Russia is preparing new propaganda operations against Ukraine in the EU. It is already conducting powerful information events in Italy, said Vadym Skibitskyy, deputy head of the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, at the New Country project's event "Justice as a key tool for state development".
In this country, Russia uses its accomplices, the so-called journalists from the occupied territory of Ukraine. They distribute propaganda materials in favour of Russia in Italy.
"This is a presentation of various fiction and documentary books allegedly about Ukraine's crimes in Donetsk and Luhansk Regions," he said.
Russian agents are also actively collecting information on the occupied territory about Ukraine's military activities and using many platforms to spread its propaganda in Europe. For this purpose, Russians use their media and pro-Russian figures.
"Literally for a whole year, the parliamentary commission of the State Duma of the Russian Federation has been collecting evidence on Ukraine's attitude towards children. We expect that Russia will dump all this on the international community, justifying, first of all, its armed aggression," he said.
The third case is that Russia is "working" with refugees who fled Ukraine since the beginning of the war.
"This is a very powerful work that the Russians have started. This includes the creation of various societies, children's education, churches - all of which are used to make our Ukrainians lose their identity, and even more so - to never return to us," Skibitskyy explained.
Military intelligence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are working together to disrupt the Russia’s plans, but the efforts of the Ukrainian community in other countries are also needed.
In 2016-2018, Russia tried to open so-called consular offices of the pseudo-formations of the DPR and LPR terrorist organisations in Europe. Both intelligence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs worked to disrupt this.