Russia’s propaganda can significantly affect electoral processes, manipulating voters’ minds and mindsets by distorting reality.

This was the message of Iulian Chifu, President of the Bucharest Center for Conflict Prevention and Early Warning, at the 17th Annual Kyiv Security Forum “UA: UNITE AGAIN TO DEFEAT THE GLOBAL AGGRESSOR”, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation “Open Ukraine”.

“We have never thought it would be possible to start with 1-2% support for a candidate, and end up with a third of voters’ population or even landslide majority through application of psychological information attacks. This is a powerful weapon indeed,” he noted.

According to the expert, one of the major tools of influence is information distortion across online platforms, making it difficult to grasp who is the aggressor and who is the victim.

“Everything is presented in such a way that people stop thinking critically: Russia has successfully created “brotherly nations” image, propaganda campaign slogan “good Ukrainian people - bad Ukrainian leaders”. These have been reiterated time and again for the past four years. This is a classical tactics that is based on emotions, not facts”, he added.

Iulian Chifu also reminded the audience about the US elections, with targeted information campaigns on social networks affecting the election race outcome between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: “Hillary Clinton’s loss of several tens of thousands of votes resulted from microtargeting - a campaign aimed at voters’ emotions and doubts. It is not a coincidence - it is a clear strategy”, he emphasized.

According to the expert, the major task of spin doctors in the short-term perspective will be to lure new voters, especially young first-time voters. Hence, it is important to develop a system to counter information manipulation.

“Information warfare is not just words. It is a real weapon. And if we want to win, we must develop our own defense tools,” concluded Iulian Chifu.

The Kyiv Security Forum, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s Open Ukraine Foundation, is the main platform in Ukraine to discuss issues of war and peace, national and global security.