From September 12 to 16, 2022, Andriy Shapovalov, Acting Head of the Center for Countering Disinformation, a working body of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, held a series of working meetings with representatives of partner countries.
On September 12, during a visit to Finland, he held talks with Counselor of the Embassy of Ukraine in Finland Maksym Kravchuk and Defense Attaché of the Embassy of Ukraine Oleksiy Kalenchenko. On the same day, a meeting was held with Rasmus Hindren, Head of International Relations, Joseph Schrefl, Deputy Director, and Ida Karjalainen, International Cooperation Coordinator at Hybrid CoE.
The purpose of the business trip to Helsinki (Finland) was to discuss possible ways of cooperation in the context of implementing joint measures to counter current and projected threats to national security and national interests.
On September 13, Andriy Shapovalov spoke at the opening of the Counter Disinformation Wargame (CDWG), a wargame to combat disinformation.
The event was organized by the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence and the European Center of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Riga, Latvia. Mr. Shapovalov spoke about the activities and main tasks performed by the CCD at the NSDC, thanked partners and colleagues for supporting Ukraine and wished success to all teams.
On September 14, representatives of the CCD at the NSDC met with Janis Sarts, Director of the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence, Yurii Zakharchuk, Counselor at the Embassy of Ukraine in Latvia, and Ben Heap, Senior Expert, StratCom Project Manager in Ukraine at the NATO Strategic Communications Center. The participants of the meeting discussed the issue of protecting citizens of Ukraine and partner countries from disinformation.
A little later, the head of the Center met with Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine to Latvia Olexandr Mishchenko. They discussed cooperation and popularization of the CCD at the NSDC in Latvia.
On September 15, after the practical day of countering Chinese disinformation within the framework of the war games project, in-depth meetings were held with representatives of the Office of the National Security Council of Georgia, the Presidium of the Communications Department of the Police of the Slovak Republic, the NATO Center of Excellence for Strategic Communications, and others.
On September 16, Acting Head of the Center Andriy Shapovalov took part as a speaker in the annual conference “Information Independence” at the invitation of the Academic Center for Strategic Communications under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Poland in Warsaw (Poland), where the main speaker was Vice Prime Minister, Minister of National Defense Mariusz Blaszczak.
The participants discussed changes in global communication caused by russia’s aggression against Ukraine, in particular, the role of strategic communication of governments, armed forces and media during armed conflicts.
During the event, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Center for Countering Disinformation and the Academic Center for Strategic Communications of the University of Military Studies.
All of the above activities are aimed at strengthening cooperation with partner countries to consolidate efforts in combating information threats in the world.
