From Drones to Psychological Warfare: Kyiv Hosts Cognitive Influence & Resilience Forum

Maria Berlinska, a former soldier who served in Ukraine's reconnaissance operations in 2014 and has long championed the use of drones in the war against Russia, is now turning her focus to building Ukraine's capabilities in the cognitive domain. Last month, she hosted the Cognitive Influence & Resilience Forum in Kyiv — an event organized under the banner of her newly founded nonprofit, Victory Neurones, which is dedicated to cognitive influence operations.

The forum drew participants from across government, think tanks, defense forces, and the technology sector to discuss strategies for Ukraine's cognitive influence operations.

"Wars begin and end not in the trenches, but in the minds of people," Berlinska said in her keynote address. "You are all experts, and I hope we can have a conversation that stirs things up in this field."

A central theme of the forum was the importance of cognitive resilience — and identifying the vulnerabilities in Ukraine's cognitive defenses that Russia could seek to exploit.

Cognitive Resilience

Ukrainian society faces daily "information pressure": public fatigue, negative narratives that suppress positive sentiment, and divisive issues that fragment public opinion. These undercurrents are steadily eroding society's ability to remain adaptive and motivated under the pressures of wartime — even as Ukrainians work to sustain national defense efforts. Building resistance to this information pressure has become one of the most urgent challenges facing the country.

Closing the Gaps

This dimension of the discussion is relatively straightforward — there is always room for improvement in cyber defense and countering disinformation, and Ukraine has made significant strides in both areas. The forum placed particular emphasis on Ukraine's international image, a point worth highlighting: that image itself can serve as a backdoor through which Russia may seek to penetrate and undermine Ukrainian resolve. Identifying the key factors that shape this international perception and reinforcing them represents an underexplored avenue for strengthening cognitive defenses.

Overall Assessment

This forum represents an important and bold step in the right direction — one that Western governments urgently need to match, just as the drone revolution in recent years has spurred their military innovation. The international community would do well to pay close attention to Ukraine's strategic positioning in the cognitive domain, because for Ukraine, this is simply one more critical component of its national defense architecture. As the war moves toward a peace settlement that is unlikely to be perfect, the importance of cognitive influence operations will only continue to grow.

Sources

The analysis in this article was inspired by a July 13 New York Times in-depth report, The Next Phase in Ukraine's War With Russia: The Battle for Minds. See also the event summary posted by Victory Neurones on LinkedIn.

This article was originally published in the Small Wars Journal, published under Arizona State University.

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