On 12 February 2026, the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE), the Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication (CSSC) at SSE, and the Swedish Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce in Scandinavia (SUCC) hosted a high-level seminar on how democracies should respond to information aggression and hybrid threats. The event brought together Ukrainian officials, researchers, and business experts to share lessons from more than a decade of confronting Russia’s information warfare. As a result, the discussion offered guidance for European policymakers, regulators, and civil society leaders.

Ukraine’s Experience with Information Aggression

For Ukraine, information aggression is a daily reality rather than a theoretical risk. Since 2014, hostile disinformation, manipulation, and psychological pressure have preceded and accompanied every major escalation of Russia’s war. Consequently, Ukraine has learned that shifts in the information space often signal impending military, economic, or cyber shocks.

Experts from SITE, CSSC, and SUCC emphasized that information aggression is not merely a media issue, but also a matter of security, economic stability, and governance. They further stressed that universities and policy institutes play a critical role in transforming frontline experience into practical guidance.

In their opening remarks, SITE Director Torbjörn Becker and CSSC Director Rikard Westerberg argued that information operations must be treated as a core component of modern conflict. Ukrainian diplomats noted that information warfare often shapes alliances and delays international responses long before tanks move. Ignoring information aggression, therefore, leaves democracies divided, unprepared, and economically vulnerable.

Analysis and Key Insights

Narratives, Trust, and the Cognitive Battlefield

Keynote speaker Liubov Tsybulska, Director of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security in Ukraine, described the information space as a central battlefield. She showed how narrative flooding, dehumanisation, and strategic ambiguity can erode trust and break alliances over time. In this context, perception becomes as important as territory.

Therefore, trust in institutions, media, and expert communities is both the main target and the main defence. Long-term investment in institutional credibility and transparent decision-making is crucial. In addition, Ukraine’s experience shows that early detection of hostile narratives, rapid factual responses, and careful avoidance of amplifying false content are vital tools.

Institutions and Digital Resilience

Advisor Natalia Mishyna from Ukraine’s State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection focused on institutional adaptation. Ukraine has strengthened digital infrastructure protection, electoral security, and crisis communication across government and civil society. As a result, the country has built faster incident response and clearer lines of responsibility.

For Europe, the key lesson is that cybersecurity, strategic communication, and public outreach must be integrated rather than separated into silos. Many EU states have hybrid threat or cyber units. However, coordination often remains fragmented and reactive. Therefore, more unified structures that link technical security with clear public messaging are needed.

Markets, Media, and Incentives

Associate Professor Carlos Diaz Ruiz from Hanken School of Economics added a market-based view. He underlined that information aggression exploits weaknesses in media and platform business models. Sensational and polarising content can be rewarded by advertising systems even when it harms democratic resilience.

Consequently, regulatory frameworks, competition policy, and platform governance all influence how hostile narratives spread. Responses cannot treat media and technology firms as passive channels. Instead, they must align private-sector incentives with the broader goal of information resilience.

Key Lessons from Ukraine for Europe

Across the seminar, several concise lessons for Europe emerged:

• Information aggression is a systemic risk that affects security, markets, and social cohesion.
• Trust and credibility are core defence assets, not soft add-ons.
• Civil society and state coordination are essential for response and recovery.
• International cooperation is necessary, as information threats ignore borders.

Taken together, these insights show that information aggression is a persistent strategic challenge embedded in wider hybrid warfare, not a temporary disturbance.

Why It Matters

Implications for European Democracies

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, hybrid operations against European societies have become more frequent and complex. These include cyber attacks, targeted narrative campaigns, and energy-related disinformation. Ukraine’s experience illustrates the cost of underestimating such activities.

When information aggression goes unchecked, it can reduce support for sanctions and military assistance. It can also deepen social polarisation and weaken trust in elections, public health measures, and climate policy. Therefore, national security strategies, risk assessments, and crisis exercises must include the information dimension as a central pillar.

Policy and Governance Priorities

The EU has already launched frameworks to counter hybrid threats, yet implementation often lags behind the pace of attacks. Ukraine’s experience suggests three priorities for Europe.

• First, countries should embed information resilience into total defence and security planning, not just media policy.
• Second, rules for online platforms, political advertising, and data use should explicitly consider how they can be misused by information aggression.
• Third, cross-border strategic communication must improve, as hostile narratives are rarely limited to one country.

At the same time, responses must stay grounded in democratic values. Heavy-handed censorship can damage the trust that democracies seek to protect. Consequently, transparency, accountability, and open engagement with citizens are essential elements of any credible strategy.

Conclusion: Building Information Resilience

The SSE seminar delivered a clear message: Europe cannot afford to ignore information aggression. Ukraine’s experience shows that early recognition, coordinated action, and sustained investment in trust-building can limit long-term damage from hybrid campaigns.

Going forward, European governments, businesses, and civil society organisations will need to treat information resilience as a continuous task. Moreover, deeper cooperation with Ukrainian institutions and experts can help Europe avoid repeating costly mistakes. By convening diplomacy, security, research, and business communities, SSE and its partners contribute to a growing community of practice on countering information aggression. In this way, they highlight that defending the information space is now central to protecting open and resilient European societies.

Suggested Additional Resources

• EUvsDisinfo: East Stratcom Task Force, a team of experts with a background mainly in communications, journalism, social sciences, and Russian studies. Part of the EU’s diplomatic service, which is led by the EU’s High Representative.
• NATO StratCom COE: Contributes to improved strategic communications capabilities within NATO and Allied nations. Strategic communication is an integral part of the efforts to achieve the Alliance’s political and military objectives, thus it is increasingly important that the Alliance communicates in an appropriate, timely, accurate and responsive manner on its evolving roles, objectives, and missions.
• Hybrid CoE: The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats is an autonomous, network-based international expert organization dedicated to addressing hybrid threats.

Suggested Policy Briefs

• Ukraine and NATO – Evidence from Public Opinion Surveys. This policy brief analyzes how public opinion in Ukraine has shifted over time toward unprecedented support for NATO membership—especially in response to repeated Russian aggression—and examines regional differences and the broader societal implications of this change.
• Russia’s Data Warfare. This policy brief discusses how, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has systematically withheld and obscured key economic statistics to hinder transparency and analysis of its economy and the effects of sanctions as part of a broader disinformation strategy, and explores alternative ways to assess Russia’s economic performance despite the lack of reliable official data.
• Trending? Social Media Attention on Russia’s War in Ukraine. This policy brief examines how social media attention to Russia’s war in Ukraine, especially trending hashtags on platforms like X/Twitter across 62 countries, has fluctuated over time, revealing patterns of global public engagement and interest in the conflict beyond traditional news coverage.