Ukraine

Jankowicz, N. (2020) Pomerantsev, P. (2019)
 * “The Internet Research Agency, the infamous St. Petersburg troll factory that would change the discourse in the 2016 US election using inauthentic accounts, misleading means, and the mobilization of discontent, tested its tactics in Ukraine before using them on Americans.” [David Patrikarakos, War in 140 characters. Basic books. 2017]
 * Ukraine referendum in NL. “The Kremlin, ever seeking to exploit societal fissures, especially those that undermine the West, seems to have helped the campaign along, just as it would in the United States later that year.”
 * “Russian-backed media in the Netherlands, including the Dutch version of Kremlin-funded propaganda networks RT and Sputnik, began pushing out anti-Ukraine narratives to provide fodder for the campaign. The GeinStijl [sic] blog, that led the campaign, greedily lapped them up.”
 * “... every time [the Ukrainian campaign team] “publish[ed] a good piece on the Ukraine, it [was] followed with [a piece] on corruption or killing stray dogs.”” Suspicion that Russia directed this.
 * Threatening video released. “Several days before the April 6 referendum, the open-source investigation team at Bellingcat ... exposed that the video was likely created and promoted by the infamous St.Petersburg “troll factory,” the IRA.”
 * “... a New York Times investigation in early 2017 found that “the most active members of [Van Bommel’s] Ukrainian team were actually from Russia, or from breakaway Russian-speaking regions of Ukraine, and parroted the Kremlin line.”
 * “... the Dutch security service placed special emphasis on Russia’s malign activities in its 2017 annual report.”
 * ”[Dmytro] Kuleba sees the lack of public attribution to the campaign as part and parcel of the Russian influence playbook. “The most difficult thing was to catch Russia in hand””
 * Russian-Ukrainian war. “What actually happened on the ground was almost irrelevant; the two governments just needed enough footage to back their respective stories. ... military operations are now handmaidens to the more important information effect.”