Den kalla hybridkrigföringen
Det är minus femton grader i Kyiv. Du vaknar tidigt, inte av väckarklockan utan av kylan. Ingen el. Ingen värme. Utanför fönstret ligger staden nästan helt mörk. Så börjar Liubov Tsybulska sin berättelse. Tsybulska är en av Ukrainas ledande experter på kognitiv krigföring och talade på länk till RISE innovationsverkstad i Göteborg den 21 januari, där centrala aktörer inom Sveriges totalförsvar hade samlats. För många blev hennes vittnesmål om livet under hybridkrig det starkaste momentet under dagen. Efter evenemanget har deltagare hört av sig och velat dela hennes ord vidare. Jag frågade Liubov om jag fick göra det, och hon tackade ja. Nedan följer hennes tal i sin helhet. Hon talar inte om abstrakta hot. Hon talar om en verklighet som redan är här. Lyssna gärna, eller läs hennes anförande som text här nedan. Dela sedan gärna denna berättelse, så att fler får möjlighet att ta del av en direkt berättelse om vad som är verkligheten idag för miljontals människor i ett land i Europa.
https://youtu.be/eOkVSZK3y_4?si=ly2C2AdOdkys0nZF
Thank you an invite and an opportunity to speak on behalf of Ukrainians.
Let me start with a moment from our reality these days, because it captures more about this war than any definition ever could.
It is unusually cold winter. The temperature outside is -15. You wake up early, not because of an alarm clock, but because your apartment is cold. There is no light. No heating. Often no water. Your phone still works, but only because you charged it the night before, not knowing whether electricity would still be there in the morning. When you look outside, your city — a city that used to be full of light and movement — is almost completely dark.
This is not a scenario exercise. This is not a future risk. This is what life in Ukraine looks like right now.
And I begin here not to dramatize, but because this is where cognitive warfare becomes tangible. We often describe cognitive war as something abstract – as influence, manipulation, narratives, information flows – but in reality it is deeply physical. It lives in exhausted bodies, in families trying to keep children warm, in people making decisions under pressure and fear.
When Russian missiles and drones destroy energy systems, heating infrastructure, water facilities, this is not only an attack on objects or networks. It is an attack on judgment, on endurance, on the ability to think clearly. At the same time, Russia is launching information campaigns designed to amplify fear and doubt, spreading messages that there will be food shortages, that the system is about to collapse, that the government has no evacuation plan, that people are being abandoned.
Now imagine hearing these messages when you have children, when you are sitting in an unheated apartment and trying to decide whether to stay or to leave. Imagine how this sounds when you are a soldier at the frontline, holding your position, knowing that your family is freezing at home. This is cognitive warfare. And it works only if society begins to fracture from the inside.
This is why modern wars are no longer primarily about governments fighting governments or armies fighting armies. They are about societies being targeted as a whole. They aim to exhaust resilience, fragment communities, and create a sense that resistance is pointless. No army, no matter how capable, can withstand this pressure if the society behind it is passive, divided, or psychologically overwhelmed.
Ukraine continues to resist not because it is stronger in resources, but because society – imperfect, tired, and traumatized – has not collapsed. That resilience did not emerge by accident, and it was never purely military.
At the same time, hybrid warfare evolves faster than most of our institutions are designed to respond. The rate of change is relentless. One day the pressure is cyber, the next it is energy, then migration,, then legitimacy, then trust in elections, then trust in media. There is no clear sequence, and there is no pause button. Systems built only for stability struggle when faced with constant transformation.
This is why total defence today cannot be understood only as preparedness or protection. It is about the ability to adapt while under attack, to manage change while being targeted, and to integrate technological advances without losing coherence. It is as much about governance and leadership as it is about capabilities.
The idea of a whole-of-society approach is therefore not a slogan. It is a necessity. In Ukraine, teachers became communicators, mayors became crisis managers, journalists became part of national resilience, tech companies turned into elements of defence infrastructure, and volunteers often closed gaps faster than formal institutions could. This was not perfect coordination, but it was shared responsibility, and that shared responsibility made the difference.
Resilience cannot be outsourced. It cannot be centralized into a single institution. Trust cannot be commanded. It has to be cultivated long before a crisis begins, or societies will pay a much higher price when pressure arrives.
In this environment, leadership becomes the decisive terrain. Not leadership as control, but leadership as sense-making — the ability to provide direction when information is incomplete, to maintain moral clarity when choices are painful, and to act with speed when certainty is impossible. In Ukraine, leadership often meant saying: we do not have all the answers yet, but we are here; this is hard, but this is why it matters; we will adapt again, just as we adapted yesterday.
Cognitive warfare punishes silence and hesitation. It exploits fragmentation. What it struggles to defeat is coherence, presence, and meaning. And this applies not only to governments, but also to media, industry, civil society, and technological leaders. In hybrid war, everyone shapes the cognitive environment, whether intentionally or not.
Ukraine is not an exception. It is a preview. What is being tested on us will appear elsewhere – against infrastructure, against elections, against social cohesion, against trust in institutions. The real question is not whether this pressure will come, but how prepared societies will be when it does.
Total defence in the twenty-first century is not only about defending territory. It is about governing transformation under attack, and about ensuring that societies remain capable of making, values-based decisions even under conditions of fear and uncertainty.
So as you begin this day, discussing total defence and resilience, I invite you to keep one image in mind: a dark city, a freezing apartment, a phone with little battery left, and a message saying, “It’s hopeless.” And then remember that despite all of this, people do not surrender.
That is what cognitive warfare tries to break.
And that is what whole-of-society defence exists to protect.
Thank you.
