People influenced by Russian narratives are only serving propaganda, said Bohdan Rajčinec, President of the European Congress of Ukrainians (ECU), in an interview with the Slovopys.
“Propaganda is built up over decades or even centuries; it is effective when needed, as it has always been. The main goal of Russian and other propaganda is to disrupt and blur understanding. It’s just a falsehood, nothing more. They produce nothing creative,” Rajčinec said.
The Ukrainian community is making significant efforts to combat Russian propaganda. “We conduct roundtables and training sessions. We have already held several with our Ukrainian friends. We conducted sessions with other Europeans at the end of 2023. Here in Prague, we had representatives from 15 EU countries – friends of Ukraine – discussing cases of propaganda targeting people aged 30 to 40. We started with fundamental concepts and moved on to practical advice on how to respond at relevant moments. A popular and effective method in democratic media now is fact-checking, done by both artificial intelligence and humans. The point is not to engage in arguments, but to verify facts, highlight them, and that’s the best you can do,” said the ECU President.
Propaganda will not disappear, so fighting it is the only solution. “We need to fight it. And for that, funds are also necessary. Without them, there won’t be professionals and so forth. And, as in everything Ukrainian, we find like-minded people and existing platforms, starting with groups, teaching children. This is just the beginning. The key is the integration of organizations. What is effective influence? There is hard and soft power. Thus, we need to integrate platforms. We must reach out to authoritative European organizations, such as Friends of Europe, which brings together European high officials, politicians, and businesspeople and publishes interesting analytical data,” Rajčinec continued.
The main task of the diaspora now is to preserve Ukrainian identity. “All the misfortunes that have occurred in Ukraine over the centuries have led to the existence of the Ukrainian diaspora, which has always tried to support Ukraine. As a colleague from Britain, who is in his 60s, said – he was born in the UK, and his parents worked hard – he speaks Ukrainian with a British accent: ‘We were taught to love a country we have never seen.’ And that’s the essence and truth of it. We have a traditional organization that does not dwell on nostalgia but does modern work, uniting patriots, and that’s the course we’re holding,” concluded the ECU President.
Read more about attitudes towards Ukrainians in Europe and the agenda of the Ukrainian diaspora at the link.
Cover: open sources
