On March 19, the Center for Countering Disinformation, a working body of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, with the support of the European Union Advisory Mission to Ukraine, held a press conference about the results of its work and the new content products.

Head of the Countering Disinformation Center NSDC Andriy Kovalenko said that in cooperation with the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, information threats called “Draft dodger” and “Maidan-3” were detected, and active work is underway to counter these enemy campaigns.

In addition, the Center, in cooperation with the Security Service of Ukraine, identified 365 hostile Telegram channels, 65 hostile accounts on the X social media platform, and a network of 83 hostile TikTok channels. 

А. Kovalenko noted that 200 hostile YouTube channels and 24 TikTok channels have already been blocked. “The Center was the first in Ukraine to start cooperation with the administration of TikTok to counteract the spread of russian propaganda on the platform,” the head of the Center added.

The main task of the Center is to counteract disinformation and analyze the information space, including the foreign information environment, said Kovalenko, and informed that the Center monitors 812 speakers, 296 organizations, 156 foreign Internet sources, 150 TikTok channels, 101 YouTube channels, 200 accounts on X, 449 Telegram channels on a daily basis. 

А. Kovalenko noted that the Center cooperates with the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, the Security Service of Ukraine, the Cyber Police, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Energoatom, the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, the National Police of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine, etc. in countering disinformation.

In addition, he said, a network of 24 websites with the common name “Pravda” was identified, which russia created to spread its propaganda to European countries, and in cooperation with the OSINT agency Molfar, a campaign to discredit the family of the President of Ukraine by African media was investigated.

Alina Bondarchuk, Deputy Head of the Center, spoke about the Center’s public information products. Among them, she mentioned messages responding to information threats, infographics, and YouTube projects.

According to A. Bondarchuk, the total number of views of the “Kramatorsk Station” YouTube project, a joint project with Ukrinform, is 51.3 million, the “Let’s Talk” podcast with VoxChek is 10 million, the “About the War” podcast is 60 million, and the “DisinFAKEtion” YouTube project is 12.6 million views. The total number of viewers of the new YouTube project ” Center for Researching MordoRU” in the first month of its launch is 505 thousand.

Among the projects intended for an international audience, Bondarchuk mentioned the joint English-language product “Hate speech” with the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine, which will be broadcast by the Multimedia Platform of Foreign Broadcasting of Ukraine.

Deputy Head of the Center Anayit Khoperiya spoke about the Center’s international work. In particular, she emphasized that due to the agreement between the Center and NATO CoE, Ukraine sent its representative to the NATO Center of Excellence for the first time.

According to A. Khoperiya, the Center organized training for the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency (MPF) on countering information influence, as well as training for the European External Action Service on countering the threats of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI).

She said that the Center plans to conduct joint information campaigns with countries that have signed security agreements with Ukraine, adapt the FIMI concept, and conduct training for the media on the use of OSINT tools.

Johannes Rueger, Head of Public Affairs at the European Union Advisory Mission Ukraine, said that a number of successful educational projects in the field of information security have been implemented in cooperation with the Center. He noted that EUAM will continue to support the Center’s activities as a coordinating body in the field of countering disinformation.