Nearly half of Ukrainians consider disinformation a serious challenge. This is reflected in the results of the study “Ukrainian Media: News Consumption and Trust in 2025”, presented by the NGO Internews-Ukraine at Ukrinform.
According to the survey, 46% of respondents described the spread of false information as an urgent issue. At the same time, 84% are aware of the existence of fakes, and 75% are confident in their ability to recognize them. However, an experiment showed otherwise: only 6% of those who claimed awareness were able to correctly assess the reliability of all three test stories.
Fact-checking services are slowly gaining popularity. Some 39% of Ukrainians know about platforms such as StopFake, Detector Media, or Bez Brekhni, but only 37% of those who are aware of such tools actually use them.
Another part of the study focused on widespread manipulative narratives. More than half of the respondents had come across claims that martial law allegedly benefits the Ukrainian government by delaying elections, that an agreement with the United States on mineral resources means “external governance,” or that men over 60 and women may soon be mobilized due to military losses. On average, 46% of those surveyed considered these statements credible. The least trusted was the narrative about Ukrainian soldiers allegedly surrendering en masse due to fatigue and lack of weapons.
The study also revealed that 11% of Ukrainians continue to consume news from Russian media, while another 16% know people in their circles who do so. Half of these respondents explained it as a desire to learn what hostile propaganda says about Ukraine, while 22% said they wanted to hear an “alternative opinion.”
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