“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past,” remains an often quoted line from George Orwell’s now famous science fiction novel “1984,” and it is especially true today as disinformation campaigns are now being employed by state actors – notably Russia.
Russia has been increasingly putting its own spin on the war in Ukraine via such disinformation efforts, and on Tuesday, the French government announced that it had uncovered a wide-ranging campaign to undermine Western support for Ukraine.
“The involvement of Russian embassies and cultural centers that actively participated in amplifying this campaign, including via their institutional accounts on social networks, is a further illustration of the hybrid strategy Russia is implementing to undermine the conditions for democratic debate,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told reporters.
She added that French authorities are working closely with their partners to defeat the hybrid warfare led by Russia. For several years, Paris has sounded the alarm that Moscow had engaged in a disinformation campaign in areas of Francophone Africa, notably where the Russian mercenary Wagner Group had operated.
“This campaign is based in particular on the creation of fake web pages impersonating national media and government sites as well as the creation of false accounts on social networks,” Colonna added.
It is believed that at least four French daily newspapers – including Le Parisien, Le Figaro, Le Monde, and 20 Minutes — were victims of the operation. In addition, other major media were also targeted, notably the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Der Spiegel, and Bild.
The Old Soviet Playbook
Long before there was “fake news,” there was Soviet disinformation. In fact, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union had employed propaganda and disinformation as part of its “active measures” and those efforts were directed “against the populations of Western nations.”
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin – the first president of Russia – moved away from some disinformation campaigns, but it returned with a vengeance in the post-Yeltsin era.
Russian disinformation has increasingly become a key tactic in the military doctrine of Russia. It is hardly a secret and is now known as a “firehose of falsehoods” by Western observers. It is proving to be far more effective thanks to the ability of social media to spread misinformation and disinformation.
The European Union and NATO have even set up special units specifically to analyze and debunk the disinformation campaigns that originate within Moscow.
Dividing the West
The primary goal of these efforts is to divide the West, while the main narratives include the ineffectiveness of sanctions against Russia; the alleged Russophobia of Western states; the supposed predominance of Nazi ideology among Ukrainian officials; and even the negative effects of welcoming Ukrainian refugees for European countries.
Last year, NewsGuard, a New York-based firm that studies and tracks online misinformation, had identified 250 websites that are actively spreading Russian disinformation about the war, with dozens of new ones added only months earlier.
Just this month, Russia has employed a number of campaigns to suggest Ukraine’s counteroffensive is already faltering. These efforts are to make Western citizens and the governments question the aid that has been sent.
The message is clear, “Ukraine can’t win,” even though Russia has largely failed to meet its goals. But read the commentary on social media, and there is an alarm that a few Western tanks have been lost – even if some of the official reports are clearly fake. Case in point, state media tried to suggest that farm harvesters were actually Leopard 2s.
For more than the past year, Russia has also tried to push a narrative that it isn’t actually at war with Ukraine and that it is the West that Moscow is actually fighting.
Though the current agenda is related to Ukraine and the ongoing war, Russia will continue to employ disinformation in an effort to keep the West angry and divided. These narratives would almost be funny, but this is a campaign that isn’t a joke.
Author Experience and Expertise: A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
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