Russian invasion of Ukraine is first network Warfare – Google ex-Director

Russia’s war on Ukraine became the first network warfare in the human history, where counteracting misinformation is vital, the founder of Schmidt Futures, former Director and Board Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, has said at the 17th Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting "Ukraine: Defending All Our Freedom", organised by YES in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

“This is the first network warfare where the spreading of misinformation is a new instrument of war. We have to learn together to counteract this,” Schmidt said.

Schmidt also said that an effective counteraction of misinformation is the key to victory in a modern technological war.

“If you want to fight in cyberspace, you have to have a very strong identity and you have to have certain priorities. There are always people who believe in fakes and will take it for real. Counteracting this is the key to victory in a war like this,” he said.

The former Google Director said that the role of the public in modern military doctrine has increased due to technological innovations.

“Unlike earlier conflicts, in a modern war people voluntarily accept using instruments and technologies developed for military objectives. Now the role of the common person has seriously increased. Their main task under the novel military doctrine is to watch, explore and supply the command with operative data,” Schmidt said.