The first casualty of war is always the truth
Disinformation is an important weapon in war. In the new INCIPE seminar organised in collaboration with the Ministry of Defence, experienced technicians from different areas of European diplomacy, experts in the military world and various information and teaching professionals debated the importance of the situation of the war in Ukraine and the importance of disinformation and how it has evolved throughout the conflict.
Only free and democratic societies can fight against freedom of the press, and therefore against disinformation. In the introduction to the event, Ambassador Manuel Alabart pointed out that it is the democratic states themselves that must protect themselves from the benefits that we have brought to authoritarian regimes in terms of the ease with which disinformation can be disseminated in all types of media. In relation to this, Lieutenant General (TG) of DIGNEPOL Fernando López del Pozo stated that we should praise the work of the Western media because they fiercely deny what may provoke doubts in public opinion. He also appealed to the use of common sense to know how to put fake news in its place.
First of all, there was a dialogue and debate on the relationship between armies, war and communication, in relation to their corresponding narrative. In times of war, one's own discourse must be better than that of the enemy. In order to situate his discourse, the TG exemplified his arguments with Napoleon. He recounted how the Napoleonic army in its attempt to conquer Egypt suffered heavy losses in its ranks, where 1 out of 8 soldiers died. Nevertheless, Napoleon arrived in France with the obelisks and the scientists, which was reflected in France as a victory, even though it was one of the general's major failures. Shortly afterwards, he led a coup d'état that brought him to power.
With respect to the importance of communication, he commented that it is necessary for everyone to work together for the benefit of society, that good, contrasted information must be given and that, on the part of the journalist, it must be confirmed that it is correct. If this is achieved and these conditions are met, information will cooperate towards a better world, because in the long run this is what is intended. This would be the beginning of the end of disinformation. The journalist is the main character, an ally in the model of new information, because he or she is the link between the citizen and the one who provides the information he or she wants to make public. When the situation is not clearly one of peace or war, which is where we live today, there are always disinformation campaigns, judicial decisions, international decisions... if there is no peace or war, there is war.
The policies adopted by Russia and Ukraine, while sharing the same objective, have different strategies. While Zelensky, Ukraine's president, has adopted a policy centred on himself and on the information that his own cabinet provides both to the media and directly in many of his speeches to the public; Russia has based its communication strategy on the demonisation and justification of its actions in the face of its rivals.
The importance of information and more specifically the internet is seen as an enormous power as it manages the key pillar of warfare: public opinion, both of rivals and of one's own people. This has been aggravated due to the great interconnectivity and globalisation that exists, affecting the restrictions that serve as a weapon of war, such as attacks on different energy sources, espionage at satellite level, etc.
Colonel Luis Alberto Hernández commented that the grey zone is the spectrum of the conflict zone that is situated in peace, where acts beyond good faith between states predominate, which, although they affect peace, never go beyond the red line that would provoke war as we know it. In the grey zone there is escalation that can result in war or peace. In his speech, he also focused on the term Hybrid Warfare. Hybrid strategy is an interdimensional strategy in which a state uses everything in its power to coercively attack a competitor or international threat by attacking the rival's weaknesses in terms of rights and resources. To this end, deterrence by the armed forces is key to avoiding casualties and reducing the costs to a country's public opinion. Without them, there would be no grey zone and war would ensue.
From a more geopolitical point of view, we are facing a large-scale conflict that transcends the borders of Ukraine, as it is in fact a conflict, on the part of the countries in the Russian orbit, Russia itself and those countries that have been partly destroyed under its yoke, that seeks to put an end to American imperialism, according to Ruth Ferrero, professor of Political Science at the Complutense University of Madrid. Ruth Ferrero explained that Russia's reaction to control the power of the media and therefore of the narrative begins with a discourse before the war, with declarations against NATO because they allege that they were being cornered due to NATO's expansion.
"The opacity of this war in communicative terms is the most blatant since the Yugoslav conflict. This war is also the most mediatised conflict in history. Despite the immense amount of information, it is difficult to discern between what is true and what is false, as there is a clear intention to misinform on both sides, sometimes due to an excess of information and other times due to its concealment", stated Pilar Requena, director of 'Documentos TV' on RTVE.
As Pilar Requena agreed, the distance on the ground distorts reality, although it is also true that despite the fact that this is the conflict with the greatest number of journalists and media coverage on the ground, with most of the events taking place live or being seen on the spot, the information is taking a linear course in which only a few media outlets deviate from the official discourse. He adds that journalists cannot have activist overtones, that they are limited to reporting what they see in the most professional and honest way, and always as objectively as possible.
A lot of images and little analysis. For Pilar, the fact that we have learned about the current victims but not those of the previous eight years is very striking, just as censoring the media is a limit to analysis which, in her opinion, is not the most appropriate thing to do, however propagandistic the media such as Russia Today may be, as they are the only ones that allow us to see the other side's view. We have to see what is behind all this. Zelensky's speech has stirred consciences. The journalist, who is an expert in the field, finds it striking that there are no press conferences and even more so that the journalists themselves do not ask for them. In her speech she insinuated that they do not take place because Ukrainian leaders are afraid of being questioned by the press, stressing that it is even more surprising that even though President Zelensky has met with many of his counterparts from other countries, there is hardly any opportunity for the press to ask questions.
To conclude, and to give way to the reporter and collaborator of Atalayar, María Senovilla, Pilar reflected on the fact that everything that has been and is being ignored about the situation in Ukraine in 2014 will come back to haunt us Westerners, as she stated that Ukraine was not a democracy, that it was not a transparent country and that it was one of the highest ranked in the classification of the most corrupt countries in the world.
María Senovilla, via video conference from the city of Kharkov, asked us to put ourselves in the boots of those who are there. Controlling information is a weapon of war that can be paramount. To deal with disinformation we first have to get into the difference between how one side does it and how the other does it. The Russian government issues propaganda directly; Zelensky does not, as there are thousands of journalists who would disprove them. From the Russian point of view, he has accused the Kremlin and stresses that the aim of disinformation is to make people doubt. "Russia has not lost the war of opinion," he added.
Senovilla, who has been involved in the conflict since the day it broke out, affirmed that public opinion has not been lost by Russia because thanks to work that has taken the Kremlin years, it has managed to have a voice in Latin American countries and even in Spain. The first step in building up these opinions has been the establishment of dozens of Russia Today offices in Latin American countries and the establishment of dozens of Russia Today offices in these countries, which call those who report what is happening as spokespersons for NATO. He has also appealed to Russia's great capacity to influence through propaganda, insisting that they used three types of techniques: through radio, because in the vicinity of Russia, people in Ukraine could hear messages in Russian encouraging them to live better in Russia; through torture by publicly showing what would happen to them if they stayed there; and through the use of the press, because if the Ukrainian population wanted to eat, they had to read the newspapers issued by the Kremlin.
From his on-site experience in the conflict, he has seen how the harshness and cruelty of the situation of journalists has worsened to the point where they have been forced to mobilise in order to be able to exercise their profession.
