We live in a hyperactive attention economy of unprecedented scale and intensity. And as we swipe and scroll through our news feeds, the Kremlin is biding its time and waiting for us to succumb to “Ukraine fatigue.”

In fact, they are banking on it. For years Russian President Vladimir Putin and his propagandists have mocked the West as weak, decadent and self-involved. The massive outpouring of global support for Ukraine today must seem to them little more than ephemeral virtue signaling. In their view, especially as gas and food prices increase, we’ll look for the first excuse to fall back into a familiar position: sympathetic indifference.

A coming onslaught of Russian disinformation will try to offer us those excuses. Putin’s chorus of deception will flood us with messages designed to sow enough confusion and doubt that some may even begin to reinterpret the meaning of the invasion he launched on Feb. 24 to wipe out a diverse, freedom-loving, democratic neighbor. They will be abetted by groups in the West on the extremes of the political spectrum, long supported by Kremlin money.

Over the months ahead, then, the cause of peace and security will depend in part on our ability to retain moral and intellectual clarity amid the thickening fog of an information war.