinformation." As part of the study, key stakeholders, civil society organizations that have projects in the fake news counteraction system, and members of the public were interviewed.