STRATEGIC APPROACHES TO ENSURING INFORMATION SECURITY IN THE CONDITIONS OF UKRAINE’S INFORMATION WAR WITH RUSSIA

Abstract

The article examines a topical problem — the information front of Russian aggression after the start of a full-scale invasion of Russian troops into Ukraine. Although information attacks using tools of destructive propaganda by Russia have been in Ukraine since 2014, the number of such attacks has increased significantly since February 24, 2022. Even though Ukraine began to strengthen its information protection 10 years ago, it became clear that the steps in this direction were not enough. First of all, this is caused by the inequality of the initial resources for conducting an information war. Therefore, Ukraine is mainly forced to defend itself against the Russian informational onslaught, occasionally striking back. However, even with such a relatively small amount of resources, the information front of Russian aggression has not experienced significant success so far. It should be noted that to win the information war, it is necessary to allocate a large amount of resources for a long time. However, unfortunately, Ukraine currently has neither a sufficient amount of free resources nor time to achieve indisputable success. So, the key question remains «What Ukraine can do now to improve its situation». To achieve the set goal of determining effective measures and directions for strengthening the national information security of Ukraine, a complex of general scientific, logical, and empirical methods was used. Conclusions were made that to counter the informational aggression of the Russian Federation, it is necessary to improve the legislative framework (especially in the field of personal data protection); to create a powerful information infrastructure of independent media that can work according to the standards of EU countries; grant authority to institutes in the field of information security; develop strategic communications and launch a media literacy and critical thinking campaign.