Volodymyr Horbulin: Science and history is a weapon for Russia

The National Institute for Strategic Studies presented a report "Active measures of the USSR against the US: a prolog to hybrid war".

In his welcoming speech, Director of the National Institute for Strategic Studies (NISS), academician and vice-president of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Volodymyr Horbulin stated that nowadays, science and history is a weapon for Russia.

According to Mr. Horbulin, "the world has already seen this in the 80-ies when the USSR and the US entered the confrontation where the so-called active measures of Moscow against Washington played an important role". He stressed that the US gained huge experience of resisting this indirect type of aggression and worked out the means to counter it.

The NISS Director underlined that the Russian Federation concentrates significant efforts in the information sphere - these are the attempts of manipulation, disinformation, "stove-piping", etc., and there is a clear system to coordinate efforts, which ensures the integrity of measures to achieve the strategic aim. "Therefore, it is crucial for us to search for our own ways to coordinate our capacities. In many ways, this is the aim of the development of the strategic communications system. That is why stratcom should become an influential means of ensuring the resilience of society, which is one of the conditions to counter social cyberattacks that will further occur", - Volodymyr Horbulin said adding that Ukraine has to pay more attention to acquiring the experience of the Western partners.

Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the Staff of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Valentin Petrov, who participated in the presentation, noticed that experts of the Institute had done a huge job - they analyzed in detail the existing threats, primarily in the information sphere. "The Institute is the Ukrainian platform for learning the hybrid war experience. This work is our contribution to European and Euro-Atlantic security", - he said.

Mr. Petrov noted that in geopolitics, the Russian Federation applies previously developed techniques adapted to a new technological platform. "We have to accumulate and analyze this experience. We have to study thoroughly both our present and past, otherwise we are doomed to go around in circles making the same mistakes", - Mr. Petrov summarized.

The Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the NSDC Staff stated that not only the Armed Forces but the whole defense and security sector have a unique experience of countering hybrid threats and ensuring information security in particular and national security as a whole.