The war in Ukraine is no longer being fought solely on the military field, and is now unfolding in a more diffuse, but equally decisive, space: that of information, stories and, beyond that, collective perceptions.
In kyiv, where they spent around ten days immersed, Pierre Vallet Founder of Kilimanjaro Digital and Benoît Thieulin, Founder of La War Room observed a reality which shakes up the traditional frameworks of conflict. Ukraine is not only waging a territorial war, but a cognitive war, in which civil society plays a central role, to talk about it we received them in Perspectives
An informational war that has become industrial
Propaganda is not new, it has accompanied conflicts for centuries, what is changing, however, is its scale, its speed and its capacity for industrialization.
With the spread of social networks, mobile platforms and global digital architectures, information has become a vector of massive influence. In this context, Russia has structured a disinformation strategy capable of producing and disseminating content on a very large scale, by exploiting the flaws of open societies: polarization, fragmentation of public debate, dependence on algorithms.
The challenge is no longer limited to convincing, it is about saturating the information space, shifting the terms of the debate, and ultimately influencing political behavior.
A Ukrainian response based on civil society
Faced with this offensive, the Ukrainian response does not rest solely on the State. It relies on a diffuse ecosystem, born in the emergency of February 24, 2022, and gradually structured around civil initiatives. Journalists, NGOs, tech collectives, activists and former entrepreneurs have mobilized to produce intelligence, document Russian operations, analyze narratives and propose counter-narratives.
This mobilization presents a structuring characteristic: it is largely decentralized, and does not result from vertical coordination, but from a horizontal dynamic where each actor acts with its own means, often limited, but with a strong capacity for adaptation.
This autonomy constitutes both a strength, in terms of responsiveness and innovation, and a weakness, due to a lack of coordination and resources.
DeepState: transparency as a resilience tool
Among the emblematic initiatives, the DeepState Map platform illustrates this transformation of the relationship with information.
Created in the early hours of the invasion, it is based on a participatory model: thousands of contributors provide information from the field, aggregated and verified by a team of analysts. The result is a map of the front consulted by the international media and followed by citizens.
This system calls into question a classic principle of war: the strict control of information by the general staff. In Ukraine, a form of relative transparency is assumed, in the name of a strategic objective: to strengthen trust between the army, the population and families. In an environment marked by uncertainty, this transparency becomes a factor of cohesion.
From disinformation to cognitive warfare
The term “cognitive warfare” reflects a change in the nature of the conflict. It is no longer just a matter of spreading false information, but of structuring the mental environment in which individuals interpret reality. The battle is over frames of thought, political priorities and collective perceptions.
In this logic, Russian operations are not only aimed at Ukraine. They also target Western societies, exploiting their internal divisions and structural vulnerabilities. The objective is not to create fractures ex nihilo, but to amplify those that already exist.
Handcrafted, action-oriented tools
Another major lesson from this immersion relates to the nature of the tools used. Unlike Western social listening solutions, often designed to produce analyzes or dashboards, Ukrainian players are developing “in-house” tools, directly oriented towards action. On platforms like Telegram, which are particularly difficult to monitor, these tools make it possible to detect, track and counter disinformation campaigns in real time. This pragmatic, often DIY approach benefits today from the acceleration linked to artificial intelligence, which lowers the barriers to the creation of specific tools.
Europe as an information playground
One of the major points of alert concerns the extension of this information war beyond Ukrainian territory. For the actors we met, Russian influence operations are already at work in Europe, particularly during electoral cycles. They aim to exploit the dynamics of polarization, fuel tensions and weaken democratic processes.
From this perspective, political deadlines, such as the French presidential election of 2027, constitute potential targets. Interference does not necessarily take the form of spectacular actions. It takes place over time, through an accumulation of weak signals, biased stories and amplified controversies.
A persistent strategic asymmetry
Despite the quality of their systems, the Ukrainians point to a persistent asymmetry. European democracies have effective detection tools, like certain state initiatives, but remain behind in terms of offensive capabilities and the articulation between public and private actors. Conversely, the Ukrainian ecosystem, although less endowed, stands out for its capacity to produce rapid, contextualized and directly operational responses. This difference is largely due to one key factor: the level of urgency.
A war that goes beyond the Ukrainian framework
Beyond the Ukrainian case, this experience reveals a more profound transformation. War no longer only pits states or armies against each other. It involves entire societies, mobilized in hybrid forms of engagement, at the crossroads of technology, information and politics.
In this new framework, the border between front and rear tends to disappear. Public opinions, digital infrastructures and democratic processes become spaces of confrontation in their own right.
The question posed is therefore no longer only that of Ukraine’s capacity for resistance, but that of the preparation of Western democracies for a type of conflict which already concerns them directly.
