The Russian information war against Ukraine was articulated by the Russian government as part of the Gerasimov doctrine. They believed that Western governments were instigating color revolutions in former Soviet states which posed a threat to Russia.

The concept of informatsionnaya voyna (Russian: информационная война, lit. 'informational war') encompasses various strategies, including cyberwarfare, often described as technical defenses against technical attacks in warfare. However, cyberwarfare is just one aspect of Russia's information war, which may include controlling undersea communications cables, shaping national narratives, manipulating the news cycle, and flooding the information space with Russian bots and trolls. The goal is to achieve strategic victory and exert reflexive control. These efforts were used as part of its disinformation in the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Due to effective censorship, most media outlets in Russia are government-controlled, allowing Kremlin messaging to successfully sway the citizens of the Russian Federation to support its approach in Ukraine. The Kremlin has denied waging war in Ukraine, claiming it only wants to protect Russian speakers against Ukrainian Nazis. This narrative has been reinforced by Russian television since 2014, giving it an advantage through repetition and familiarity. According to a poll, 58 percent of Russians approved of this perspective between 28 February and 3 March 2022.

Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, described a novel type of warfare that incorporates elements of propaganda, demoralization, distraction, and political posturing both in times of peace and war, and above all the importance of social media, beyond both cyberwarfare and information war as NATO understands them. He suggested a 4:1 ratio of nonmilitary to military measures. Nonmilitary tactics also come under the military in Russia, and although United States Marine Corps research suggests that the ratio is still largely aspirational, it indicates recognition of "the utility of nonmilitary measures in interstate confrontation, especially during what would be considered peacetime."

The Russian Federation misinforms and misleads its citizens and the audience of its television channels in other countries – Channel One Russia and Russia-24, for example.

Like Ukraine, Belarus and Russia consider the Kievan Rus as their cultural ancestor. Many Russians see Kyiv as the birthplace of their nation. Kievan Rus' reached its greatest extent under Yaroslav the Wise (1019–1054); his sons issued its first written legal code, the Russkaya Pravda, shortly after his death. In the 2000s, Russia waged a large-scale propaganda campaign in Ukraine, based on the doctrine of "Russian world", and Putin said "...we are one nation. Kyiv is the mother of Russian cities." Its ideological basis was post-Soviet revanchism in the Russian Federation for the cultural, economic, and territorial restoration of pre-1991 borders and the restoration of the former Soviet "zone of influence" in Europe and Asia.

This revanchism sees three categories of the world's population as "Russian": ethnic Russians, regardless of where they live; a Russian-speaking population regardless of nationality; and compatriots who have never lived on the territory of the Russian Empire, the USSR, and other state entities, as well as their descendants.

At the 2008 Bucharest summit, 2–4 April 2008, Putin told United States President George W. Bush: "You understand, George, that Ukraine is not even a state! What is Ukraine?"