In early 2021, as tensions with Russia escalated, Ukraine’s government, seemingly under the covert influence of NATO, set up two secretive centers to fight Russian disinformation. These centers, one at the National Security Council and the other at the Ministry of Culture were tasked with more than just battling fake news—they began targeting global journalists, politicians, and critics who opposed the Western agenda. Led by Andriy Kovalenko, they engaged aggressively on social media and collaborated with international partners, hinting at a broader strategy where Ukraine’s actions are part of a hidden campaign to influence and control global narratives.
According to a revealing investigation by GreatGameInternational, the Ukrainian intelligence agency MOLFAR, operating out of London, is at the heart of this covert operation, it recently added Trump’s Vice President pick, J.D. Vance, on a hit-list on the same day of his announcement.
In a recent interview on July 25, Lieutenant Andrii Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, revealed that the biggest international danger today is the information landscape of the Middle East and the Global South. According to him, these regions are at the heart of a global struggle over truth and misinformation.
Below is the automated English translation of the interview as published by Detector Media.
In March 2021, almost a year before the start of the full-scale war, two special bodies were created in Ukraine to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda in Ukraine. In particular, the Center for Countering Disinformation was established at the National Security and Defense Council, and the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security was established within the Ministry of Culture.
At the time of the establishment of the Center at the National Security and Defense Council, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee for Reforms of the National Council of Reforms Oleksandr Olshansky said that the Center would coordinate the work of various branches of government, including the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy, the National Institute for Strategic Studies and special services. The then Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Oleksiy Danilov, explained that “representatives of the entire intelligence community, relevant ministries and agencies will be involved in the Center,” and that a monitoring unit would be created within the Center. He also added that it will not be a closed institution – its work will be regularly informed. However, at the beginning of the Center’s existence, many questions arose about the legal basis for its activities and what exactly they could be.
The first head of the International Center for Countering Disinformation was lawyer Polina Lysenko, who was its only employee for at least two months and worked on a volunteer basis (although Oleksiy Danilov called her words “incorrect”). At that time, the Center’s work was mainly aimed at analyzing information and coordinating the work of subject matter experts.
In August 2021, Polina Lysenko went on maternity leave and Andriy Shapovalov, a media worker from Luhansk, became the acting head of the CCD. When he headed the Center, according to Oleksiy Danilov, it employed 15 people. He worked in this position until the end of January 2024, when the president appointed his deputy, also a journalist and PR specialist, Lieutenant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andriy Kovalenko, in his place.
Detector Media has already talked about the work of this body when it was headed by Kovalenko, and also often publishes information about Russian lies revealed by the CCD. Now we have talked with its head, Andriy Kovalenko, about the key tasks of the Center, how the nature of Russian disinformation has changed, and how it is perceived by Ukrainian society.
— Andrii, most readers probably don’t know the details of your biography. So please tell us what you did before you became the head of the CPD.
— I had a fairly long media history before taking office, to which I was appointed by decree of President Volodymyr Zelensky. I have been working in the media since 2010. Also, as a military man, I had my own blog with a total audience of up to a million subscribers in various social networks. The coverage was quite large, so there was a certain recognition. And since his student years he worked as a journalist. In fact, he started as a sports journalist, then moved to political journalism, headed the Depo website, at one time he also worked in the publications “Today”, “Comments”, on the TV channel “Espresso”, which was then actually the main media of the Maidan – he was just in the team that launched it directly. I also worked in government agencies, in communications, and, let’s say, in political communications.
When the war started, I joined a volunteer unit, then I was in the Defense Forces, a mobilized soldier, and ran my blog, which I mentioned above.
— What are the directions and main goals of the CPD at the moment?
— They see the public side — it is both on our social networks and in the media. This is a separate block. We also launched the Mordor YouTube channel, which in two months grew to 10 thousand subscribers without any advertising. This is about the cultural and historical fakes of the Russians.
We have a media literacy department. He is responsible for some media products and not only.
Now it is very important to deepen the direction of OSINT so that we can do more research, such as we did about Africa, in particular about the spread of fakes. How Russian disinformation works there, how they buy publications in the media, what kind of journalists they invent, how they frame people who are in Russia, calling them African journalists. Russia is doing the same thing in the Middle East, in China, and we need to investigate more how this system works. And we analyze a lot about international affairs, the work of Russians on different continents, predict their campaigns and our actions in response.
— What have you changed in the work of the center since you headed it?
— Before I came, the center was quite non-public. That is, when I headed it, many people asked what kind of structure it was. There was no recognition. When I became the deputy head of the center, I immediately had the task of increasing public activity. At that time, we launched certain products. In general, I believe that if an institution is engaged in countering disinformation, then it must build its own trust in society, in the media, cooperate with the media, and in order for its voice to be powerful, it must be public, have its own position. If this structure has a reputation and trust, it will be listened to. Then this or that signal can be spread to the general public, to counteract Russian fake news and campaigns. That is, the first task was to increase publicity.
— And this is how you determine the effectiveness of the Center’s work?
— This is only one of the indicators. For the period from January 1 to July 15 of this year, the total coverage of all our resources is 410 million. If we compare, for example, the period from December to February, the number of coverage during these months was higher than in the center in the two years before that. This became possible thanks to my public activities as the head of the Center, and thanks to such products as “Kramatorsk Station” run by Kostya and Vlada Liberovy at Ukrinform, other products and, in general, cooperation with the media in disseminating our messages. That’s one point.
The second point is that when I became the head, we started working with Bihus.info, with United24, with the international broadcasting platform to reach a foreign audience with our messages and research. We also work with influencers who are willing to help us counter disinformation on a volunteer basis.
And a lot of non-public work is being done. We are working with American partners to counter disinformation, with German and French partners, and we have begun to exchange information with European partners and NATO member states. This allows you to receive more support from them than you had before. Plus, we try to be a coordinating body that works with all special services and promptly responds to threats behind closed doors, because part of our work is related to classified information about threats not only within the country, but also in the information field at the global level related to the interests of Ukraine.
— How do you cooperate with Bihus.info?
— There are products to counter disinformation, respectively, based on our analytical reports in Bihus.info they are published on Instagram and TikTok.
— Recently, The Guardian published an open letter from representatives of a number of universities in Europe and the United States about why Ukraine should not be invited to NATO. This shows that Russians are actively working not only for the masses, but also for the elites — scientific, cultural, and business. What can we oppose to this?
“The Russians are actively using their financial capabilities and the efforts of the foreign intelligence service in any country, as well as people who are often employees of their embassies. As a country, we do not have so much money for such work, so I will say this: we can oppose them with quality. The same diplomacy, as it is called, through WhatsApp, is actually quick and direct contact with the leaders of the countries, the establishment of human relations, the strengthening of our embassies, the strengthening of the quality of training of our diplomats. Embassies are now opening in Africa, for example, thanks to the increase in the network of our partners. They will help us and defend the interests of Ukraine in partnership relations on different continents. We will not beat the Russians in the amount of money, we will not beat them, unfortunately, so far in the amount of income that, despite the sanctions, they still receive from petrodollars, so quality is our only way out. That is why we need to constantly expand Ukraine’s capabilities in this regard, both in terms of OSINT and in terms of combating disinformation. The enemy opens Rossotrudnichestvo organizations and various cultural centers in countries to promote their own interests and intelligence.
If it has become difficult to do this in Europe, they are moving it to Latin America, to the Middle East, opening cultural houses, as they call it, wherever there is such an opportunity, and they have the money for this. In order to detect such things, we, as the Center, can now strengthen the direction of detection and public intelligence. In particular, we signed a memorandum with Molfar, and they help us in conducting important closed investigations that go to the National Security and Defense Council, and not only.
— I think not all readers understand why there is a StratCom of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, there is also the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security under the Ministry of Culture and your structure under the National Security and Defense Council. Therefore, please explain how you differ strategically and how you divide this large area of work among yourselves?
— Other centers do not have access to state secrets. We have this access, we work with intelligence. We do a lot of work behind closed doors, and this work is quite secret, with the use of appropriate software, to which our partners have access, we have. It is we who often advise these organizations, in particular, how to respond to fake news made by Russia. For example, now the Russians are very actively misinforming about energy issues, with the aim of stimulating the departure of people from Ukraine, intimidating that there will be a “black winter” and there will be no electricity at all, because Ukraine sells, they say, electricity abroad. We record this campaign, we analyze it and recommend, for example, what kind of communication is needed, what needs to be explained to people so that Russian disinformation does not achieve results. Accordingly, in this way, we communicate with various structures and with the Ministry of Energy, in particular, we advise how to comment on this problem in terms of disinformation issues.
— How do you interact, for example, with the Office of the President, with other ministries?
— We do not have direct relations with the Office of the President. We are a working body of the National Security and Defense Council. Our information on enemy fake news and threats is used for the President’s Headquarters. Because we have tools for quick detection and analysis of threats, appropriate software with artificial intelligence, which many ministries do not have. Accordingly, we warn and give analytical reports. Interaction with various authorities is fully built, but within the framework of our tasks, that is, countering disinformation, which is the basis of information warfare.
“Russian disinformation really works powerfully, and it’s obvious that it’s changing. Perhaps you have noticed some trends, changes in their approaches?
“As the main platform for dispersing their disinformation, they have started using TikTok now. And from there, it all flows to Facebook, YouTube, Telegram and Viber. But what are the main changes? Now the Russians are engaged exclusively in resonating the problem, but they are no longer setting the agenda. That is, when Medvedchuk’s channels worked, they actually formed a specific newsbreak on these TV channels.
— For example, about biolaboratories?
“Yes. Or something else, political. They directly created it there, and then dispersed it. Medvedchuk’s channels are closed. Currently, there is no media that would create these disinformation pretexts. Such tools were also the Telegram channels “Legitimate” and “Resident”, but until February 24, 22. At that time, they also acted as tools that could partially create some kind of agenda, and the Russians acted through them. Now it’s just an inflating of existing topics. There is a specific problem that they see and analyze. These are, for example, energy, mobilization, and so on. They connect their entire infrastructure, develop narratives that can hurt emotions in society, and try to disperse them, try to scale certain problems. This is now the main method of work of the Russians, until they have a conditional Meduza. There are also a number of certain YouTube bloggers who can partially perform these tasks. For example, they are trying to use Yuriy Shvets as a person who can create some kind of newsbreak, but he frankly does not work well.
However, they have created a large-scale infrastructure to resonate these problems in Ukraine.
We have two key themes that we will fight against throughout this year and next year. This is the topic of mobilization, which will come from different sides. On the one hand, it will be related to the topic of war and the ability of the Defense Forces to win. They will try to present it in such a way that all people are sent “for meat”, they will intimidate it as much as possible in order to disrupt it and deprive the Defense Forces of reserves. This is a traditional Russian story.
— Are you talking about the war “to the last Ukrainian”?
“Yes, yes. The second point is energy.
The topic of the alleged illegitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities did not work precisely due to the timely and successful response, in particular, of our Center together with the Main Intelligence Directorate.
The main international threat is the information field of the Middle East and the Global South in general. The Russians have a very strong infrastructure there, and we have practically no resources to aggressively counteract this. For example, they have RT Arabic, which they will be expanding from 2025. They are budgeting more for 2025, increasing staff, they understand the importance of this field. And, again, Latin America and Africa. They will expand their TV channels there. A significant number of Telegram channels are being created in Africa, and this is very serious.
— The latest poll by the Razumkov Center commissioned by Dzerkalo Tyzhnia shows that 45% of respondents in Ukraine want negotiations, but 83% of them want it to be on our terms. How would you comment on such results of a sociological survey?
— Now the war has affected all Ukrainians, and the inconvenience has been felt even in those cities where they did not feel them in 2022. I’m talking about turning off the lights now. Therefore, Ukrainians sometimes fall for this bait of the Russians about simple scenarios when they say “it’s time to negotiate peace” — something that the Russians accuse. They say that it is possible to negotiate peace, but this is allegedly Ukrainian government does not want this. But they don’t say what’s behind it. And behind this are Putin’s demands, that is, the capitulation of Ukraine. For the most part, Ukrainians who have little interest in history fall for this. Because if you study the history of even the 20th century, not to mention the times of Bogolyubsky and so on, without delving into the times of Ivan the Terrible, then you can easily understand that behind a simple peace is the destruction of the state, the occupation and even the destruction of those people who chose this simple scenario. Holodomor, genocide… Strikes on the energy sector now are genocide.
The Russians really want it, but they don’t have the resources to do it, they don’t have the strength. However, they clearly understand that there must be a Russian Empire — and no Ukraine, no Ukrainians at all. Historically, Russia clears the territory of people in order to populate its population, and to retain some of the loyal representatives in those territories as service personnel.
But again, there’s an interesting story to this: Ukrainians want the 1991 borders. But are these Ukrainians ready not to demand, let’s say, that this be achieved by the efforts of those who have been fighting since 2022, but to join the army themselves? This question is very adult. If you are going to go to victory, you should not hide from mobilization. This is honest, and everything else is a sign of an infantile society, unfortunately. We will never agree to scenarios with the loss of territories, sovereignty and territorial integrity – this is the key point, it should be the only way. Accordingly, here we have to approve the adult decision. First, Ukraine can exist if we fight. Now we are left with no other choice. The second is on the issue of the 1991 borders. You have the right to publicly declare this if you either really work for the economy and constantly work for victory, or you are at war.
— In continuation of the topic. We’ve all seen how bloggers and influencers spread the “quick peace” message. In your opinion, did they write this without thinking, because their followers expected it from them, or is it really a deliberate play along with Russian propaganda?
“We’ve been researching the whole story. And even before the situation with bloggers, it was reported about the start of a Russian campaign called “Peace”. Earlier, we recorded fake news from Yuri Shvets, from those associated with Russians, about the alleged start of secret negotiations – this is a traditional conspiracy throw-in. Part of society is focused on conspiracy theories, and this bait is usually swallowed by people without critical thinking. Then these fake news were actively spread on TikTok, and there were even millionaire bloggers who talked about the alleged start of secret peace negotiations. And this has created great hope in a part of society that is tired of the war that these secret negotiations are really underway.
Some Ukrainians could really get tired. Let’s not dismiss it. They believed in the beginning of secret negotiations as in the fact that soon they would have to be patient a little longer. They don’t care about the territory — that’s how the psyche of some people works. And among these people were certain bloggers. So when Okhmatdyt was hit, they reacted emotionally. Terror is always aimed at enforcing peace on their terms. The Russians carry out this terror in order to break society psychologically and force them to agree to the terrorist’s conditions. These bloggers emotionally resonated with these messages thrown in by Shvets and others like him. One blogger’s audience reacted to him in the comments with approval. Another blogger looked at these comments, realized that the topic was hype, and moved on. That’s how the funnel spun. And all because of the ignorance of many of these bloggers, misunderstanding, ignorance of the history of Ukraine, and life is exclusively at the level of hype.
“Recently, we have seen a lot of complaints about the Ukrainian command in the media space, which appeared almost simultaneously. For example, MP Maryana Bezuhla distinguished herself in this. What do you think about her posts and the fact that many believe that she actually expresses the position of the President’s Office?
“If I’m not mistaken, just on the day we are talking, she left the Servant of the People faction. It seems to me that this may be her personal opinion. But in general, I think that all these issues could be resolved in a dialogue with Mr. Syrsky, and earlier with Zaluzhnyi. It’s hard to analyze here, because I try not to get involved in political issues.
“But this topic with the command was raised by many well-known journalists, public figures, and even some military personnel — people who can hardly be accused of deliberately playing along with the Russians.
— The army is a cross-section of society. When a country has been in such a difficult war for a long time, everyone accumulates emotions. Sometimes you need to blow off steam for many military personnel who are public and just write this post on Twitter or somewhere else. The main thing is that it does not directly harm the defense capability. Certain public posts cannot harm the defense capability. It can be taken as if we have let off steam.
The second point is that when the military talks about the army and it does not harm the defense capability, then everything is honest. Do civilians who are not mobilized have the right to say anything about the actions of commanders? I don’t think so.
“But there are certain restrictions on the military, a ban on discussing the decisions of the high command. Therefore, for example, these issues were raised by military correspondents who go to the front and communicate with the military.
— I mean civilians who have nothing to do with the army at all. War correspondents are still involved, as well as volunteers who go to the front. I say that it’s bad when blogger Oleksandr Voloshin comments on missile strikes — after all, he is not an expert and it is not for him to judge this. And there are many such stories, about various military topics.
— Let’s move on to blocking YouTube channels. Could you please explain how it works? Why are they blocked, for example, only on the territory of Ukraine, but not outside of Ukraine? Does YouTube completely delete any channels at your request?
— Everything is done by a specific administration, specifically by a social network. It blocks, it determines from which country it is visible and from which it is not visible. These are their decisions, their actions. I can’t disclose anything about YouTube — these are the rules.
— Will there be any cooperation with the Telegram administration? How do you see it? Is it possible to delete any Telegram channels?
— If we talk about Telegram, there is a threat to the security of using it as a messenger for communication, in particular for sending files, since no one can guarantee that these files do not end up with the Russians. Some of the servers are rumored to be located in Russia, some are allegedly in Dubai. Therefore, it is very undesirable for officials to communicate in this messenger. And this story would be worth working on.
As for the ban as a social network, there are certain important projects, for example, the Main Directorate of Intelligence uses Telegram to work with the temporarily occupied territories.
Blocking and sanctioning is still not a story about our competence, we do not block, sanctions can be imposed by the National Security and Defense Council, for example. We cannot impose sanctions.
Plus, there are many pro-Ukrainian channels in Telegram, so if you only read this messenger, and do not use it to work with documents, there are fewer threats.
— What can you say about TikTok? Is there any dialogue?
— The Center for Countering Disinformation is the first state body in Ukraine that works directly with TikTok. We communicate with the European office of Tiktok and there is mutual understanding on many issues. In particular, in the issues of certain destructive channels that spread calls to go to the squares and overthrow the government. Tiktok was quite quick to respond to reviews and regarded it as misinformation. I would like more of this.
We would like to receive a faster response now from the company’s office. And we are also asking to open an office in Kyiv, to make a staff of at least ten people who would work with us exclusively on disinformation that Russia throws here. We would also like to reconfigure the algorithm for Ukraine so that Russian videos are not included in the recommendations to Ukrainians. There is this dialogue — we are waiting for the reaction of the Tiktok administration.
— You have repeatedly said that TikTok contains more threats than Telegram. Why?
— Regarding the comparison of TikTok and Telegram, we analyzed the number of audiences that are there. There are more than 16 million Ukrainian accounts on TikTok, some may be duplicated, and 10 million on Telegram. Accordingly, the difference is at least in quantity. In Telegram, you at least choose your own feed, but on TikTok, the algorithm does it — this is an important point. The main problem is that TikTok is easy for Russians to work with. They create a zero account, upload one video there, and quickly launch a bot farm from Ukrainian accounts on it in the first 30 seconds — the Russians have a lot of them. The tiktok algorithm perceives this as organic measures and gives this video further in the recommendation for Ukrainian users. Thus, it is very easy for the Russians to spread their fake news. This is not possible in Telegram.
Plus, countering disinformation in terms of the presence of a large amount of Ukrainian content on TikTok is a problem. There are many pro-Ukrainian channels in Telegram. Unfortunately, there is disproportionately little Ukrainian content on TikTok. That is, there are very few pro-Ukrainian bloggers and they get lost in this flow, which is aggressively created by Russia.
“Certain decisions of individual officials themselves give a chance to Russian propaganda, preventing them from showing the truth. For example, when the Russians blew up the dam of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, journalists were not allowed to film the aftermath even in places where there were civilians. When Okhmatdyt was shelled, police officers did not allow journalists there with words like “you want to make money on someone else’s blood.” But in fact, it is important for us to demonstrate Russian war crimes — this is a very strong argument. But why do many authorized persons do not have this understanding and how to change it?
— There are certain security issues. When such a tragedy as with Okhmatdyt occurs, we must remember that a large crowd is formed there and there may be the same spotters. It takes time for the special services to work. Therefore, security issues should come first. But I was also there, and there were a lot of journalists there, I didn’t see journalists interfering with their work. Honestly, I believe that during such a war and such situations, the state and journalists work as efficiently as possible.
At the same time, I believe that it is still expedient for us to have the institution of war correspondents at the state level as a component of the Defense Forces directly. Yes, someone says that we will copy the Russians. But one way or another, certain bloggers-war correspondents work and benefit the state. Some of them, I know, would definitely like to do the same in the Defense Forces. And if this were done qualitatively, it would strengthen us at the information level, in particular in terms of covering the activities of the Defense Forces and everything related to military topics.
— We have strikes far in the rear, for example, in Lviv. And even there, photojournalists were required to be accredited by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But journalists who go to the front have it. That is, a Russian war crime can happen anywhere, and it is logical to give the right to show it not only to war correspondents, but also to local correspondents.
“Some journalists — we won’t name names — call themselves ‘people’s journalists’. That is, they are not registered as journalists and stamp these accreditations for themselves – this is a problem. Everything related to the coverage of arrivals is a matter of security. Because Russian intelligence makes OSINT (intelligence from open sources, in particular, from the Internet — “DM”) and adjusts strikes with the help of content that appears from the places of arrival.
The work of journalists is important. It’s also a responsibility. I would like to say again that the media still have the opportunity to cover such events. Some things are allowed to be covered with a delay due to security issues.
— They say that the authorities have an idea about the need to pass a law on disinformation. There is speculation that it may be based on Borodiansky’s 2019 bill. Have you heard about it, and how do you feel about it?
“I haven’t heard anything like that and I can’t say anything about this bill. But I believe that Ukrainian legislation does not correspond to the current realities. In particular, there is no terminology needed to define disinformation, which is something we often talk about with international partners. Accordingly, the Russians manipulate concepts, for example, the issue of freedom of speech. They adjust their information campaigns in such a way that in case of something they shout about “protection of freedom of speech” if some media or journalists are labeled as propagandists. Therefore, I believe that the appropriate terminology should be introduced into the legislation – disinformation, propaganda, and so on – everything should be clearly laid out and regulated. Why do we have to do this? Because the information war will only intensify in the coming years, and we must have more tools to fight.
