May 24, the Ministry of Information Policy signed a memorandum of cooperation with NGO “Institute for Information Security” (Ukraine) and NGO “Razom” (USA) committed to jointly protect Ukraine’s information space and increase awareness of citizens in the media. As part of joint activities, MIP and above NGO’s plan to work over creation and development of international project entitled “Information Shield”.
The main objective of the project is identification of special operations and manipulations in media space, which are aimed at distorting events happening in Ukraine and generate negative impact upon country’s image in the world.
“With limited financial resources available, MIP is always open for cooperation with non-government organizations that seek to counter Russian propaganda. The synergy of Ukrainian efforts, whether they are inside or outside Ukraine, has proved its effectiveness during the Euromaidan events and will help our country win the information war with the aggressor now”, the Minister of Information Policy Yurii Stets stressed.
The first steps common activity will include monitoring of references about Ukraine in seven languages, namely English, French, German, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian, as well as weekly analysis and visualization of references to Ukrainian events in the world media.
“Intelligence plays an important role in the struggle. Information intelligence is no exception. To combat propaganda, one needs to know its scale, sources, agents of propaganda, and ways of dissemination. It is to monitor the informational space the OKO project was created for. Realizing the Ukraine’s unpreparedness to large-scale information war and limited state resources, we have started without waiting the initiative “from above”. Ukraine is obtaining experience taking confident position, so creation of the state structure aimed at combating propaganda is certainly an important step. And the willingness of the newly established Ministry to cooperate on already existing projects using OKO project groundwork shows the seriousness of intentions to conduct a truly unified and coordinated struggle on the informational front. NGO “Razom” and OKO project team place particular hopes on cooperation with the Ministry of Information Policy and believe that common efforts will bring significant results in the information struggle”, President of NGO “Razom” Liuba Shypovych reported.
NGO “Institute for Information Security” was created by volunteers with support of MIP who implemented the project “Information Forces” that drew much attention of mass media.
