How Ukraine and Russia use the information space to shape public opinion

A month into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, both sides continue to wage active information campaigns online, providing daily updates on their respective military accomplishments and even enemy casualties.

While the Ukrainian and Russian defence ministries may differ in how they present the war to their respective followers on traditional and social media, parsing through the two information streams can be telling as far as who their target audience is and where they think the conflict is going.

CASUALTIES AND PROGRESS

When it comes to reported casualties since the Feb. 24 invasion, the Russian military on March 2 reported that it had lost 498 soldiers, with another 1,597 wounded, but has not updated that toll since.

The Ukrainian military consistently releases its own cumulative tally of Russia's estimated losses, which as of March 24 include about 15,800 troops.

A senior NATO military official on Wednesday estimated that between 7,000 and 15,000 Russian troops have been killed. That same official also projected Russian casualties, including those killed, wounded, taken prisoner or missing, at between 30,000 and 40,000.

On Monday, a Russian tabloid citing the Russian defence ministry reported that 9,861 soldiers have been killed in action in Ukraine and another 16,153 have been wounded.

However, the newspaper later removed the article from its website and blamed it on the work of hackers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said about two weeks ago that about 1,300 Ukrainian service members have been killed. Ukraine also claims it has killed six Russian generals, while Russia has acknowledged just one to date.

On the Russian side, defence ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov has offered daily briefings on the conflict and shared them on social media, something University of Calgary history professor Alexander Hill has been following.

Given that the briefings have recently been dubbed into English, Hill says it is "fair to suggest that they are seen as having value for a foreign audience — including the foreign press."

"However, that they were not dubbed into English from the outset suggests that they are primarily intended for a Russian-speaking audience, including no doubt the Russian diaspora across the West — and possibly western governments who might have had someone translating them," he said in an email to CTVNews.ca on Thursday.

"The intention of the briefings is clearly to highlight that the focus of Russian forces is on the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist regions — and to highlight that progress is being made on this key element of Russian operations. Certainly, Ukrainian and western sources have not been disputing that Russian forces have been making slow gains in that part of the war."

Ukraine has been fighting separatist forces in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014.

'POWER OF SUGGESTION'

The difference in strategies ultimately goes back to what type of government each country has, says Eric Ouellet, a professor in the department of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont.

Russia, he says, is more interested in maintaining control over its own population, in part by banning certain social media and limiting traditional media by using the threat of imprisonment over "fake" reporting.

In the bigger scheme of things, he says Russia appears to be losing the information war, which prior to the invasion saw it attempt to exploit fractures, such as LGBTQ2S+ issues, among European nations.

"But once the conflict started and issues became, I would say, a more existential threat to Europe, way beyond social norms, I think the Russians were quite surprised by how the Europeans and NATO came united against them," Ouellet told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Thursday.

On the other hand, Ukraine is intent on keeping its own country's morale up and gaining support from the West, he added.

In that sense, Ouellet says Ukraine has to be careful to not be seen as lying in order to not lose any legitimacy.

"However, that doesn't mean that what they show is the entire truth," he said. "Showing a bunch of tanks being shelled or showing a protest against Russians, it's true but it doesn't mean it's necessarily an accurate image of the entire situation in the country."

While Ukraine has announced many times how many Russian soldiers it has killed and tanks it has destroyed, it hasn't released as much information about its own losses, Ouellet says.

"So it's not lying, it's just selected presentation of reality."

Jeffrey Dvorkin, a senior fellow at Massey College at the University of Toronto, says there is no real way to validate what each side is saying, although Canada and other NATO countries tend to be naturally suspicious of official Russian information.

Dvorkin, who also teaches media ethics at the University of Toronto's St. Michael's College, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Thursday that the use of more "subtle" messaging, such as insinuations about the true motives of the West or Russia, may be having a greater impact over public opinion.

"Disinformation works most effectively with the power of suggestion, not with a banner headline," he said, pointing to recent U.S. presidential elections as an example.

"It's not the hammer over the head, it's the little suggestions of something else."

With files from The Associated Press