Război sau „operație militară specială”? Impactul războiului informațional al Federației Ruse în Ucraina
War or „Special Military Operation”? The Impact of the Information Warfare Promoted by the Russian Federation in Ukraine

Summary/Abstract: This paper highlights an example of how an international actor can achieve its interests using the means specific to the irregular warfare dimension. The scientific stake of this analysis is rendered by the particularity of the analyzed context, where reaching the interests of a state goes against the main codified provisions of international law. The research hypothesis of this study is that if the Kremlin administration wanted to justify to its own citizens the conventional military action against Ukraine, that began on Feburary 24,2022 as a „special military operation”, then the means by which this objective is achieved is information warfare. This idea is intended to be demonstrated primarily through a terminological understanding of the difference between military actions executed in the conventional sphere and those performed in the irregular sphere. Subsequently, the position that information warfare occupies within military theory is outlined and how this tool is viewed from the Russian perspective is investigated. Last but not least, the theoretical part is applied through a case study focused on Russian propaganda in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The results of this study focus on understanding the importance of information warfare-specific actions within hybrid conflict typologies. Information operations are at „the heart” of Russian hybrid conflicts, aspect which will help us answer the main research question, which is also positioned in the title of the paper.

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