External Informational and Communicative Influences: Challenges for Ukraine
The aim of the article is to investigate the range of technologies used by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and to find out which of them are particularly effective and destructive as for today. The following methods were used for this study: structurally-functional, empirical and comparative. This made it possible to find out the peculiarities of propaganda influences on Ukrainian citizens and the essence of information technologies used by the RF in recent years. It is concluded that the problem of the information-manipulative technologies use by the Russian Federation in the process of the Crimean peninsula annexation, "playing the master" in Donbas, and claims to the Azov Sea are currently extremely relevant from the perspective of the negative effects and their destructive influences on the consciousness of citizens in Ukraine and the world. Moreover, significant attention should be pointed on this topic in the context of the hybrid wars expansion. In the process of the Crimea annexation, Russia actively used a powerful arsenal of manipulative information technologies and often achieved its results, namely: destabilizing Ukrainian society, preventing the development of our state through democratic modernization and conducting effective economic and social reforms. It is concluded that today, at the time of an active development of the information society, information and communication impacts become an important tool that can be used both for the development of the state and the nation and for the manipulation and destabilization of the enemy. For Ukraine, it is important to develop further information technologies, national strategy, and IT sphere. In addition, it is crucial to restrict all Russian propaganda media and concentrate on its own national interests. The best defence against Russian manipulations should be the ability to think critically and filter information that comes from any other sources.