COMPARATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF INFORMATION AND MEDIA DEPARTMENTS OF THE POLISH ARMY AND THE ARMED FORCES OF UKRAINE IN 2014 – 2022

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to do a comparative analysis of the objectives, organizational and staff structure, individual aspects of information and media departments activities and public relations units of the Polish Army and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The research methodology is based on the principles of historicism and scientificity, the author's objectivity, as well as the use of general scientific methods and special historical methods, primarily historical-comparative, historical-systemic, historical-typological methods. The scientific novelty consists in the following: for the first time the activity and organizational staff structure of the information and media departments of the Polish Army in 2014 – 2022 have been analyzed and a comparative analysis with the Armed Forces of Ukraine has been carried out. The Conclusion. Poland is a strategic partner of Ukraine, a member of NATO and the European Union, but until 1991, Poland was one of the countries participating in the Warsaw Pact on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance. This fact gives grounds for asserting that the training system and forms and methods of operation of the military mass media of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (during the first years of independence) and the Polish Army had many common features. In the article there has been determined that the information departments of the Polish Army and the Armed Forces of Ukraine have a lot in common, in fact, as well as the army structure itself. The hybrid war started by the Russian Federation prompted not only Ukraine, but also Poland to strengthen the information front. The affinity of the two systems of informing the population to support the army was tested in the joint Lithuanian-Polish-Ukrainian brigade. It is important that after 2014, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, when forming a new communication system, generally focused on Poland, the country that is mentally close, which allows active communication with its own population. In its turn, Poland also uses the experience of Ukraine gained in the war actively and tries to make the necessary changes quickly.