Information Warfare

The re-election of Putin is largely the result of the Kremlin’s scaremongering tactics, control of infor-mation spaces, and elimination of real alternatives in Russia. A lot has already been reported about the so-called presidential elections in Russia during 15-17 March. There were no surprises, and reactions from the EU and others offered clear condemnations of the predetermined result. The re-coronation of Putin is scheduled for 7 May, conveniently close to the yearly 9 May celebrations… Election numbers reveal an ice-cold reality cherished by disinformers and manipulators: you can sway a society. George Orwell’s 1984 was fictional, but here is the reality. If you lie, lie big and lie constantly. Destroy the notion of true and false. Even literate societies with all their art, literature, theatre, faith, and religion can be subdued. A thin veneer separates civilised behaviour from barbarism.

Censorship, conveyor-belt sentencing, gangster attacks, economic suffocation and waterfalls of disinfo flooding public discourse: revanchist, militant nationalism is drowning the Russian information space. The last remaining pretence of media freedom in Russia is quickly falling away. The suspicious death of Alexey Navalny has left Russian leader Vladimir Putin with few if any viable domestic opponents, and he seems to relish his strongman image. His state-of-the-nation address on 29 February set a new tone in the Kremlin’s information operations: that of a dictator seemingly confident that no one would dare oppose him. For Russians who believe that their country should be free, open, and prosperous, the current moment is bleak. As one mourner for Navalny said, ‘I don’t have any vision of the future.’… Putin’s institutionalised wrath against all his real or perceived enemies, continues to get crueller, pettier, deadlier, faster.

This week, as the Czar awaits his re-crowning after a so called ‘election’ rigged in his favour, the pro-Kremlin propaganda apparatus has been busy crafting an alternative reality. As the Russian armed forces failed miserably to produce anything worth celebrating, the propagandists have resorted to age-old fear tactics, painting a picture of a world filled with threats, where Russia is under attack and enemies are already at the gates. It also sets the scene for the next chapter of Putin’s rule. The imagery invoked aims to trigger primal reactions that can be harnessed for the Kremlin’s post-‘election’ purposes… The pro-Russian disinformation eco-system has continued to push cynical lies that Russia does not strike civilian targets. This time, the claim was presented in the context of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue arrest warrants for 2 high-ranking Russian military officers.

International Women’s Day: Independent female politicians and activists are particularly feared and smeared by the Kremlin and its fellows. This International Women’s Day is an opportunity to honour Russian and Belarussian women who have taken up the fight against Russian and Belarus state and pro-Kremlin disinformation and manipulation. One example is Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the imprisoned Russian dissident Alexei Navalny who died suddenly on 16 February 2024 in suspicious circumstances in a Siberian prison camp. On 1 March, Alexei Navalny was buried near Moscow. In defiance of the Kremlin, thousands of Russians came to pay their respects while chanting anti-war slogans. Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets have a long history of mocking feminism and women’s rights. This strategy isn’t accidental or marginal. Demeaning and degrading independent female agency is a major part of the Kremlin’s ‘threatened values’ super-narrative.

Russian state-controlled and other pro-Kremlin outlets continued to push hackneyed disinformation tropes about European energy problems despite mounting energy woes in Russia. Two years after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, social discontent in Russia is heating up. Despite massive repression and laws criminalising opposition to the war, scattered protests have broken out. In some, the wives of Russian soldiers demand that their husbands come home. Other protests, however, focus on heating blackouts and outages in the midst of sub-zero temperatures. Since Putin cut off gas supplies to Europe in 2022, pro-Kremlin propagandists have gleefully predicted that Europeans will freeze in winter. They’ve been wrong again and again. Meanwhile, not far from Moscow, cold and desperate Russians recently took to making online videos of their plight. But as the Kremlin knows, disinformation never lets reality get in the way of a good story.

What can we see in the Transnistrian region and international media. Over the past weeks Moldova has got a lot of international press coverage. The major media, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, Deutsche Welle, The Guardian, France 24, Euractiv, European Pravda, The Moscow Times, Meduza, Balkan Insight, CNN, CNBC, Aljazeera, and many more wrote about a possible request from Tiraspol to Moscow to accept the Transnistrian region of Moldova as part of the Russian Federation. “Deputies of all levels from Transnistria” were reported to possibly adopt the request on 28 February, during a special session called by de-facto leader Vadim Krasnoselsky. The reports all go back to an opinion – not even original information – of a local opposition activist, Ghennady Chorba, who wrote on his Facebook page that this could be the main topic at the congress, especially given that Russian president Vladimir Putin was expected to address the Russian Federal Assembly on 29 February.

In his, two hour, record long, yearly state of the nation-speech Putin fixed his sight on the presidential ‘election’ [coronation] expected in a few weeks. The war against Ukraine, ‘Nazis’ and bashing the West is the guiding ideology. As seasoned KGB-operative, Putin boasted self-confidence sugar-coating the military situation and its losses. Demands for everybody to contribute and rally behind the militarised society is the oratorical chapeau on the increased physical repression. As usual, he promised money for everybody and the crowd obeyed the traditional of applause; 116 times according to the puppet opposition. When Wladimir Putin says : « Our Motherland is defending its sovereignty and security, defending the lives of our compatriots in Donbass and Novorossiya », he means : «We invaded the neighbour Ukraine, but I call it defence. ‘Novorossiya’ is my colonial word for southern parts of Ukraine ».

War has become an essential, almost sought-after state of affairs in Russia. We look at some recent developments in society. 24 February was a sombre day marking two years of Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against Ukraine. The war has also been a cyber and hybrid campaign soaked in disinformation and manipulation. Indeed, it is not just two years. In truth, Moscow’s campaign began 10 years ago in late February 2014. That was when ‘little green men’ wearing fatigues bearing no identifying insignias landed by air and sea on the Crimea peninsula. The dictator-style annexation was quick: local ‘elections’ held at gunpoint, a hijacked ‘parliament’ in Sevastopol asking for unification, and the Russian parliament’s rubber-stamping of the whole mess in Moscow. This far-reaching constitutional process was done in less than 20 days. Pro-Kremlin voices and pundits continue to devote a lot of stubborn energy to promoting the claim that the take-over was a splendid, well-considered, and democratic process.

The Kremlin’s lies, deceit and disinformation have systematically fuelled Russia brutal war of aggression against Ukraine. Two years later, Ukraine fights bravely on and we continue to expose Russia’s lies. Don’t be deceived. Two years ago, on 24 February 2022 Russia launched a brutal full-scale invasion against its peaceful neighbour Ukraine and the world irrevocably changed. There are a lot of memories accrued in these past two years. Some traumatic and painful, like learning of the horrendous atrocities committed by Russia in Bucha, some are full of optimism and resolve, like seeing Ukraine liberate Kherson from the Russian invaders. But in these last two years we gathered more than just memories, we also sifted through piles and piles of pro-Kremlin disinformation fuelling Russia’s war machine with hate and lies. So, when we think about #24Feb2022, we also think of all the pro-Kremlin disinformation that we sought to expose on our EUvsDisinfo platform. Here is but a glimpse of some of the pro-Kremlin disinformation topics that have become inextricably linked with our memory of war.

From celebrating gaining a few dozen square kilometers of scorched earth in Avdiivka as a major victory for Putin to keeping mum about the circumstances of Alexei Navalny’s death, it’s been a busy week for the Kremlin’s disinformation mouthpieces. This week, the Kremlin’s steely gaze was affixed on Avdiivka, lauding the capture of this patch of scorched earth as a breakthrough victory. Meanwhile, the untimely death of a long-term critic and staunch opponent of the Kremlin, Alexei Navalny, wrongly imprisoned in a Russian death-camp, merited only a passing glance and the ‘conspiracy theory treatment’. If details on Navalny’s death were scant in the Kremlin’s channels, the fact that 24 February marks two years since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine seems to have been completely and deliberately excluded from the Kremlin’s disinformation repertoire this week.