USAID Sponsors Center for Countering Disinformation Forum on ‘Ukraine’s Information War’

Dec. 9, 2022, 2022 (EIRNS)—Ukraine’s notorious Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD) proudly reported on Dec. 3 that its Nov. 3 Forum on “Ukraine’s Information War,” had been “sponsored by USAID Ukraine Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity Project/USAID Cybersecurity Activity.” Judging by its Facebook page, that “four-year USAID program aimed at strengthening resilience” in Ukraine is clearly hyper-active in running Ukrainian “cybersecurity” operations.

The State Department’s assurances to U.S. Congressional offices that the State Department and USAID had stopped funding the CCD, is thus proven a brazen lie. Various Congressional offices questioned the State Department about U.S. government funding of the CCD, when they learned that it had placed international personalities who question NATO’s “everything for Ukraine” line or call for negotiating a peaceful end to NATO’s war with Russia, on a blacklist of alleged “Russian propagandists” to be prosecuted as “information terrorists” or rubbed out. Several of the people on the CCD list then appeared on the Myrotvorets assassination list, citing the CCD as justification. Those included Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche and LaRouche Organization spokesman Harley Schlanger.

The Nov. 30 Ukraine’s Information War Forum was a joint USAID-Ukrainian government operation. USAID sponsored it; the National Security and Defense Council’s CCD, the Ministry of Regions, the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, and the Sumy Regional Military Administration “supported” it; and three Ukrainian NGOs “co-organized” it (the “Ukrainian Alliance,” a self-described “Cybersecurity Support Center International Charitable Foundation,” and the Institute of Post-Information Society).

The CCD speaker on the Forum’s “Information Defense” panel, senior analyst Maryna Vorotyntseva, (in Ukrainian) kept up the CCD’s campaign for anyone labeled a “Russian propagandist” to be prosecuted as an “information terrorist.” As the CCD recounted: “In her report, the issue of the Russian Federation’s information aggression ... and the information terrorism of the aggressor was raised. Those present also learned how Russian propaganda works against Ukraine in the EU and the world, as well as ways to bring Russian information terrorists to justice. Such measures become the key to successful informational opposition to Russian aggression.”

Take note that Executive Director of the “Post-Information Society Institute” (in Ukrainian) Dmitry Zolotukh, who moderated the Forum, is a proponent of the theory that thinking and truth-seeking belong to a bygone era. He argues that the world has entered the stage of development in which “information flows are so large that facts no longer matter. Consumers of information are increasingly concentrating on their emotions and how they want to express themselves in the information world. The value of arguments and evidence in disputes will be leveled more and more. And the value of each person’s emotions and personal brand will grow.” For that, he has been receiving the support of the European Endowment for Democracy Foundation and the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine since 2015.