In his timely study, Andrii Demartino investigates the multitude of
techniques how social media can be used to advance an aggressive foreign
policy, as exemplified by the Russian Federation's operation to annex
Crimea in 2014. Drawing on a wide range of sources, Demartino traces the
implementation of a series of Russian measures to create channels and
organisations manipulating public opinion in the Ukrainian segment of
the internet and on platforms such as Facebook, VKontakte,
Odnoklassniki, LiveJournal, and Twitter.
Addressing the pertinent question of how much the operation to annex
Crimea was either improvised or planned, he draws attention to Russia's
ad-hoc actions in the sphere of social media in 2014. Based on an
in-depth analysis of the methods of Russia's influence operations, the
book proposes a number of counterstrategies to prevent such "active
measures." These propositions can serve to improve Ukraine's national
information policy as well as help to develop adequate security concepts
of other states.