The way we consume and understand information has changed dramatically. Forty years ago, when the Chornobyl disaster struck Ukraine, those affected—and the generations that followed—had almost nowhere to turn for reliable information about a catastrophe that was both unprecedented and difficult to comprehend. Trust in the authorities, who largely remained silent, was already deeply eroded. The information vacuum was filled, at least partly, by the so-called “enemy voices” of outlets like the BBC, which Soviet citizens secretly listened to in their kitchens.
Today, the challenge is the opposite: we are overwhelmed by information. News outlets, social media platforms and messaging apps provide a constant stream of updates, yet a clear and objective picture of the world remains just as difficult to find. Instead, each person builds their own version of reality—shaped by political views, social circles, emotional vulnerabilities, openness to outside influence and ability to think critically. One thing, however, has not changed: hostile narratives are still circulating. The difference is that they no longer come in quotation marks, and they no longer arrive from the supposedly “decadent” capitalist West. Today, the narratives come from Russia.
In an age of information overload, how do we avoid getting lost in the constant stream of content? How can we separate facts from falsehoods and distinguish disinformation from reliable information? How can we fact-check what we see online, prepare ourselves for manipulation campaigns, and help others resist their influence? And how do we prepare for the reality that the end of the war will not bring an end to information challenges—but may make them even more difficult to navigate?
These are some of the questions The Ukrainian Week discussed with Diana Dutsyk, founder and Executive Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communication, lecturer at the Kyiv Mohyla School of Journalism, and a member of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics.
— What kinds of disinformation do you deal with in your work as a media expert? Are there any recurring patterns or categories that help make sense of it?
— My work is primarily focused on media literacy, and countering disinformation is a big part of that. We work with very different audiences, but lately we’ve been paying particular attention to people over 60. We tailor our training to issues that are likely to resonate with them — religion, for example. Facebook is full of dubious religious groups where it all starts innocently enough, with icons and devotional images, before gradually slipping into Russian propaganda.
The same goes for the Second World War. It’s a subject that naturally resonates with older generations who grew up in the Soviet Union, and Russian narratives are often packaged as historical content. That’s something people need to learn to recognise.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Everything depends on who we’re working with. If we’re training journalists or journalism lecturers, for instance, we go much deeper into the mechanics of disinformation, looking at issues like how deepfakes are created and how they work. That requires a very different level of expertise and a different set of objectives.
— How do you tell the difference between deliberate disinformation and ordinary rumours? During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, a huge amount of false information spread about the virus, but much of it seemed to come from people simply sharing opinions rather than deliberately trying to mislead others.
— That’s the trap: you can’t draw a clear line between the two. After more than three years of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the information space is saturated. It’s full of fake stories, deepfakes, planted narratives and coordinated influence campaigns. Russia’s strategy is to identify society’s most sensitive fault lines and exploit them. That’s why it’s often impossible to say, “This is deliberate disinformation,” while dismissing something else as mere gossip or misunderstanding.
What we teach journalists is to pay attention to context. Take the statement, “The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant was blown up.” If you leave out the fact that the dam was under Russian occupation at the time, you’ve stripped away the context that allows people to understand what happened. Suddenly, responsibility becomes blurred. Was it Ukraine? Was it Russia? That’s how manipulation works.
— When we talk about disinformation, we often think first and foremost of Russia. But Russia is not the only source. Who else creates misleading content, and what motivates them?
— Sometimes the Russian fingerprints are fairly obvious — like on the religious Facebook pages I mentioned earlier. But disinformation doesn’t only come from Russia. There are all kinds of actors spreading misleading content.
What worries me most right now is the growing polarisation around Ukrainian politics. That’s damaging enough on its own. But it’s even worse when bots and entire bot farms — including pro-Russian ones — pile into these so-called debates. Thanks to artificial intelligence, they can now operate faster, at a much larger scale and in a far more coordinated way than before. That’s the new reality we’re living with — and it’s something we simply weren’t facing in 2022.
— Is there any way to hold AI developers accountable or influence how these systems are built? Some Western media organisations have taken AI companies to court over the use of their content for training models, but that is mainly a financial issue. For us, the bigger concern is information security. So are there ways to limit the spread of AI-generated disinformation?
— The world’s biggest media organisations aren’t thinking only about lost revenue. Some have already started closing off parts of their online archives because AI companies are training language models on their content without compensating the newsrooms that produced it. They’re also worried because they have no control over how that material is used, interpreted or repurposed.
So if you ask me whether we can still stop AI, my answer is no. That moment has passed. And this is no longer just about content.
Artificial intelligence isn’t just reshaping the media. It’s transforming every aspect of our lives, including warfare. Both Ukraine’s Defence Forces and Russia are integrating AI into command systems and weapons.
That has obvious advantages — it can make defence more effective. But it also creates new risks. We’ve already seen how devastating AI failures can be. There has been speculation, for example, that the U.S. Tomahawk missile strike on a school in Iran on 28 February 2026 — which reportedly killed between 50 and 170 people — was caused by an AI error that misidentified the target. Whether or not that proves to be the case, it points to a much bigger question: as militaries increasingly rely on AI, how do we make sure these systems don’t make catastrophic mistakes?
Unfortunately, regulation is moving way slower than the technology itself. Even the companies building AI don’t seem to fully understand where it’s all heading. Some have even started talking about the possibility of an AI “Chernobyl” — a catastrophic failure that could fundamentally change the trajectory of the technology.
But the risks aren’t only about the technology itself. AI infrastructure consumes enormous amounts of electricity, while data centres require vast quantities of water for cooling. At a time when water is becoming an increasingly scarce resource in many parts of the world, those demands pose a challenge that extends far beyond the tech industry. It’s a global issue.
— Coming back to harmful content: are social media platforms, which often help spread it, primarily a threat? Or do they also have positive sides and can even be useful tools for fact-checking?
— Social media is like a kitchen knife. You can use it to make a salad, or you can use it to kill someone. It’s a tool, and it cuts both ways.
I’m not on every platform, but I try to keep up with what’s happening across them. If I want insight into developments in the Middle East, for example, I’ll often go to trusted experts on Facebook rather than traditional media. That’s one of social media’s biggest strengths: it gives us direct access to people whose expertise we trust and content we actually want to see.
But the downside is just as significant. Social media doesn’t just spread disinformation — it supercharges it through bot farms, coordinated networks and algorithmic amplification. It’s also important to remember that social media isn’t one shared public square. It’s made up of separate bubbles: patriotic ones, pro-Russian ones and everything in between. Most of the time those communities don’t interact. When they do, it’s often because someone has deliberately engineered that collision to inflame tensions. One clear example is Russia’s efforts to use social media to drive a wedge between Poles and Ukrainians.
— Of all social media platforms and messaging apps, Telegram has probably attracted the most criticism.
— I’d add Threads to that list. At times, the platform is awash with such raw, unfiltered hate speech that it makes Facebook look restrained by comparison.
— True, but Telegram is also criticised because of its Russian origins. At the same time, almost every Ukrainian government institution has a channel there, as do many services providing air raid alerts and strike warnings. Do we know where those channels get their information? And if Telegram is such a problem, should official channels run by institutions like the Ukrainian Air Force and the SBU also disappear?
— It’s a complicated question, and there isn’t a simple answer. Think back to the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion. People fled with whatever they could carry — their children, pets, documents and, if they were lucky, a small bag of essentials. But everyone took their phone. And on that phone was Telegram, a messaging app that kept working even with weak mobile coverage and a barely functioning internet connection, while continuing to deliver real-time updates.
We later looked at how Telegram channels with millions of subscribers grew so quickly after February 24, 2022. Before the invasion, many of them had relatively modest audiences. Within weeks, they had attracted millions of followers because people urgently needed information about what was happening around them. Quite literally, it was a matter of survival. People who were constantly on the move couldn’t carry a television with them or tune into the United News telethon. Under those circumstances, Telegram’s explosive growth was inevitable.
Government institutions responded in the same way, turning to social media and messaging platforms — not just Telegram, but others as well — as essential tools for communicating with the public.
At the time, staying informed wasn’t just important—it was a matter of survival. Following the news gave people a sense of control and helped them make decisions in an impossible situation. Today, though, Telegram has also become a powerful tool for information and psychological operations. Russia uses it to recruit people to carry out terrorist attacks, sabotage and other provocations.
Ironically, Russia itself has repeatedly tried to restrict access to Telegram. It understands that people using the platform can access not only Kremlin propaganda but also information the authorities would rather keep out of reach.
So what should Ukraine do? That’s now the subject of a heated debate. Some, including MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, argue that Telegram should simply be banned. I find myself increasingly sympathetic to that position because, at this point, the harm it causes outweighs the benefits.
But there are no easy answers. One of the biggest challenges is that platforms like Telegram are largely unwilling to cooperate with governments.
— Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada is currently considering a bill that would require the largest Telegram channels to reveal their owners. How effective can such legislation be, given that digital platforms themselves are often unwilling to cooperate with governments?
— You can only de-anonymise Telegram channels if they’re owned by Ukrainian citizens. In those cases, there are ways to hold them accountable, although even that isn’t straightforward. You’ve probably seen the investigation published by MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak, who named the alleged owners of Ukraine’s five largest anonymous Telegram channels. According to him, those channels generate millions in revenue, much of it allegedly undeclared for tax purposes, while their owners enjoy protection from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
— And where does the money actually come from? Advertising?
— Not just advertising. A lot of the money comes from sponsored political content disguised as independent reporting, and much of it has simply migrated to Telegram.
It’s a real paradox. Years ago, we spent a lot of time fighting this practice in the traditional media, and today it’s largely disappeared from mainstream newsrooms, which generally operate much more transparently. Instead, covert political promotion has found a new home on Telegram. That’s where you’ll suddenly come across glowing posts about how brilliant and full of promise Yulia Tymoshenko supposedly is.
— Where do Telegram channels get such detailed information about missile and drone strikes?
— I honestly don’t know. Presumably, they have sources within military circles. What matters more to me, though, is how they present that information.
Some channels report it calmly and factually: a missile or a certain number of Shahed drones is heading towards a particular city or region. Others go for pure sensationalism: “Shocking! Disaster! We’re all going to die!” That kind of fearmongering is incredibly harmful, especially for older people, who often experience real emotional distress when they read it.
People need timely information. They don’t need to be manipulated.
— We’ve already discussed which groups are more vulnerable to unverified information and manipulation—older people, teenagers recruited to carry out attacks, and others. Who else is at particular risk?
— We’ve had a lot of discussions about so-called vulnerable groups. At a media literacy conference late last year, we devoted an entire session to the issue. The conclusion most experts reached was quite simple: in wartime, we’re all vulnerable. No one is immune to manipulation.
In fact, Ukraine’s Handbook on Barrier-Free Communication even recommends using the word “vulnerable” with caution because it can be stigmatising. The reality is that everyone is susceptible to influence in one way or another. Even fact-checkers and journalists—people you’d expect to be more resilient because of their training—are affected by emotions. They also make mistakes and sometimes end up sharing unverified information.
The bigger problem is that information resilience and media literacy still aren’t treated as national priorities. We should be teaching these skills at every level of education, from kindergarten through to university. Media literacy is now being introduced into journalism programmes, but that’s slightly ironic. Verifying information and thinking critically aren’t optional skills for journalists—they’re the foundation of the profession.
These courses would arguably have a greater impact if they were taught to students in other disciplines, especially the humanities. This isn’t something that can be fixed through isolated projects or one-off initiatives. What Ukraine needs is a comprehensive, state-led media literacy strategy. Civil society organisations are already doing an enormous amount of work in this area, but they can’t build a nationwide system on their own. That’s something only the state can do.
— Let’s get specific: what do you mean by ‘systemic solutions’?
— If we want media literacy to be taught to physics, chemistry or biology students, then universities first need to train teachers who know how to teach it. Right now, we simply don’t have those programmes.
A lot of the heavy lifting has instead been done by IREX. The organisation has played a huge role in bringing media literacy into Ukrainian schools. I was involved in one of its projects to develop history textbooks for grades 8 and 9 that incorporated media literacy. Other teams worked on integrating it into language, literature and arts curricula. IREX put a great deal of effort into getting those textbooks officially approved for use in schools.
But ideally, this shouldn’t depend on international organisations. It should be the state’s responsibility. The goal of media literacy isn’t just to debunk whatever fake story happens to be circulating today. It’s to build critical thinking—and psychological resilience to disinformation—across society.
Achieving that requires a systemic approach. First, media literacy needs to be embedded much more deeply in education, particularly across humanities subjects in both schools and universities.
Second, Ukraine needs a smarter information policy. The media has a critical role to play, but that also means rebuilding public trust in quality journalism so people turn to credible news organisations instead of anonymous Telegram channels.
And third, disinformation and other forms of harmful content have to remain part of the public conversation. This can’t be something we focus on only when the latest fake goes viral. It has to be an ongoing effort.
— Have Ukrainians become better at verifying information? Has their level of critical thinking improved? In 2023, for example, many people were quick to believe rumours about Putin’s death. Would you say that society is now less likely to fall for that kind of disinformation?
— Are people less likely to fall for it? Some are, some aren’t. There’s certainly less appetite for blatant fabrications like the infamous story of the “crucified boy.” But information warfare has evolved. It’s no longer just about the content itself.
Information warfare is no longer just about information—it’s about emotions. That’s where the real battlefield is now.
Take the rumours about Putin’s supposed death. They weren’t really a test of critical thinking—they were a test of emotional resilience. After years of war, people desperately wanted something to believe in, some sign that things might finally change. In that state of exhaustion, reason often takes a back seat. When people feel the ground slipping beneath their feet, they’re far more likely to believe conspiracy theories—or rumours about Putin’s death.
That’s why media literacy isn’t just about consuming information critically. It’s also about being responsible for what we share. Too often, people repost things without stopping to think. Our advice is simple: don’t. Take a breath. Put your phone down for a few minutes. Then come back and read it again. You may find that your emotional reaction has changed completely. Learning to pause before you share is a skill—and it’s one we should be teaching from an early age, starting in school, or even kindergarten.
The rapid rise of artificial intelligence is adding another layer of complexity. As AI becomes more advanced, it is producing increasingly convincing deepfakes. Just a few years ago, these fakes could often be spotted through obvious signs. Today, telling the difference between a highly realistic fabrication and genuine content is becoming much harder.
AI also allows disinformation and other harmful content to be created and distributed at an unprecedented speed and scale. It’s a new challenge—and one for which we still don’t have a clear solution.
— Can censorship, in any form, be an effective tool against disinformation? Israel, for example, tightly controls the release of information related to military operations. Is that an approach worth considering?
— In Ukraine’s case, censorship wouldn’t solve the problem. Our society is very different from Israel’s, and that difference is actually one of our strengths. No one can accuse Ukraine of lacking a diversity of views. Even during wartime, we continue to see major investigative reports that lead to action from law enforcement agencies. There is also plenty of criticism of the government—much of it justified—and that is a strength, especially as Ukraine moves towards potential EU accession.
The challenge is making sure that this openness, which is one of our advantages, is not exploited against us.
— How can you recognise the enemy’s hand when, for example, bot farms are used to push disinformation into the information space? The classic example is awkward machine translation, but what other signs can reveal, for example, Russian fingerprints behind provocative messages?
— It’s not always that straightforward. When Russia launches a serious information operation, it doesn’t happen overnight. These campaigns are carefully planned and involve a whole chain of steps, starting with identifying the audience they want to influence and tailoring specific narratives for them. That said, you can still recognise the “Russian fingerprints” if you understand the wider context.
A good example is Yulia Latynina, Kateryna Gordeeva and other supposedly “liberal” or “opposition” Russian journalists, including those associated with TV Rain (Dozhd). They present themselves as pro-democracy and anti-war, yet when it comes to Ukraine, their positions often reveal a different picture. I think many Ukrainian viewers who watched Gordeeva’s interview with Ruzavin—a Russian citizen fighting on Ukraine’s side—instinctively felt that her “we are for peace” message was less about genuine solidarity and more a way of masking her underlying attitude towards Ukraine and Ukrainians.
— Finally, do you expect disinformation levels to fall significantly once the war is over, while media literacy improves?
— No. Ukraine is likely to face an extremely difficult transition period, and we need to be prepared for that. In many ways, it could prove even harder than what we are going through now. The anger, grievances and frustrations that have built up during the war will inevitably come to the surface once it ends. Sadly, that is something we cannot avoid.
And if Russia remains in its current form—if it does not collapse or fundamentally change—it will continue to pose a long-term threat to Ukraine. It will keep looking for ways to exploit social vulnerabilities and push society further apart. That is why I keep emphasising the importance of a systematic approach to fighting disinformation. The goal is not only to respond to individual false narratives, but to prevent existing divisions in Ukrainian society from deepening and to stop new ones from emerging.
