Year after year, escalating hybrid threats originating mainly from foreign but also domestic actors pose an increasingly serious and, in some cases, effective threat to the fundamental principles of democracy in every country whose natural interest is to remain in the pro-Western and pro-European community. The fight against more or less professional information operations cannot remain isolated in the form of repelling attacks in the online space. The fight as an effective defense, but also as an attack to preserve fundamental human rights and freedoms, must come in many forms.

One of these is the first annual security conference organized by the civic association Hoaxy a podvody (Hoaxes and Frauds). Its title, Stratcom Under Pressure, is quite self-explanatory and, more than anything else, calls for cooperation among stakeholders who share common goals. State representatives – officials and politicians, civic activists, independent experts, representatives of foreign embassies, foreign partners, and other true patriots – will meet in Bratislava to help stratcom as such survive under pressure and rise from the ashes.