23 August, the European Day of Remembrance, marks the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. 23 August is a special day for historic events in Europe. The European Day of Remembrance, also known as Black Ribbon Day, honours the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with its Secret Supplementary Protocol that carved up Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of control between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Days later, on 1 September 1939, the Second World War began in Europe. Persistent attempts, both in the USSR and in present-day Russia, have tried to deny the Pact’s Protocol. When forced to recognise its existence, the Kremlin diminishes or relativises its importance […]
A nervous government in Georgia co-opts the Kremlin narrative and repeats its lie that the EU is pushing a ‘regime change’ agenda in Georgia. False accusations of starting ‘colour revolutions’ is one of the oldest tricks in the Kremlin’s disinformation playbook. Earlier this month, on 1 August, a contentious law on ”transparency of foreign influence” took effect in Georgia. The law imposes unduly strict controls on civic groups that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad, designating them as ‘organisations carrying out the interests of a foreign power’. This includes local civil society organisations as well as the media. The organisations are subject to burdensome and disproportionate reporting require-ments and sanctions for non-compliance. The extensive inspections powers given to state autho-rities create a chilling effect, potentially stifling and eliminating organisations critical of the government. […]
Pro-Kremlin disinformation targets the Paris Olympics with baseless homophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric to discredit the Games, accuse the West of moral decrepitude and portray Russia as a victim of Russophobia. The Olympics are a time of inspiration and joy for most people around the world. At the Kremlin, however, disinformation spreaders are grumpy. Their athletes could not bear the Russian flag because of Russia’s continuing aggression against Ukraine. So the Kremlin slanders the Paris games and everything about them. The Kremlin has also tried other ways to discredit the Paris games with disinformation narratives. The common denominator was to engage in unashamed mud-slinging. Pro-Kremlin TV host Vladimir Solovyov, for example, attacked the opening ceremony with homophobic slurs, calling the French leadership the ‘faggot movement’ […]
Four years have passed since the rigged 9 August 2020 presidential election in Belarus. Ordinary people are labelled traitors and extremists while Moscow is taking over more of Belarus’s sovereignty. In the past few weeks, minor positive signals have come out of Minsk but they are largely cosmetic. A dozen Belarus political prisoners were released on pardon, while five Ukrainian citizens and one German citizen in Belarusian prisons were exchanged. Belarus intro-duced a visa-free regime for EU citizens which was lauded by state propaganda as an unprecedented, gracious sign of the country’s ‘openness’. Meanwhile, some EU Member States advise against travelling to Belarus due to the high risk of fabricated criminal prosecution by the Belarus authorities. Tension on the Belarus-Ukraine border somewhat decreased […]
The Russian state pays big money for the creation of ‘patriotic’ computer games which are intended to conquer the ‘hearts and minds’ by glorifying wars – from 17th century Russia, to 20th century fights with the US in Eastern Europe. Enter the world of IDI. A synthetic brainwasher created by the Kremlin, one of its latest tools in the quest to manipulate and control the thoughts of the next generation, where hard-core imperialist nationalism is disguised as ‘patriotism’. In October 2019, Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian government to choose a non-governmental organi-sation to serve as a ‘coordination centre for organising the production of internet content aimed at the spiritual and moral education of young people’.The government chose the Russian Internet Development Institute, or IDI (Институт развития Интернета). Russian state authorities fully control the IDI. […]
Depuis l’échec de la contre-of-fensive ukrainienne de 2023, la situation semblait figée sur le front terrestre malgré les faibles et couteuses avancées actuelles des forces russes dans le Don-bass en direction de Pokrovsk. La percée ukrainienne en direction de Koursk constitue une surprise stratégique dont les détermi-nants ne sont pas clairement identifiés : affaiblissement local russe, identification par le renseignement ukrainien d’une zone de moindre résistance adverse, renforcement des capa-cités offensives ukrainiennes, nouvelle stratégie ukrainienne ? Pour l’amiral Girard, cette percée tactique qui est une prise de risque, actuellement favorable à l’Ukraine, constitue une rupture dans le déroulement de la guerre sans que l’on puisse aujourd’hui dire si elle sera déterminante pour l’issue du conflit. Elle soulève d’impor-tantes interrogations. La pre-mière est celle de sa finalité Elle apparaît en première analyse comme une prise de gage en vue de négociations diplomatiques ultérieures. […]
August has been a particularly busy and bloody month in Russia’s war, and not only on the battlefield. Sometimes people think of August as a quiet time of year. In the history of Russia, as well as of the Soviet Union, August has instead been a time of dramatic events. The attempted military coup in Moscow in 1991, the start of the Second Chechen war in 1999. Russia’s invasion of Georgia in 2008 (known as the war in South Ossetia). We recently recalled the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its far-reaching consequences. It was signed in August 1939 in Moscow. We could go on. This August has been dramatic in several ways, too. First – on the battlefield. The Kremlin ramped up the ferocity of Russia’s bombing campaign across Ukraine with drones, heavy glide bombs and cruise missiles. […]
Kremlin disinformation outlets pounce on the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov to fake concern for freedom of speech. Ukraine’s advance into Kursk is still downplayed and swan songs about the Zapori-zhzhia nuclear power plant abound. While most people prefer to spend the sun-filled afternoons of late August making the most of their remaining vacation days, the Kremlin’s agents of disinformation are hard at work churning out narratives that befit their twisted worldview. It’s a tough job to lie with such audacity and so consistently. The Kremlin welcomes any opportunity to distract with ever-more bewildering claims, lest the audience consider any topic for too long and see that the emperor is, in fact, naked. This week was no exception. Pro-Kremlin disinformation peddlers zoomed in on the surprise arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France […]
Real-world scenarios in computer gaming push Russia’s expansionist agenda to a tech-savvy youth audience. As signatures dry on a new defence pact between Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, online gamers can play with these countries’ destinies in virtual reality. In July, a Russian gamer with associations to the Kremlin’s propaganda outlet Africa Initia-tive released the African Dawn game patch for the popular strategy game Hearts of Iron 4 (HOI4). The objective of the patch is the creation of an alliance of Sahel states online against the pressures of the Economic Community of West African States and Western powers. Playing as the leaders of the countries in the Sahel, players also fight local separatist and terrorist networks. If successful, the virtual country receives military and economic support from Russia. African Dawn sets out Russia’s agenda for Africa – to increase its influence and discredit Western partners. […]
23 August, the European Day of Remembrance, marks the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939. 23 August is a special day for historic events in Europe. The European Day of Remembrance, also known as Black Ribbon Day, honours the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. On 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany concluded the so-called Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with its Secret Supplementary Protocol that carved up Central and Eastern Europe into spheres of control between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Days later, on 1 September 1939, the Second World War began in Europe. Persistent attempts, both in the USSR and in present-day Russia, have tried to deny the Pact’s Protocol. When forced to recognise its existence, the Kremlin diminishes or relativises its importance […]
Copyright© European-Security 2023
