Infoguerre

As different Christian faiths celebrate Easter, the Russian so-called spring offensive in Ukraine has slogged on without making significant territorial gains. In Russia, ‘meat grinder’ is now a standard phrase to describe the bitter fighting. Unlike last Christmas, this time there are no false calls to postpone the fighting like Putin’s sudden proposal for a truce in Ukraine around the Orthodox Christmas. Kremlin press secretary Peskov recognised that the idea of an Easter ceasefire ‘has not been proposed by anyone’. Some of the main Russian political talk shows have promoted the view that disinformation has become so widespread that there is as much disinformation as credible information. Have they become a victim of own tools? In any case, the Kremlin ecosystem will likely use the leak story to push further its own fabrications…

Late last week, the Kremlin presented a new Russian Foreign Policy Concept and its contents quickly became the talk of the town for pro-Kremlin information manipulation and disinformation outlets. A veritable exercise in absurdity, the new concept barely stops short of stating that black is white. Or, in the Orwellian terms more familiar to the Kremlin, that ‘war is peace’. Let’s have a look at what pro-Kremlin outlets had to say about this new concept. The common theme echoed by everyone in the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem was praising the concept for identifying the United States as the main enemy of Russia. Of course, Russian disinformation has been vilifying the West, and particularly the US, in their rhetoric for years.

A year ago, in late March of 2022, Russian armed forces had lost the battle for Kyiv, which started with an air assault in the early hours of 24 February. Brave Ukrainian resistance forced Russian troops to withdraw from the town of Bucha as part of a broader retreat from the capital. Immediately, reports surfaced of dead bodies in the streets. Many were Ukrainian civilians killed in executions, their hands tied behind their backs. Macabre photos accompanied the accounts from local eyewitnesses. Since the massacre, multiple investigations, including a detailed UN report, have established Russian culpability for the attacks.

Putin fails to assert any dominance with his toxic nuclear empty-talk as Russian copycat factcheckers fail to establish any notable foothold in the West. As EUvsDiSiNFO has reported yet and again, the Russian information manipulation ecosystem attempts to capitalise on known taboos associated not only with nuclear weapons, but also with chemical and biolo-gical weapons and radiation. Kremlin propagandists try to feed the common and often irrational fears associated with these types of weaponry. Unfounded fears may in turn lead to confusion and indecisive-ness among Western audiences. In the worst case, fear-based decision-making may end up aligning with overt or covert Kremlin goals.

More trials and political prisoners. More labelling of ‘extremists’. More repentance videos. Lukashenka has promised the ‘strictest clean-up’ of ‘traitors’ and authorities follow suit against leading voices. New criminal cases punishing the freedom of speech and expression. More ‘repentance’ videos, Journalists, bloggers at largest independent media outlet hit with long prison sentences. On 25 March, what a strange way for Belarusians to celebrate the 105th anniver-sary of the 1918 procla-mation of the independence of the free Belarusian People’s Republic…

While Putin was making his way to the illegally annexed Crimea to throw a PR stunt, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him. Crimea has long been front and centre of the Kremlin’s information manipulation apparatus. Since its launch, EUvsDisinfo has documented, refuted, and published almost 1000 cases of pro-Kremlin disinformation focussed on Crimea. To put that number into context, it constitutes one out of every 15 cases in EUvsDisinfo’s collection of more than 15,000 cases. In a very Kremlinesque way, other outlets framed the ICC as a ‘pathetic and powerless organisation’.

Activist, author, and Kremlin-designated ‘threat to Russia’s national security’, Bill Browder has been advocating for governments around the world to impose sanctions on human rights abusers and corrupt officials. On 3 March 2023, he joined EUvsDisinfo in a Twitter Space to talk about Russian disinformation, how the global perception of Russia has changed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, what it takes to keep up the fight against corruption and abuse, and how to hold Russia accountable.

On the battlefield and in the information space, Russia is busy manipulating. Sugar-coating its missile attacks; blaming the EU or Ukraine for global food insecurity; or jailing critics of the Mariupol bombings a year ago. This week, on 16 March, it will be a year since the horrific attack by Russian forces on the Mariupol theatre which killed more than 600 people who had sought protection in the cellar of the Regional Academic Theatre. The theatre was among the first in a long series of what would become iconic locations where Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilians was well documented to the world.

On March 6, a video showing the execution on camera of a Ukrainian prisoner of war (POW) emerged on social media. The last words of the Ukrainian soldier were the call that has come to embody Ukrainian resilience – ‘Glory to Ukraine’. His execution contravened the Geneva Convention and may amount to a war crime. It also shows the impunity of Russian invaders in Ukraine. And as usual, Kremlin outlets tried to confuse the world with a myriad of contradictory lies to blur who is responsible… As usual, denial, deflection, distraction and discrediting the victims are the go-to tools in the Kremlin information manipulation playbook. Recall for instance the MH-17 downing, the Mariupol hospital and theatre bombings, the Bucha murders, or the Kramatorsk missile attacks, to name a few.

One year of draconic censorship laws has terrified Russian society. Multi-year prison sentences and thousands of court cases induce fear and self-censorship. Practically all inde-pendent journalists have either left Russia or closed down… Even before the 24 February invasion, the situation for inde-pendent media in Russia was very difficult with labels like ‘foreign agent’ or ‘undesirable organisation’ slapped on normal, professional journalists and publications. Poorly investigated attacks and even killings of high-profile journalists had contributed further to a chilling atmosphere. After twelve month, things have become even worse. The media land-scape inside Russia is fundamentally changed and now dominated by Kremlin orders.