Swedish officials from the authority, MPF, have since the start of the war secretly worked in Ukraine. In a report that was submitted to the Ministry of Defense on Friday, it is described how the government’s mission was to “increase the collective Ukrainian psychological defense capability”.
– In the spring of 2022, we gave advice and support to Ukrainian authorities in how they should, among other things, communicate to their own population when faced with the danger of war. Another important question was how to create resilience for those who could be exposed to influence operations, says Mikael Tofvesson.
“Educates and practices”
After the first phase of the invasion war in the spring of last year, MPF received a request to support various civil society organizations and authorities in their work online. Since then, they have mainly worked with various authorities in the country. MPF does not want to say how many Swedish officials have been and are on the ground in Ukraine.
– Now we are in a phase where we train and practice Ukrainian authorities in how to fight in the information arena and give advice and support, says Mikael Tofvesson.
The operational manager dismisses the fact that MPF would participate in some kind of propaganda war or online troll war:
– Our authority does not engage in any type of troll war on the internet or anything like that. I think it is very important to underline that. One should probably rather see our authority’s activities as the ones that the Swedish Armed Forces and the rest of Sweden do. We load the ammunition by giving advice and recommendations on methods, by supporting with our assessments and analyses. But it is Ukraine that defends its country.
Becomes the basis for defense planning
Mikael Tofvesson emphasizes that the MPF has learned a lot from various Ukrainian partners and the experiences from Ukraine will now form the basis of Swedish defense planning for the future, in terms of how the Swedish psychological defense should be designed and organized.
– This will be a direct basis for our own war planning, says Mikael Tofvesson.