Higher Seminar in Statecraft and Strategic Communication | Nina Khairova and Ksenia Rundin
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Abstract: This talk explores how misinformation about the Russian Ukrainian war spreads, why it matters, and how humans and AI can work together to address it. We examine how false and misleading narratives circulate online, both through official state communication and through so-called Russian war bloggers, who present themselves as independent voices.
The talk introduces a practical typology of misinformation and reviews existing detection methods, highlighting their strengths and limitations.
We conclude by discussing why misinformation surrounding the Russia–Ukraine war is particularly difficult to recognize and why it should be understood as a coordinated, state-driven information campaign in which every piece of content plays a specific propagandistic role.
Bio: Prof. Dr. is a professor of computer and applied linguistics at the Faculty of Computer Science, Umeå University (Sweden), where she is currently a visiting professor. Her research focuses on machine learning for text analysis, large language models (LLMs), disinformation detection, and responsible AI. She leads and contributes to international projects on disinformation and the credibility of public information. Currently, she coordinates “AI Approaches to Disinformation Detection in News Coverage of the Russia–Ukraine War” and participates in “Building Trust in Social Media: Assessing the Credibility of Public Information on Ukrainian Migration to Europe.”
Ksenia Rundin is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Statecraft and Strategic Communication at the Stockholm School of Economics. Her research interests are situated at the confluence of marketing communication and sociohistorical propaganda analysis, specifically focusing on unravelling the complexities of propaganda in the digital era through social media platforms. Rundin’s postdoctoral research seeks to provide a deeper understanding of the changing dynamics of the propaganda techniques, originally developed during the Cold War era and now enhanced by the unpredictable power of social media development.