Lecture Fabio Cristiano: Cyber Warfare and Disinformation. Russia’s Cyber War on Ukraine
Concerning War and Conflict lecture series
In this Concerning War and Conflict lecture, Fabio Cristiano (Utrecht University) will examine the cyber and (dis)information dimensions of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, before and after the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022.
Digital infrastructures and information
Since 2014, the conflict has been marked by a sustained struggle over digital infrastructures and information. In his lecture, Cristiano first analyses the strategic limitations of Russian cyber operations and the socio-technical forms of Ukrainian cyber resilience that emerged after 2014.
He will also discuss Russian influence and information manipulation campaigns, showing how platform logics make them difficult to counter and how securitised responses risk constraining fundamental freedoms.
Big Tech’s control
Finally, Cristiano situates this within the infrastructural politics of the war, showing how Big Tech’s control over infrastructures of connectivity and information circulation further blurs civilian-military and state–non-state lines.
In doing so, Cristiano’s lecture offers a reading of the conflict rooted within the broader geopolitical competition over emerging technologies and their governance.
Concerning War and Conflict: On Ukraine
The Conflict Studies Group of the Department of History and Art History organises a new series of the Concerning War and Conflict lectures, with support from the Contesting Governance platform of the research area Institutions for Open Societies. This time, the lecture series will focus on Ukraine.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has entered its second decade, and three years have passed since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In this second edition of the Concerning War and Conflict lecture series, interdisciplinary scholars offer critical insight into what this case teaches us about war, human rights, and the governance of violent conflict in the 21st century.
Each session includes a lecture, a Q&A session, and a networking moment. The aim is to provide sensitive and rigorous analytical perspectives to a broad audience of Utrecht University staff, students, non-governmental organisations, policy makers, and the general public.
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- Location
- Spinoza Hall, room 1.06
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- Read more about the Concerning War and Conflict Lecture Series