In my perspective, the west is over fears that they are losing the “information war” with Russia. On other hand, this statement may be true. The Russian government is doing really job to undermine America and Europe. They are certainly engaged in a multi-front, multi-message, multimedia campaign to disrupt the West. As you know, for the last years the Russia been in conflict in Ukraine and Syria. In those conflicts, the Russia Government has been using an advanced form of hybrid warfare that relies heavily on an element of information warfare that the Russians call “reflexive control”. Reflexive control is causing a stronger adversary voluntarily to choose the action most advantageous to Russian objectives by shaping the adversary’s perception of the situation decisively ( Snegovaya, 2015). “Reflexive Control” is defined as a means of conveying to a partner or an opponent specially prepared information to include him to voluntarily make the predetermined decision desired by the initiator of the action, “, writes Timothy L. Thomas. Kremlin (Russian government) has used this technique skillfully to persuade the U.S. and its European allies to remain largely passive in the face of Russia’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle Ukraine through military and non-military means.(Snegovaya, 2015) I think the West should be alert to the use of reflexive control techniques and find ways to counter them if it is to succeed in an era of hybrid war. On my personal experience, I can say that every time when I watched Russian television they tried to put Ukraine in a bad way. Also, all news releases in Russia begun with news about Ukraine. I was curious what’s going on in Ukraine, therefore, I asked my friend who lives in Ukraine whether all this is true? He said, that situation in Ukraine is much calmer and that the news I watched all exaggerated.
The video below is the US position from 5.11.2015. We can see that Russia promotes and provoking a new Cold War.
Also, to see clearly a mismatch of information in the news in different countries, I asked my friends from different countries to answer the question: «What is said in the news about Ukraine crisis in your country?» Their answers show that the information war is a real situation.
https://vk.com/im?peers=15762505&sel=80148559&z=video80148559_171232043%2F6daa96342995c3d8cc
References
PUTIN’S INFORMATION WARFARE IN UKRAINE. (2015, September). Retrieved December 2,2015, from
Information Warfare in Media 
I find it interesting. I mentioned discrepancy between western and eastern press. Thanks for info I will never trust press anymore.
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Thank you for your comment! I hope you found my blog useful for yourself
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Well, «informational war» can be seen if you read both western and Russian news. However, do you really believe that situation was calmer? Both media showed dead people in the Donbas, their bloody corpses. Journalists all sides were under attack, you can see the news at least from the BBC. Are the Ukrainian guys from the Donbas or they live in other cities, where the situation was quieter?
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Hello, Vittalia!
Thank you for your question!
I think you did not understand a little bit what I wrote 🙂 I wrote that the Russian media exaggerated the situation, that in reality it was a little different. Yes, there were many casualties, and it’s terrible. But you can see the fact that Russia has done propaganda and exaggerated situation originating in Ukraine. This was confirmed by my friend, who lives in Ukraine. If you are interested in this issue, I can send you some video from different countries about this situation in the mail!)
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I know the news in other countries. However, you can see that you are writing only about Russia now. So, may be it was exaggerated in all countries?
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