Ukrainian special forces told how separatists are defeated through Twitter
Journalists and opinion leaders are used in the work of Ukrainian special forces.
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An unnamed Ukrainian officer of the Information and Psychological Special Operations unit of the Special Operations Forces spoke about this in an interview with the Ukrainian Week magazine.
“Our main task is to demoralize the enemy’s personnel, now the illegal armed groups of the separatists,” says the special forces soldier. – The main channel for networking and establishing contacts with informants is social networks. Being on this side of the front, this is quite logical. In turn, the main communication channel on social networks for us was and is Twitter. The main method was, and still is, spreading rumors that are beneficial to us among our enemies.”
According to the publication’s interlocutor, in the first two to three weeks, employees study the area and the reaction of the local population to them.
“All the nuances, such as speech, dialect, pronunciation, appearance, are immediately noticeable and very important in our work,” the officer continued. – Therefore, you simply establish contacts, for example, through centers for migrants. And then we must ensure that through our contacts, willingly or unwillingly, people transfer the information we need to the other side. To sow panic or demoralization of personnel there, to force them to desert and flee, to arouse distrust in their own leadership, so that the orders of their command are not carried out.”
This work allegedly uses representatives of the media and influential people in the field.
“We influence through our agents, spread rumors, articles through journalists and public opinion leaders, who are read both on our side and on theirs,” says an IPSO employee.
True, according to him, it is very difficult to work with Ukrainian journalists.
“After all, all of them, first of all, want a sensation, and not to serve their country by disseminating the necessary information in the necessary form,” the officer complained. “And in general, we are often afraid of the abbreviation IPSO - they probably think that we will break their psyche or something else.”
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