Russian “desinformation” has now reached production “on an industrial scale” and is a “serious threat” to the stability of Western democracies. That’s why we have to equip ourselves and “react”, not just “analyze”. Sounding the alarm, on the strength of the first report drawn up by the EU external action service on information threatsAnd the high representative Josep Borrell. “I know what I’m talking about, I myself ended up being targeted by the Russians,” he said, opening a system conference in Brussels on disinformation. The report – which proposes the term information manipulationor Fimi, to describe what Russia and China have put in place against the West – examined 100 cases of information attacks recorded between October and December 2022 in order to extrapolate “guidelines” useful for countering the pitfalls of Moscow and Beijing .
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«Disinformation in the hands of Russia has become a weapon, which hurts, it kills people’s ability to understand what’s going on and if information is toxic, democracy cannot work,” Borrell points out. The risk, as the report shows, is therefore twofold: on the one hand non-Western public opinion (Africa in the lead), land of conquest for Russian storytelling according to which the increase in energy and food prices are the fault of Western sanctions, and on the other the internal front of Europe and North America, where to sow doubts about the stability of the system and the virtues of democracy, because from chaos autocracies benefit.
Through its social channels, Russian diplomacy has now become the “transmission belt” of these operations, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated, even falsifying graphics and covers of well-known Western media, in order to disseminate fake content (mainly through images or videos). . Much of the effort revolves around the war in Ukraine, either justifying it or debunking criticism of the Kremlin — operations have been identified in at least 30 languages, 16 of them European.
Russia stands out (88 cases observed) but also China not joking (17 cases). In five cases, “joint operations” were then observed. The external action service, with this report, proposes a “standardized” working method to identify cases of Mifi and, therefore, achieve European homogeneity in the response.
“The time has come to roll up our sleeves and defend democracy, both at home and around the world,” Borrell said. In a certain sense, the EU has already taken action. “We are alongside independent Russian media, civil society and human rights defenders who, despite the repression, continue to oppose authoritarianism and war. I can’t go into the details, but trust me, we back them up in practical terms: I won’t tell you how, because I would be doing them a bad favor,” he specified. Moscow will certainly take note.