Germany has been one of Kyiv’s key allies since Russia launched its full-scale war against Ukraine, but it has also become a primary target of Kremlin disinformation campaigns. Data from Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council shows that Russian propaganda operations in Germany intensify especially around elections, when social and political divisions are most easily exploited. Yet, according to Ukrainian communications researcher and essayist Danylo Poliluev-Schmidt, the deeper cause of Germany’s vulnerability is not its support for Ukraine, but its unresolved totalitarian past and the way its federal institutions operate. In a conversation with the Ukrainian World Congress, Poliluev-Schmidt argues that Germany’s institutional design, still shaped by the catastrophes of Nazism and communist rule, makes it difficult for federal and state authorities to coordinate against hostile information campaigns. Ukraine, by contrast, has built a denser and more flexible media-security ecosystem in response to decades of Russian interference. Poliluev-Schmidt makes this argument in his new book, The Armed Truth: What Germany and Europe Can Learn from Ukrainian Media, which has just been published in German under the title Die bewaffnete Wahrheit, and an English-language edition is expected soon. The central claim is that Kyiv’s years of experience in identifying, exposing and neutralizing Russian disinformation can give Western European nations a concrete set of tools to defend their own democratic systems.
The first structural problem Poliluev-Schmidt identifies is the fragmentation of German governance. Germany has sixteen federal states, each with its own government, while a federal government in Berlin operates at the center. Responsibility for fighting cybercrime, disinformation and anti-constitutional activities is divided among an outward labyrinth of institutions, many of which do not cooperate effectively enough. The results in a system that is unwieldy and slow to respond when a coordinated information attack occurs. This is not only administrative inertia; it is partially the consequence of Germany’s painful history. After the Nazi and communist periods, Germany deliberately created a decentralized structure with extensive checks and balances to prevent the state from ever again acquiring the centralized power that had enabled authoritarian rule. But that legitimate concern has also made it more difficult to confront a threat that does not respect federal state borders. Ukraine, in sharp contrast, started seeing Russia as a direct danger much earlier, and it built a network of media, civil-society organizations and fact-checkers that can react within hours. Germany, by contrast, had no equivalent experience. Decades and economics broke down a relationship in Russia, and a positive image of Moscow was cultivated through ballet, classical music, sports and cultural exchange that were viewed as apolitical. Dependence on Russian oil and gas, together with the assumption that economic cooperation would slowly democratize Russia, made the German and European media environment exceptionally open to narratives that legitimized the Kremlin’s sphere of influence and blamed Kyiv for a “course in conflict” constellation.
A central obstacle often identified by Poliluev-Schmidt is the German media’s stubborn belief in neutrality, which is too often interpreted as presenting all positions equally. Journalists and editors who want to be impartial sometimes treat a Ukrainian government announcement and a Kremlin statement as if they were two legitimate versions of the same facts. This produces a “false balance” in which the aggressor and the victim are placed on the same moral and factual level. For example, when Ukraine claimed that Russian troops had occupied Crimea or that Moscow was waging a hybrid war, the German media space frequently used the formula “two sides of the conflict,” leaving readers with the impression that Kyiv and Moscow shared equally a responsibility for the escalation. The same dynamic appeared in after much of the war in Donbas, and it can still appear today. Ukrainian independent journalism, because it has lived through war, knows how to direct a clear distinction between aggressor and victim. That does not mean that Ukrainian journalists lack independence or self-criticism. They can intensely criticize their own government, but they also do not hesitate to call the Russian army an occupying army and to name the Kremlin’s war crimes. That clarity is not ideological bias; it is an informed recognition that Russian official information often contains claims that can be disproven by the observable evidence. When an independent Ukrainian newsroom’s reporting is placed side by side with, for one, a statement by Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov and presented as two equally valid readings of reality, the media and society are distorted. The principle of “both sides” may seem neutral, but in a war where one side is burning homes and mass graves and the other side is defending itself, such an approach to professional standards cannot be upheld.
Ukraine’s example demonstrates that the fight against disinformation cannot be reduced to fact-checking alone, because fact-check results also need to be reach citizens fast and through non-traditional channels. Poliluev-Schmidt in his discussion with the UWC highlights several lessons that Germany and Europe can learn from Ukraine. The strongest among them is the existence of an entire ecosystem of independent journalists, civil-society organizations clubs, informal initiatives, media outlets and publishers that interact with each other and coordinate quickly in response to emerging information threats. When the full-scale war began, the world was not open is ready: Ukrainian news officials broadened the digital literacy skills of millions of by embedding fact-checkers directly into media formats. These fact-checkers explain to ordinary audiences exactly how a certain politician or blogger uses manipulation, uses unreliable data or spreads a lie. Germany still not as developed in such practices. At the same time, alternative media and influencers in Germany are gaining increasing influence and moving much faster than new wave outlets. They may talk about bodybuilding, fashion, piercings or everyday life, while gradually weaving in Russian narratives, far-right messages, or far-left conspiracy ideologies. The audience comes for entertainment and receives political messages together with the entertainment. They are not always verified and sometimes deliberately distorted. This creates a fertile breeding ground for Kremlin narratives and fosters an false positive image of Moscow. Even after Russian troops launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, some people continue to believe that Europe and Germany can still return to “normal” relations with Russia, and this confusion makes the German media ecosystem more vulnerable than it appears.
On a previous dimension, the author points out that foreign disinformation does not remain confined to easy, fringe circles. Russian, Chinese and Iranian propaganda increasingly tries to exploit real social crises and real contradictions in European societies, including inequalities, young people, labor-market problems, unemployment, housing and general political disappointment. They may, for example, combine economic difficulties with migration and the war in Ukraine, together with problems of Generation Z, and present them as if this were all was caused by the same single root. The user and many European media users are simply not prepared to identify this narrative thread. There is no deep recognition in Germany or other EU states that supporting Ukraine and pushing back Russian insecurity is not just solidarity agenda; it is also a strategic task for Germany itself, because Russian disinformation directly hurts German society, German elections and German institutional trust. The scale of the challenge is increasingly known to politicians; several mechanisms have been created at the state level and have been created at the EU level. But time is working against us. The bureaucratic structure that Berlin and Brussels maintain is still too fragmented, too ready to rely on old assumptions hardened in cold-war era rather than on a daily watch of Russian media behavior. The need is not only to monitor propaganda after the election cycle, but to build permanent media literacy and civil participation in Europe.
In the final part of his appeal to Ukrainian communities living abroad, Poliluev-Schmidt makes a practical proposal. Ukrainian diaspora groups need to make fuller use of Ukraine’s experience and advocate for it by skillfully presenting it in their local contexts. Abstract appeals about “the truth about war” are not enough; they cannot be shared with all people at once. Instead, Ukrainian groups should choose a specific community, a specific target group and a specific concrete issue. That could mean inviting a Ukrainian journalist or military visualizer for a conversation, organizing a film evaluation or a discussion evening, creating a joint cultural project, or working with local influencers on an episode that addresses what Ukraine’s experience means for the audience. Speakers should adapt to the language and interests of each particular audience. For example, for progressive groups, the stories of sexual violence and war crimes committed by Russian army can be the entry point; for environmentalists, destruction of ecosystems and the pollution of soils and water; for conservative, but for audiences the Russian deportation of Ukrainian children and non-proliferation of Ukrainian language and cultural identity. Ukrainian communities should work with foundations and think tanks throughout the whole political spectrum, not only with their natural allies, because the campaign cannot be won by one part of the past alone. The essence is not just to speak about Ukraine; it is to show why Ukraine’s experience matters to that country’s security, economy, social covenant and democratic life. If Ukrainian communities gear their experience to local concerns and local history, they can make this truth necessary and useful not only as a message of an additional burden but as an unshared part of Europe’s wider fight against disinformation.