Elections are Battlefields for the Kremlin: Flooding the Information Space

Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets try to flood information spaces with falsehoods to turn the public against Ukraine.

By EUvsDisinfo | May 31, 2024 —

From 6-9 June, the next elections to the European Parliament will take place across EU Member States in the largest European democratic exercise for hundreds of millions of people. These elections will give a mandate to the European Parliament for the next five years.

In this series of articles, we show examples of key tactics, techniques, and procedures employed by pro-Kremlin manipulators and disinformers targeting the European Parliament elections. We examine attempts to smear leaders; sow distrust, doubt, and division; flood social media with falsehoods; turn the public against Ukraine; and project Russia’s own shortcomings onto the EU to distract from the reality of Putin’s Russia. We will also follow how the election results are portrayed by the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem. Stay tuned!

**Elections are battlefields for the Kremlin: Flooding the information space —** EUvsDISINFO

In the first article, we analysed the technique of smearing prominent political leaders by inventing scandals, twisting or taking things out of context, or posing as ‘doppelgängers’ to clone or hijack their online identities to lure target audiences. A second technique is closely associated with the first: sowing discontent, doubt, and division.

The second article looked at attempts to foment discontent inside EU Member States, exploit existing political issues, and erode the credibility of the EU system. We have documented increasing attempts by Russian state-sponsored and pro-Kremlin outlets targeting the EU to influence public discussions.

Technique no. 3: flood information spaces with falsehoods to turn the public against Ukraine

The tactic of flooding the information space seeks to push aside quality content and illustrates how Russian authorities try to manipulate and influence the public agenda across the EU. This technique is also sometimes described as a ‘firehose of falsehoods’ because it seeks to dominate the information environment with an overabundance of misleading, false, and manipulative narratives. The Kremlin uses this tool quite often. We’ve seen them unleash it to spread lies about the downing of flight MH-17, blowing up the Nova Kakhovka dam, or accusing Ukraine of killing prisoners of war, just to name a few examples. And of course the lively heated public debates surrounding any democratic election provide fertile ground for the Kremlin’s disinformation meddlers to open the hose once again.

Soft power vs. dark power

There is nothing new in wanting to promote one’s own opinions or viewpoints globally. Governments usually run public diplomacy campaigns carried out by professional communicators. This is sometimes termed soft power projection. Modern Russia is no exception and its foreign policy concept emphasises global engagement. But it starts to get fishy when campaigns move from legitimate media outreach and public communication to deploying trolls and operating behind false names, hidden or stolen identities, hiding the real sources of information, or using other manipulative tricks to confuse recipient audiences.

The reach of social media platforms to all corners of the world, their power to swing public agendas, and their deliberate use of algorithms and content to keep users glued to the screen are also well established. As rulers in previous centuries wanted to control access to paper, the printed press, or wireless broadcasts, so will autocrats want to either control or dominate content on key social media platforms.

The scale of the Kremlin operation

The Kremlin’s operation is large and it strives to look even bigger and more impressive to emit the aura of a great power. Despite increased secrecy in official Russian state budget matters, experts assess that an amount equalling close to two billion US dollars was allocated in 2022 to key state outlets. Add to this all the surrogates and amplifiers financed by various Russian oligarchs or those run by the various secret services of the Russian federation. See our illustration of the Kremlin-affiliated system here. In Russia, it is a normal business practice to work for such manipulative PR campaigns or troll farms running influence operations home and abroad.

More outlets in more languages

Russian state and Kremlin-controlled outlets operate on a global scale using more than 20 language platforms and have very active social media accounts which contribute to spreading material. It is highly likely that the budgets have grown during 2023 and into 2024.

We observe more Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets already working in wider groups of European languages and at higher output rates and engaging more techniques to reach target audiences as we highlighted in our EEAS 2^nd FIMI threat report. The report also documents examples of using alternative domain names to circumvent existing EU restrictive measures, including the suspension of broadcasting rights.

We have seen robust Russian footprints on influence and information manipulation campaigns in several African countries, for instance those in the Sahel region enthralled by military coups. The Kremlin’s agenda there is to promote Russia; smear the EU, Europe and the wider West; and create opposition to having Ukraine on the international agenda.

RT (Russia Today) is the most prolific outlet and its operations in the Spanish language are regarded to be if not the largest Spanish-language online news service used in Latin America, then one of the most visited. The Kremlin shamelessly uses the reach of this outlet, sometimes hiding it under other names, to push disinformation about alleged Western warmongering, the sorry state of democracy in the EU, or the futility of Ukraine’s fight against Russia. And these disinformation narratives eroding the legitimacy of EU institutions are spread well in advance of the elections. But they are no less harmful for it.

In the early spring of 2024, we also noted another attempt to penetrate European target audiences in hitherto less-engaged languages, the Nordic languages. The Russian state-affiliated manipulative Pravda network is expanding its already large operation in many European languages and has now started offering in all Nordic languages news aggregation as well as tailor-made content. The news aggregation promotes sources like the Russian state outlet TASS and Russian state TV channels.

The Russian Pravda network should not be confused with the media ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ established by Georgiy Gongadze in 2000. The choice of ‘Pravda’ for the pro-Kremlin manipulative network is no accident. It has chosen a design and appearance with the express purpose of causing confusion and de-legitimising a real, quality media outlet.

Flooding by bots

We also observe inauthentic/artificial accounts which are often translated across several language domains, as our EEAS 2^nd FIMI threat report illustrated. These accounts use artificial intelligence (AI) and bot promotion to manipulate algorithms. This behaviour pushes certain news stories and other products higher up digital news feeds.

Freeload into other communities

Social media platforms offer Russian and pro-Kremlin operators cheap and fast tools to reach communities that would otherwise not necessarily tune into pro-Kremlin voices. This includes, for example, freeloading in sports or cultural communities by using popular hashtags like #Bundesliga or #MoulinRouge, to tag content spreading disinformation against supporting Ukraine. Such impersonations lure users with ‘Doppelganger’ tactics or deepfake tricks targeting reputable media or prominent personalities.

Turn up the valve

The technique of flooding is engaged extra forcefully around particular important events to manipulate public opinion. In addition to the examples outlined earlier, we also saw this around the illegal Crimea annexation in early 2014, or the creation of more myths around the first days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Our database illustrates how it is used to create a smokescreen around indiscriminate bombardments and atrocities such as in Mariupol, Bucha, Irpin, Kharkiv, or the kidnapping and deportation to Russia of Ukrainian children.

All these efforts aim to manipulate or disturb the agenda in the run-up to the European Parliament elections and beyond.

How to resist the disinformation and manipulation

There are a few simple ways to stem the tide of disinformation while not falling into Moscow’s traps. You can read advice on building personal resilience in our EUvsDisinfo Learn section. We recommend Think-before-you-share to counter flooding.

Stay tuned for upcoming articles examining how Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets try to deflect attention away from uncomfortable comparisons with Russia and try to prepare the ground for rejecting the legitimacy of the European Parliament results.

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