For two days, participants from Vinnytsia, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Lviv, Volyn, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions have been learning to detect and debunk disinformation narratives about the European Union, European support, and Ukraine’s EU integration.

Sergii Grytsenko, Strategic Communication Officer at the EU Delegation, shared details about the existing efforts the Delegation supports to counter foreign information manipulation in Ukraine. He also spoke of significance to develop critical thinking and not to spread disinformation. 

On the first day, the Deputy Executive Director of Vox Ukraine Svitlana Slipchenko, journalist-analyst at Internews Ukraine Dzvenyslava Shcherba, and disinformation resilience expert Inna Polianska presented how disinformation works and how pro-Kremlin’s propaganda manipulates the topics of EU integration and support for Ukraine in the Ukrainian and European information spaces. Special attention was paid to online tools for verifying images, videos, and AI-generated content.

During the second day, the participants put the knowledge they had gained into practice by working in teams to debunk relevant disinformation narratives about the EU. As a result of their common effort, six teams presented their counter-narratives and ideas focusing on various target audiences, from students and Ukrainian refugees in the EU Member States to internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine. 

The participants shared their feedback on how they planned to use the newly-gained skills in their daily work: 

”I see it as an urgent task to withstand the influence of pro-Russian narratives and address divisions they cause in our society today. The adversary seeks to split us from inside and, thus, see us surrender, as they can`t achieve this on the battlefield.” — Valeriia Pylypak, senior lecturer at Vasyl Stus Donetsk National University (Vinnytsia). 

“Having disinformation awareness is incredibly important. Today, an avalanche of false news is so big that we need to work proactively. That is why the topic of this event is very relevant.”— Oksana Zaliubivska, Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Vinnytsia National Technical University, media literacy trainer (Vinnytsia).

“It proved to be a very informative event, as we dived deep into the issue of disinformation and combatting falsehoods on the path to the European Union. Overall, it is very important to find common ground in our views on the European integration and in countering disinformation, as it is a matter of national well-being.”  — Maksym Potapovych, advocacy manager on European integration at Human Rights Centre ZMINA (Kyiv).

“I have received a lot of new information, particularly in the field of disinformation monitoring. I saw there were various programmes and neural networks that can be used to detect false news. I plan to use them actively in my work.” — Olesia Kovalyk, journalist at Veteran Media, Sykhiv Media, She Info, and civic activist (Lviv).

The event was organised within the EU-UA Disinformation Awareness and Resilience [DARE] Project. It was the first event in a series of four — next workshops are planned in Lutsk, Cherkasy and Kyiv later this year.