On April 1, 2019, the Atlantic Council hosted a panel exploring foreign, particularly Kremlin, interference in the first round of the March 31 Ukrainian presidential election as part of the Ukrainian Election Task Force’s public event. The panel consisted of team leaders from the Task Force: Olekisy Melnyk, kinetic lead and co-director of the...
In Kyiv to participate in the 12th annual Kyiv Security Forum, I sense considerable anticipation ahead of next Sunday’s second round of Ukraine’s presidential election. By the evening of April 21, we should know whether Volodomyr Zelenskiy will replace Petro Poroshenko as president, or whether the incumbent will manage to stay in office by...
This is a regular weekly report by Detector Media, a partner of the Ukrainian Election Task Force, offering exclusive content covering the three main Russian state TV talk shows, particularly these shows’ coverage of Ukraine and the 2019 presidential election. Kremlin-backed media outlets often generate disinformation narratives that are then spread throughout Ukraine as...
Tomorrow, February 8, is the deadline for prospective candidates to file for the March 31 presidential election in Ukraine. So far, some three dozen applications have been approved by the Central Election Commission (CEC). As election day nears, Ukrainian officials and outside observers are sounding more warnings about Kremlin-driven attempts to interfere in the...
In the first days of 2019, Kremlin-controlled propaganda outlets focused mostly on the Ukrainian Orthodox church’s split from Russia. These outlets also reported on the electoral campaign, including key topics such as the nominations of the presidential candidates and the potential “illegitimacy” of the upcoming presidential elections. Since 2012, Ukrainian polling stations have been...
Russian propaganda outlets are seeking to turn the Ukrainian Central Electoral Committee’s (CEC) decision by to close all polling stations in Russia into an attempt to destabilize the fast-approaching presidential elections. They claim that Ukraine’s decision “paves the way to various falsifications,” violating the constitutional rights of Ukrainian citizens in Russia, and thereby supposedly...
On December 26, 2018, at the meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, President Poroshenko announced the end of martial law and confirmed that the presidential election will be held as scheduled. According to Ukrainian legislation, the presidential elections in the country are held on the last Sunday of March for the fifth...
Since the invasion of Crimea and eastern Ukraine by Russia, there have been many well-documented cases of the use of computer network operations for intelligence collection and even force projection. Over time, the scale and impact of these attacks has risen considerably, including the remote, unauthorized manipulation of Ukraine’s electricity grid and a country-wide...