Social and psychological features of the mental component of the modern hybrid war against Ukraine

Abstract

The concept of “hybrid war” and its structural elements, to which we added a mental component, have been considered. It is shown that in the course of such a war, “hybrid” means are used as a specific tool for ensuring the success of military intervention with the simultaneous involvement of the population in the conflict, which is carried out in the covered military territory, and misleads the international community with the aim of its desired influence on the said conflict.

A set of tools with which the aggressor country exerts simultaneous influence on the social sphere of the country's life is analyzed. The main components of hybrid forces are informational, ideological, psychological, economic, political, diplomatic, military, technological, energy. It is proposed to add one more component to their composition - mental warfare. It is shown that in the course of the mental war against Ukraine, the enemy set itself the goal of growth to destroy the independent state, the Ukrainian nation and the Ukrainian civilization as a whole and to appropriate its historical heritage. For our research, this is a rather alarming conclusion, so it raises the question of how to confront it.

The social and psychological features of waging a psychological war against Ukraine by the russian federation are outlined and analyzed. It is shown that the mental war against our country with the help of hybrid information technologies, which easily influence the consciousness of the population, manipulates it. It is the information activity as a component of the hybrid war that involves a massive psychological impact on the emotional state of a person, the delivery of distorted information to the country’s population.

The author’s definition of the concept of “mental war” is formulated as a complex psychological influence by the aggressor country on the consciousness of the population of the country that was attacked, using changes in its national outlook, historical memory, values, national-historical identity in the interests of the aggressor country.

Taking into account the peculiarities of the hybrid war and its components, recommendations have been formulated for countering the hybrid aggression of the enemy, which is trying to destroy and change the mentality of Ukrainians for its own use: increase the number of publications and video materials in the information space about the opinions of foreign politicians and experts condemning russian aggression; to create an Institute for the study of war, the work of which will involve both domestic specialists in the field of hybrid warfare and mental warfare, as well as leading scientists of Western countries; to develop the National Doctrine of mental protection of the population in the conditions of a full-scale war against Ukraine.