Infoguerre

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 […]

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’ […]

Pro-Kremlin propagandists spoke much about their twisted interpretations of loyalty, patriotism, equal rights, and fair play to mask the complete lack of morals of the Putin regime. Eight Russian citizens convicted in Western countries for crimes including murder, money laundering, fraud, and cybercrime were exchanged for 16 arbitrarily imprisoned persons in Russian jails on 1 August. These included persons with Western passports who had been held hostage using invented charges, but also Russian citizens who had been persecuted for opposition to the Putin regime and protesting its invasion of Ukraine. At Vnukovo airport near Moscow, an enthusiastic Putin greeted returning criminals, spies, and a convicted murderer who were exchanged for hostages, journalists, opposition politicians, and human rights defenders. […]

The Kremlin is ramping up its outreach to deliver tailor-made disinformation about Ukraine’s peace efforts to global audiences and discredit any legitimate attempts to reach peace. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s propagandists are playing morality police to cry foul about the Paris Olympics opening ceremony. Yet another week of the Kremlin trying to have its cake and eat it too has gone by. For Russia, there is no contradiction between nuclear sabre-rattling, calling for the total eradication of Ukraine, and deploying its diplomatic network to feign concern before global audiences about the peaceful settle-ment of war. It can comfortably call for bombing European capitals in the morning and complain about the ‘aggressive West’ by the afternoon. This type of almost schizophrenic dichotomy is the key characte-ristic of the Kremlin’s disinformation apparatus. […]

Seen from Moscow, most elections are scams and the idea of free and fair competition is just Western propaganda. Some weeks have passed since the elections to the European Parliament and there are several months to go until the US presidential elections on 5 November. There are many other elections during the next half year, including presi-dential elections and an EU referendum in Moldova on 20 October. There is a sense of disillusion in the pro-Kremlin information ecosystem about the outcome of the European Parliament elections, the new European Commission that is taking shape, and about the new dynamics that Kamala Harris has added to the US presidential elections. EUvsDiSiNFO looks here at how the elections are presented in the Kremlin information ecosystem… The only reality is that Moscow pins all its hopes on a change of political direction in the US and on reduced US support for Ukraine. […]

Interview with Nino Dolidze, a civil activist and Executive Director of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a key election watchdog in Georgia. She talked to EUvsDisinfo about the ramifications of the ‘foreign agents’ law for civil society and the increasing challenge of disinforma-tion and information manipulation targeting Georgia. The government reintroduced the so-called ‘foreign agents’ law. for several reasons. This legislation affects civil society and free media in the country directly. It also affects Georgia’s foreign policy trajectory towards EU integration. On top of that, it illustrates our democratic backsliding. Unfortunately, there is a lot of information manipulation and disin-formation in Georgia, especially on pro-government media and social networks. There are huge amounts of money spent on this propaganda and information manipulation. […]

The Kremlin pins its hopes on Trump/Vance while smearing Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, repression broadens in the Russian information sphere with more hefty prison sentences and ‘undesired’ orga-nisations. The news of US President Biden withdrawing and Kamala Harris entering as a candidate in the US presidential elections took the world by storm. It also dominated the Russian information landscape. The Kremlin and its commentators see US develop-ments through the prism of Ukraine: how this will affect US and Western support to Kyiv. The main line from Moscow is that Trump and JD Vance display wisdom, as they embrace Russian ideas adopting Moscow-lingo like ‘accepting realities on the ground’ and suggesting a quick deal involving Kyiv ceding substantial territory to Russia and agreeing to perpetual neutrality. […]

Moldova will hold presidential elections and a referendum on EU accession on the same day, 20 October 2024. Moscow will not ignore such a combination of targets. Moldova has been in the Kremlin’s crosshairs for a long time. Economic pressure, energy blackmail, staged protests, and generally polluting the information environment are some of the elements in the Kremlin’s playbook to destabilise Moldova and sabotage the country’s accelerating EU path. Iincidents are expected to beco-me ever more frequent as the country enters a crucial campaign period. Moldova will hold presiden-tial elections and an EU accession referendum on 20 October 2024. Next year, parliamentary elections will take place. The current, pro-European head of state, Maia Sandu, will seek re-election. For Russia, the country is a genuine information battlefield. […]