The informatic manipulation in Russia

When the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Ukrainian Revolution in 2003 took place in autumn 2003, both of which expressed a rejection of Russian primacy, concerns arose in the Kremlin that this process might mean that the former Soviet nations might follow the same political path in seeking to integrate into the Western world. So, Putin decided to counter this process with a global digital campaign aimed at revaluing Russian culture in the eyes of the West. He saw then the danger that Western NGOs and their mass media could weaken Russia’s global political position.

Russia on the brink of an information war

This is how the Kremlin soon conceived a global digital campaign with a threefold purpose: to rehabilitate Russian culture and politics, and at the same time to politically destabilize Europe in order to increase the room for maneuver in Russia’s favor. Since then, the cost of this strategy is costing Russia hundreds of millions of Euros annually. In practice, this goes beyond social networks because it includes PR agencies, media, political party funding strategies and support for cultural centers around the world.

After the Catalan demonstration in favor of independence, images of Catalans being beaten up by the police in the streets of Barcelona appeared in the media, bleeding dramatically. Shortly afterwards, the government in Madrid discovered that such images were instantly processed by Russian computer robots, in order to give a false image of the real events, which were in fact peaceful. But they achieved their goal: to outrage the Catalans against Mariano Rajoy and to arouse sympathy for Catalonia. 

This kind of Russian interference has been repeated many times: in France, in Britain around the vote that led to Brexit, in the Baltic countries, and, above all, in the USA before the elections. The American judicial authorities are currently investigating the alleged Russian interference that led to Trump’s victory. At the end of October, the three Silicon Valley giants (Facebook, Google and Twitter) were asked to reveal the extent to which Russian activities could have influenced the American elections. This revealed that on Facebook, supposedly 126 million visitors have had to swallow political advertisements from Russia. According to Google, 1100 English-language videos have appeared on YouTube, and 37,000 automated Russian accounts have been set up on Twitter, spreading 1.4 million supposedly manipulated messages three weeks before the elections. Even on Instagram, 120,000 contents sent from Russia have been detected.

The power of Russian money

In addition, Russia seeks to win over prestigious intermediaries for its cause, such as former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has long publicly defended Putin. Another figure in this line is Professor Joseph Misfud, who was an important link between Trump and the Kremlin during the American presidential campaign. He is alleged to have offered Trump negative information about Hillary Clinton. Then there are large public relations firms, such as the US Ketchum, which organized the G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg and received two million dollars for it. Similar events were organized in Brussels, Washington and London. It is also worth mentioning here the top political dignitaries who have been invited by Putin to Moscow.

At the television level, the Russian government created in 2005 the channel ‘Russia Today’ (known as RT), to counteract the influence of CNN, BBC and ‘Deutsche Welle’. Today, RT has 2,000 employees worldwide, who have an annual budget of 250 million euros at their disposal.

The Internet: the main battleground

But the most powerful means of propagandistic penetration is in the Internet, where diverse strategies move, from ‘hackers’ to fake accounts, ‘bots’ or intelligent robots to the most sophisticated actions that manage to flood the Internet like a tsunami all over the world, manipulating content in favor of Russian interests. Recently, a NATO report states that 70% of all Russian information about NATO, in the Baltic countries and in Poland, is generated by Russian bots or computer robots. Some of them even attack websites or people who have a critical attitude towards Russia. Today it is difficult to define the boundary between these actions and traditional espionage. Thus, for example, the server of the Democratic Party of the USA was hacked to destabilize Hillary Clinton’s election campaign.

Comments

When judging and assessing all these initiatives taken by Putin, we must bear in mind that even today, every Russian is deeply convinced that Russia is the number one country in the world, which has always played a hegemonic role in the concert of nations. The sentimental blow suffered by the Russian people from the collapse of communism, from the contraction of their territory, from the loss of the Soviet republics due to the loss of their leading role at world level explains why Putin now wants to recover the lost ground, whatever the cost. He also has to resign himself to the rise of China, which is competing with them on all fronts.