The Bulletin of National Defence University of Ukraine

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  • Vol. 21, No. 1, 2026

  • Justification of the minimum threshold for reaching the target audience in order to spread ideas and exert psychological influence

  • Received 25.07.2025,
  • Revised 17.12.2025,
  • Accepted 27.01.2026
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Vol. 21, No. 1, 2026
  • psychological operations; information and psychological counteraction; agents of influence; interactive networks; information space
  • https://doi.org/10.33099/2617-6858-26-21-1-68-76
  • Pages 68-76

The relevance of the article lies in the evolution of the Ukrainian army in 2014-2025, in particular the development of the means and technologies of the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the field of information and psychological counteraction to attacks by the Russian Federation, taking into account current challenges. The aim of the article was to study the theoretical aspects of justifying the minimum threshold for reaching the target audience in order to spread certain ideas and exert psychological influence. The research was based on systematic and interdisciplinary approaches using synergistic principles to study complex social and information networks. The extrapolation of scientific results was used to integrate Ukraine’s experience of fighting the Russian Federation into the modern scientific paradigm. It was established that the minimum threshold for engaging the target audience to spread ideas and exert psychological influence is ≈3.5%. At the same time, the effectiveness of relevant measures is determined by the interaction of favourable factors, in particular the presence of a developed interactive network, active agents of influence and prior destabilisation of the socio-political situation, as well as restraining factors related to the incompatibility of the proposed narratives with the interests of the target audience or their contradiction with its values and moral guidelines. To determine the minimum threshold for engaging the target audience, it is advisable to apply a coefficient of counteraction to information and psychological influence ×3 for audiences with a high level of counter-influence, which sets the threshold at around ≈10.5%, in particular when planning psychological measures targeting the population of states with an authoritarian type of government. The practical value of the study lies in optimising fundamental approaches to the activities of the Ukrainian Defence Forces in the field of information and psychological counteraction in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war, taking into account the practical experience of performing combat (special) tasks by the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

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