Russia as an initiator

(Peter Pomerantsev on Twitter) "'Information war' is the essence and practice of Putinism. It's an approach to communication that treats people as fools - not citizens. It's deeply cynical, and implies all words are weapons, that talk of 'values' and 'rights' are just manipulation..."

- (EUvsDisinfo): Grotesque Kremlin farce turns into a bloody tragedy - (EUvsDisinfo): The Kremlin's playbook - (EUvsDisinfo): All roads lead to Ukraine - (EUvsDisinfo): Disinformation about the current Russia-Ukraine conflict - (Ismail, A. (2022)) - (Demagog) Antyukrainski dyskurs propagandowy w sieci - (Instytut Kościuzki): Inwazja na Ukrainę - The less redacted version of the Mueller Report on Russia's involvement in the USA Presidential elections 2016 - Eric Garland on Twitter - "Russian media advanced anti-U.S. conspiracy theories about the virus. - Chinese media advanced pro-China news that laundered their reputation in terms of COVID-19 response. Russian media also supported this laundering effort. - Russia and China directly threatened global health and well-being by using authoritarian power over the media to oppose public health measures." - Germany - Italy - The Netherlands - France and Austria (a list of sources) Rand corporation - We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as “the firehose of falsehood” because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, “[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.” Contemporary Russian propaganda has at least two other distinctive features. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency. - Article: https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE100/PE198/RAND_PE198.pdf ProPublica analysis of Russian troll activities Jankowicz, N. (2020) - “Unlike Soviet propaganda, which sought to promote a specific, communist-centric worldview, the Kremlin divides and deceives populations around the world with one goal in mind: the destruction of Western democracy as we know it. Russian deceptions exploit fissures in targeted societies to sow doubt, distrust, discontent and to further divide populations and their governments. The ultimate goal is to undermine democracy ... and drive citizens to disengage.” When democracies have “trouble functioning” Putin gets a seat at the negotiating table. And Putin gains a comparative advantage. He can state to his domestic critics that democracies are also having troubles. - “All of the tactics Russia employs to angle for international notoriety can be categorized as “influence operations.”” - “In fact, fake news encompasses just a sliver of Russian influence operations. The most convincing Russian narratives, and indeed, the most successful, in both Central and Eastern Europe and in the United States, are narratives grounded in truth that exploit the division in societies. These truths can be undisputed facts or the perceived realities of life for marginalized populations that Russian operations target.” - see also Initiators play into existing fissures in democracies - “Keeping people at the heart of Western policy on the Kremlin’s influence campaigns is critically not only in responding to Russia’s online offensives, but in repairing the cracks in our democracies that allowed them to begin in the first place.” - see also Initiators play into existing fissures in democracies - “Through this generally apolitical content, the Internet Research Agency built users’ trust in the pages, increased engagement, and grew their followings to hundreds of thousands of people each.” - “Whether on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or beyond, these communities were built on emotion, not through the purchase of online advertising.” - “As trust within their inauthentic communities grew, the IRA operatives’ asks of community members did as well. They began by initiating armchair activist campaigns based on easy tasks that furthered the sense of community in the group.” - “The IRA also purchased 3,500 advertisements on Facebook to boost engagement and reach on their posts.” - “The organic Facebook posts in the dataset “were shared by users just under 31 million times, liked almost 39 million times, reacted to with emojis almost 5.4 billion times, and ... generat[ed] almost 3.5 million comments.” [Oxford Internet Institute research on a dataset the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence provided them] - Georgia. “It may sound ridiculous but this “gateway tactic” is one of the most important in the Russian disinformation arsenal and the reason RT can claim to be the most-watched news channel on the Internet. Rather than posting videos only about their reporting, the RT YouTube channel is filled with so-called disaster porn – videos of mass destruction such as the 2011 Tsunami in Japan – and instantly viral videos of cute animals. This allows the channel to build viewership and trust so that when the RT logo is emblazoned on a dubious news story or editorial take, viewers are more likely to give it a chance.” - Batu Kutelia. “”Even today ... you hear some people say that culture is not politics. Everything is politics. Everything has been weaponized. That’s the Russian strategy. That’s part of hybrid warfare.” - “... the perfect encapsulation of how Russian disinformation works: take something that people are already mad about, pollute the information ecosystem, and get them so frustrated they start to distrust institutions and disengage.”
 * Russian disinformation in the Ukraine war
 * Russian disinformation and the USA
 * Russian and Chinese misinformation campaigns during the pandemic - (Rand Corporation report: Bad Actors in News Reporting. Tracking News Manipulation by State Actors findings:)
 * Russia funding third state political parties
 * General

Pomerantsev, P. (2019) - Russia. “No one who worked at the farm described themselves as trolls. Instead, they talked about their work in the passive voice (‘a piece was written’, ‘a comment was made’). Most treated the farm as if it was just another job, doing the minimum required and then clocking off.” - Lyudmilla Savchuk revealed the farms. “But instead of an outcry she found that many people, including fellow activists, just shrugged at the revelations. ... the very existence was seen as normal in itself.” - The future arrived first in Russia. First the idea of a majority for Putin was invented and then it appeared. A fog of disinformation. Facts are dismissed with triumphant cynicism as ‘just PR’ or ‘information war’. (221) First a majority was created for Yeltsin.

Bellingcat on "Russia's previous attempts at disinformation, in particular the four M's that describe their use of satellite and aerial imagery".

History - Yuri Bezmenov on KGB subversion