Eastern Europe

Introduction

The war in Ukraine revealed the ugly face of a Russia resembling a quasi-empire. This image was barely discussed in academia.

In the turmoil in the spring of 2014, immediately following the Revolution of Dignity, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered an attack on Crimea and instigated and supported the separatist activities in Donbas. Encouraged by Russia’s early successes in its war on Ukraine and the lukewarm approach of some Western countries to imposing sanctions, Putin ordered the massive February 2022 invasion, initially focused on Ukraine’s capital and leadership.

Introduction

Historically, ensuring security depended on the state’s power and economic and military potential. Today’s state has to add one more component to the list of obligations – to protect the digitalized parts of the state and societal activities.[1] Ensuring cybersecurity is one of the obligatory functions of modern countries to support and improve the system of holistic protection of society by the state.

Introduction

Nowadays, it is not uncommon for social media to include manifestations of hatred, misleading information, and elements of extremism or terrorism. We already observe that political and religious extremist groups use social media and networks to promote their ideology, recruit new members, demonstrate their power, and shock society with videos of wars as something commonplace and unavoidable. Society is already able to act against such use of social networks and its negative consequences. There are many ways to do so.

Introduction

National Security Services

Generally, we distinguish between two types of national security services. One is the internal intelligence service (or counterintelligence), which collects and manages information about a country’s internal security. Its task is to protect the state, the territory, and society from foreign interference (subversion, espionage, political violence).

Introduction

The Bulgarian armed forces, just like the armed forces in many other countries, have three main roles: defense of the sovereignty and the national territory, contribution to international peace and security, and contribution to internal security, particularly in times of crises. In peacetime, the third of these roles is most visible to society. The military contribution during the Covid-19 pandemic makes no exception.