Memory Policy as an Aspect of Information Security: the Eff ectiveness of the National Normative Base and Implemented Measures

Abstract

The article traces the evolution of the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine in the information space against the backdrop of Russian military aggression and the annexation of the part of Ukraine’s territory. Actualization of issues related to the memory policy is considered as a component of information security and an integral part of the system of national security as a whole. The loss of the territories, the creation of quasi-republics in the occupied part of the Ukrainian Donbass and the military confrontation with Russia as an aggressor have significantly shifted the emphasis in the informational confrontation between Ukraine and the Russian Federation. If the attitude to the policy of memory in the national information space, before the annexation by Russia of Crimea, passed along the lines of «Soviet-anti-Soviet», after the annexation it has radically changed, considering the very fact of the military aggression against Ukraine. From that time, the historical myths, formed in the Soviet times, and then actively used and promoted by the Russian propaganda machine about the «unity of the Slavic peoples», etc., have been progressively losing their influence over the consciousness of Ukrainians. In the future the effectiveness of domestic policy of memory will depend on the fact whether the current vector of national foreign policy and development of the Ukrainian information space as its derivative will sustain, in particular in the segment of counteraction to hostile informational influence.

Keywords

• memory policy, informational security, media-discourse, Ukrai- nian-Russian information war.