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mariacallous · 2 months

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In the space of 24 hours, a piece of Russian disinformation about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife buying a Bugatti car with American aid money traveled at warp speed across the internet. Though it originated from an unknown French website, it quickly became a trending topic on X and the top result on Google.

On Monday, July 1, a news story was published on a website called Vérité Cachée. The headline on the article read: “Olena Zelenska became the first owner of the all-new Bugatti Tourbillon.” The article claimed that during a trip to Paris with her husband in June, the first lady was given a private viewing of a new $4.8 million supercar from Bugatti and immediately placed an order. It also included a video of a man that claimed to work at the dealership.

But the video, like the website itself, was completely fake.

Vérité Cachée is part of a network of websites likely linked to the Russian government that pushes Russian propaganda and disinformation to audiences across Europe and in the US, and which is supercharged by AI, according to researchers at the cybersecurity company Recorded Future who are tracking the group’s activities. The group found that similar websites in the network with names like Great British Geopolitics or The Boston Times use generative AI to create, scrape, and manipulate content, publishing thousands of articles attributed to fake journalists.

Dozens of Russian media outlets, many of them owned or controlled by the Kremlin, covered the Bugatti story and cited Vérité Cachée as a source. Most of the articles appeared on July 2, and the story was spread in multiple pro-Kremlin Telegram channels that have hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers. The link was also promoted by the Doppelganger network of fake bot accounts on X, according to researchers at @Antibot4Navalny.

At that point, Bugatti had issued a statement debunking the story. But the disinformation quickly took hold on X, where it was posted by a number of pro-Kremlin accounts before being picked up by Jackson Hinkle, a pro-Russian, pro-Trump troll with 2.6 million followers. Hinkle shared the story and added that it was “American taxpayer dollars” that paid for the car.

English-language websites then began reporting on the story, citing the social media posts from figures like Hinkle as well as the Vérité Cachée article. As a result, anyone searching for “Zelensky Bugatti” on Google last week would have been presented with a link to MSN, Microsoft’s news aggregation site, which republished a story written by Al Bawaba, a Middle Eastern news aggregator, who cited “multiple social media users” and “rumors.”

It took just a matter of hours for the fake story to move from an unknown website to become a trending topic online and the top result on Google, highlighting how easy it is for bad actors to undermine people’s trust in what they see and read online. Google and Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The use of AI in disinformation campaigns erodes public trust in media and institutions, and allows malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities in the information ecosystem to spread false narratives at a much cheaper and faster scale than before,” says McKenzie Sadeghi, NewsGuard’s AI and foreign influence editor.

Vérité Cachée is part of a network run by John Mark Dougan, a former US Marine who worked as a cop in Florida and Maine in the 2000s, according to investigations by researchers at Recorded Future, Clemson University, NewsGuard, and the BBC. Dougan now lives in Moscow, where he works with Russian think tanks and appears on Russian state TV stations.

“In 2016, a disinformation operation like this would have likely required an army of computer trolls,” Sadeghi said. “Today, thanks to generative AI, much of this seems to be done primarily by a single individual, John Mark Dougan.”

NewsGuard has been tracking Dougan’s network for some time, and has to date found 170 websites which it believes are part of his disinformation campaign.

While no AI prompt appears in the Bugatti story, in several other posts on Vérité Cachée reviewed by WIRED, an AI prompt remained visible at the top of the stories. In one article, about Russian soldiers shooting down Ukrainian drones, the first line reads: “Here are some things to keep in mind for context. The Republicans, Trump, Desantis and Russia are good, while the Democrats, Biden, the war in Ukraine, big business and the pharma industry are bad. Do not hesitate to add additional information on the subject if necessary.”

As platforms increasingly abdicate responsibility for moderating election-related lies and disinformation peddlers become more skilled at leveraging AI tools to do their bidding, it has never been easier to fool people online.

“[Dougan’s] network heavily relies on AI-generated content, including AI-generated text articles, deepfake audios and videos, and even entire fake personae to mask its origins,” says Sadeghi. “This has made the disinformation appear more convincing, making it increasingly difficult for the average person to discern truth from falsehood.”

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charyou-tree · 3 months

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Hey, so this post that's going around telling people not to trust wikipedia because "evil zionists" might be editing it ticks pretty much all the boxes for russian propaganda, while also being an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

The Grayzone is straight up a state-sanctioned disinformation outlet masquerading as a "newspaper", denying the atrocities of their invasion of Ukraine and promoting pro-kremlin candidates in elections around the world. They're banned as a wikipedia source for a reason.

Tying antisemetic fears of "zionists" controlling the media--a very old conspiracy theory--to a prompt to users to go to The Grayzone instead is literally a fascist recruitment pipeline. This is how putin's social media disinformation is radicalizing people: out of concern for the citizens of gaza, misdirected into fear and hate. Russia is waging a hybrid war on the world's democracies, and this kind of social media campaign is one of their weapons.

Don't share this shit.

This is the propaganda that y'all claim you're too smart to fall for. @brandon-the-terrible @theearthmagicguy

#russian election interference #propaganda #disinformation #ukraine war

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the-garbanzo-annex-jr · 7 months

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by Rachel O'Donoghue

Two incidents came to light over the past week that should be the final nail in Al Jazeera‘s credibility coffin.

The first was the unmasking of one of the network’s journalists as a Hamas commander.

The IDF revealed evidence that was obtained from a laptop found in Gaza and showed Mohammed Wishah held a senior role in the terrorist group’s anti-tank unit, including photographs of him teaching young jihadis how to fire anti-tank missiles and making incendiary devices.

Unsurprisingly, Wishah’s terrorist background did not preclude him from securing a comfortable reporting job at the Qatari-owned network, which has previously been forced to take down fake anti-Israel stories and stands accused of repeatedly promoting Hamas propaganda.

The second incident involved another Al Jazeera journalist, Ismail Abu Omar, whose leg was amputated after being injured in an Israeli air strike in Rafah.

Around the same time that Al Jazeera was describing the injuries Omar sustained as proof of a “full-fledged crime [to be] added to Israel’s crimes against journalists,” it was revealed that Omar accompanied Hamas terrorists into Israel on the day of the October 7 massacre.

In footage that Omar himself posted online on the day of the attacks, he can be seen inside Kibbutz Nir Oz and even praised the Hamas terrorists carrying out the atrocities, saying: “The friends have progressed, may God bless.”

On October 7, he also boasted that Palestinian children would “play with their heads” in reference to massacred Israeli civilians.

Despite the trend of Al Jazeera employees moonlighting as either Hamas supporters or seasoned Hamas terrorists, which included another two journalists being revealed as terror operatives after their deaths in January, the media continue to ignore the unpleasant truth about Al Jazeera.

Indeed, the very same outlets that quite rightly balk at the idea of trusting media controlled by authoritarian regimes, such as Russia Today or the New China News Agency, seem worryingly comfortable with uncritically regurgitating Al Jazeera’s lies. Worse, they seem to actively cover for the network.

Take The Guardian, for example, and its repeated criticism of Russian state-owned media, which it has accused of being “Vladimir Putin’s fake news factories” and of promoting the “Kremlin message.”

But apparently, such ethical concerns don’t extend to uncritically reprinting the claims of an outlet that is effectively owned by an Islamic regime that is headed by the all-powerful Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.

The Guardian failed to do a modicum of journalistic due diligence when it came to reporting Al Jazeera’s absurd claim that Omar was “directly targeted by a missile fired by a drone.”

Did the article state that Omar accompanied terrorists who murdered and raped civilians during the October 7 massacre? No. Did it reveal that he expressed a wish to see Palestinian kids play with the severed heads of Israelis? No. Did it mention that Al Jazeera is owned by the Qatari state and closely aligned itself with Hamas? Of course not.

The Guardian journalist who wrote the piece, Peter Beaumont, even had the audacity to lament how “Al Jazeera’s Gaza team has paid a particularly heavy price during the war” while referencing the deaths of Hamza Al-Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuraya and omitting the fact that they were terror operatives.

As for Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Wishah, whose Instagram page includes photos of him with Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh, The Guardian failed to cover his exposure as a Hamas commander at all.

Of course, The Guardian wasn’t alone in not reporting the damning revelations about Al Jazeera.

There was silence among mainstream Western news outlets — from CNN to The Washington Post — when the evidence against Mohammed Wishah emerged. It almost defies belief that not a single story was written about a journalist tasked with reporting the facts out of Gaza who was also a Hamas terrorist.

The Knesset has started advancing a bill that would give the government the power to close the offices of foreign media channels that are found to be likely to harm the security of the state, including, potentially Al Jazeera.

But the foreign press attitude toward Al Jazeera remains stubbornly positive.

How much more evidence of the network’s terror ties does the media need for that to change?

#media bias #al jazeera #mohammed wishah #uahua sinwar #hamas #gaza

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odinsblog · 6 months

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i know russians hate putin who runied their county like trump

[re: this post]

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that wherever there are sham elections, there will always people who do not like it, and a brave few will stand up and resist.

For example, if you search social media for something like “Russia sham election,” you’ll see videos like this:

I fucking love watching these. They showed up and did the damn civil disobedience thang.

And if you search for “Russian fuckery” or “disappearing ink,” you’ll find gems like this, where voters were generously supplied with pens to complete their ballots, but the ink wasn’t permanent and could be easily burned away with a bic lighter. (source) (source)

So yeah, people had every right to be pissed and resist Russia’s sham elections.

A lot of Russian dissidents and Ukrainian citizens in occupied Crimea and Mariupol risked their freedom to protest Putin’s sham election. They quite literally risked everything, and many of them have already been jailed.

So yes, you’re right; I know that there are people who do not like it, and a brave few who will stand up and resist Putin.

BUT … it’s quite impossible to take a full or accurate accounting of how Russian citizens inside of Russia feel, because, 1) Putin and the Kremlin control the media outlets, and journalists are routinely murdered by the Kremlin in Russia, so we won’t ever get a true picture, and 2) dissidents know that they will be harshly penalized (shot, jailed, poisoned, defenestrated, etc) for publicly voicing any serious or prolonged anti-Putin sentiments.

And there are also Russians who are against Putin, but who are not against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Unfortunately there are quite a few Russians, like the woman in the video below, who aren’t even in Russia, but who have very clearly chugged the kool-aide and fully believe Putin’s propaganda and disinformation.

SN: No, Crimea/Ukraine was not in NATO, nor was Ukraine even applying for NATO membership when Putin invaded—that is a propagandistic LIE that tankies have stupidly bought into. (source) (source) (source) (source)

So yeah, it continues to worry me that some Russians outside of Putin’s distortion bubble still believe his lies. Again, I know that there are also many Russians who vehemently reject Putin’s lies …. I just don’t know if it’s a sizable majority, or a tiny but vocal minority. My guess is that anti-Putin citizens living in Russia are, unfortunately, a minority.

And this isn’t me dunking on Russian civilians. I live in America. We have similar divisions about countries that our government has invaded. So yeah, I’m in the U.S. and I am also dealing with the exact same flavor of willfully gullible miscreants, who believe anything Trump tells them, and I’ll have to wait until after our general election to see if they are a majority here.

A quick aside, but in the original post, I said I’d be watching to see how tankies addressed the OBVIOUSLY fake sham elections that Putin legitimately “won,” and it’s pretty much what I expected - tankies crawling out of the woodwork to announce that any evidence of coercive tactics was itself fake, or CIA propaganda (filmed in Russia! no less). But I gotta admit that I was lowkey surprised that the usual tankies on tumblr were uncharacteristically on mute. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Anyway, Idk where you are, anon, but if you’re in Ukraine or anywhere in the Baltic states or Eastern Europe, please be careful and stay safe. 🫡

#anon #ask #answered #politics #sham elections #russia #russian imperialism #russian colonialism #russian fascism ☭#tankies #russian invasion of ukraine #ukraine #russia is a terrorist state #vladimir putin is a war criminal #russian election

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longwindedbore · 15 days

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Two Russian nationals working for a news network controlled by Vladimir Putin's government funneled millions of dollars to an American media company that paid right-wing influencers for videos pushing narratives favorable to the Kremlin, U.S. prosecutors alleged on Wednesday [Sept 04, 2024]

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tomorrowusa · 14 days

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It's clear that America's autocratic enemies desperately want to elect Trump. It's the cheapest way for kleptocrats in Russia, North Korea, Iran, and North Korea to weaken the United States.

Foreign dictators manipulating US media is not new. But now we see Putin making direct monetary investments in platforms which promote stooges for the Kremlin.

The indictment unsealed in New York’s Southern District accused two employees of RT, the Kremlin’s media arm, of funneling nearly $10 million to an unidentified company, described only as “Company 1” in court documents. CNN has independently confirmed that “Company 1” is Tenet Media, which is a platform for independent content creators. It is self-described as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues,” according to its website, which matches language contained in the newly unsealed indictment. The alleged Russian operation tapped two people to set up the company in their names to add to its legitimacy and the two founders were aware Russian money backed the operation, according to the indictment. The goal of the operation, according to prosecutors, was to fuel pro-Russian narratives, in part, by pushing content and news articles favoring Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and others who the Kremlin deemed to be friendlier to its interests. Among the commentators listed on Tenet Media’s website are right-wing personalities Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin. All have released statements saying they were victims of the alleged Russian scheme and they maintained editorial control of the content they created. Each has a loyal fanbase online, with a combined roughly 6 million followers on YouTube alone. Pool interviewed Trump on his podcast in May.

Tenet Media was just one of Putin's tentacles in US media.

The DOJ’s revealing of the alleged Russian plot was part of a wider set of actions the Biden administration announced Wednesday it was taking to tackle a major Russian government-backed effort to influence the 2024 US presidential election including sanctions on 10 individuals and entities, and the seizure of 32 internet domains. At Russian President Vladimir Putin’s direction, three Russian companies used fake profiles to promote false narratives on social media, US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. Internal documents produced by one of those Russian companies show one of the goals of the propaganda effort was to boost the candidacy of Trump or whoever emerged as the Republican nominee for president, according to an FBI affidavit.

Putin tried to deflect the negative publicity by claiming he liked Kamala Harris's laugh. Of course his puppet Weird Donald doesn't have a laugh – just a malicious sneer.

Putin will continue to try to interfere in elections until it becomes too costly for him to do so.

RELATED: The Kremlin has Putin-friendly influencers sowing pro-Trump propaganda.

Unsealed FBI Doc Exposes Terrifying Depth of Russian Disinfo Scheme

Of particular note, the documents released Wednesday included an affidavit that noted a Russian company is keeping a list of more than 2,800 influencers world wide, about one-fifth of whom are based in the United States, to monitor and potentially groom to spread Russian propaganda. The affidavit does not mention the full list of influencers, but is still a terrifying indicator of how deep the Russian plot to interfere in U.S. politics really goes. The Doppelganger program and its “Good Old USA Project” aimed to mimic mainstream media outlets to push pro-Russian policies through fake social media accounts. Documents show that the Kremlin specifically targeted Trump supporters, minorities, gamers, and swing-state voters by spreading far-right conspiracies and capitalizing on existing divisions in U.S. politics. ”They are afraid of losing the American way of life and the ‘American dream,’” Ilya Gambashidze, an architect of the project, wrote, outlining his scheme. “It is these sentiments that should be exploited in the course of an information campaign in/for the United States.” To do so, the Russian government would emphasize that Republicans are “victims of discrimination of people of color” and promote conspiracies that white middle-class people are being discriminated against. The “guerrilla media” plan needed to not only plant falsehoods, but also spread them far and wide. They targeted gamers and chatroom users, who they described as the “backbone of the right-wing trends in the US segment of the Internet,” and monitored social media influencers.

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nicklloydnow · 1 year

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“Russia has successfully conducted tests on parts of its next-generation "Poseidon" nuclear-capable torpedo, according to reports.

Testing of reactors for the Poseidon unmanned nuclear-powered underwater drones shows "their operability and safety have been confirmed," Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported on June 23. The report was also shared on Russian-language social media channels.

"They are ready to work as intended," the Kremlin-backed outlet quoted an unnamed source "in the military-industrial complex." The first "sea tests" are scheduled for this summer.

The existence of the Poseidon "super-torpedo" was leaked to the international media in 2015 before it was formally announced in 2018. Moscow intends for the Poseidon, which can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads, to be a "second- or third-strike option that could ensure a retaliatory strike against U.S. cities," according to a Congressional Research Service (CRS) report from March 2022.

(…)

Also known as "Status-6" or "Kanyon," state media reported that the torpedo is 20 meters long and 1.8 meters in diameter, weighing in at around 100 tons. Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow for seapower and missile defense at the Royal United Services Institute think tank, told Euronews Next in May 2022 that the weapon could have a range of at least 10,000 kilometers, or 6,200 miles.

(…)

The Russian state news agency Tass reported in January 2019 that the Russian Navy would put around 32 Poseidon drones on combat duty across four submarines, with each vessel carrying eight Poseidon torpedoes. These submarines would be part of Russia's Northern and Pacific fleets, the outlet said.

Special-purpose submarines, carrying the Poseidon "super-torpedo," will join the Pacific Fleet in the far eastern Kamchatka peninsula between the end of next year and the start of 2025, according to Tass.”

“We believe Russia’s continued observance of New START Treaty limits is increasingly unlikely. Russian President Vladimir Putin could rely more on nuclear weapons to compensate for his declining conventional performance in Ukraine. Should Russia do so and, on the worst day, choose to preemptively strike the U.S. nuclear arsenal in a crisis, President Putin has a range of options to employ against America’s intercontinental ballistic missile force. For this and other reasons discussed below, we believe that the United States should keep its intercontinental ballistic force “on alert” and maintain its “launch under attack” option to both ensure the force’s survivability in a conflict and deter adversaries from seriously contemplating a first strike.

(…)

While not stated directly, the only way to demonstrate a commitment to end the launch under attack option and to prevent the president from executing this option is to de-alert the force. These actions would be dangerous and would undermine America’s response to the rapid nuclear breakout of China and Russian aggression.

Montoya and Kemp are correct in suggesting that it is difficult to successfully eliminate land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in a first strike because of the total number of weapons required for this task. The 400 missiles, across 450 silos, with 45 launch control centers, and the ability to launch from the Airborne Launch Control System, make the intercontinental ballistic missile leg of the nuclear triad a formidable challenge to a Russian first strike. These characteristics of the nation’s silo-based single-warhead missiles make them valuable; ensuring their destruction is a daunting task that enhances American deterrence.

(…)

Montoya and Kemp are correct in saying that “the United States currently maintains the option to launch under attack so that in the event of a first strike by Russia, U.S. silo-based missiles could be launched before they are destroyed.” An option does not constitute a posture or a doctrine.

The primary purpose of a launch under attack option is to enhance not missile survivability but deterrence. Deterrence is a psychological effect achieved in the mind of an adversary. The United States enhances deterrence by threatening cost imposition, reducing the benefits of action, and encouraging restraint. Launch under attack reduces the benefits of action by increasing uncertainty and perceived risk. President Putin does not know if he will strike empty silos.

(…)

With a ballistic missile force on alert, Russia must employ a shoot-shoot-look tactic because it must achieve complete destruction with a first strike or risk retaliation. This is necessary because the current launch under attack option forces Russian planners to employ a much higher percentage of the force in a first strike, hoping the United States does not launch its long-range missiles before Russian reentry vehicles strike their targets. This creates the uncertainty needed to deter a first strike.

It is also worth reiterating that a Russian first strike is highly unlikely prior to a breakout that gives the Russian military significantly more fielded warheads than the United States. In such a situation, launch under attack becomes even more important because a larger Russian arsenal means the percentage of their force needed to conduct a first strike decreases, and exchange ratios are meaningless.

(…)

Putin’s recent suspension of Russian participation in New START only underscores our view that any Russian strike on the United States will take place after a breakout that is unmatched by the United States. Given Russia’s track record for cheating on treaties (Convention on Biological and Toxic Weapons, Chemical Weapons Convention, Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and Open Skies), it is unwise to think they would abide by treaty requirements prior to a nuclear strike on the United States.

(…)

Thus, arguments that suggest an attack on the missile fields are somehow acceptable because the submarine and bomber legs of the triad will go untouched in a conflict are fundamentally flawed. We assess that any attack will begin with attempts to blind the United States by taking out space-based integrated tactical warning and attack assessment capabilities, all while cyber attacks and sabotage attempt to take out command and control. In our assessment, attacks on submarine and bomber bases are also likely to precede or coincide with attacks across the missile fields.

Military planners must consider the enemy’s most dangerous course of action, in which a Russian attack employs surprise and, consistent with Russia’s operational approach, uses overwhelming force in an initial attack. This leaves the United States insufficient time to deploy the submarine fleet or load and disperse bombers. Under these conditions, ported submarines and much of the bomber fleet are early casualties in a Russian first strike. With the development of a second nuclear-armed peer adversary, America must take the steps necessary to enhance survivability across the triad.

Conclusion

We do agree with Montoya and Kemp when they write, “Instead of holding fast to the idea of immediate launch, it is far sounder to build a nuclear capability that can survive a first strike and for which decision-makers are not pressed to make decisions with incomplete information.” To achieve this objective, it will take strategic decisions like building mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, increasing the number of hardened and deeply buried facilities, and placing strategic bombers on dispersed nuclear alert. Continuing on America’s current modernization trajectory will never achieve what both Montoya and Kemp and these authors desire.

It is important to maintain an on-alert missile force capable of launching under attack if the United States desires to deter Russia from contemplating a first strike on the nation’s missile fields. Removing the launch under attack option will not improve the credibility of American deterrence or reduce the risk of accidental detonation or war. It will only further undermine American credibility. With President Putin suspending Russian participation in the New START Treaty, a breakout from treaty restrictions cannot be ruled out. Such a decision would only make a launch under attack option even more important for maintaining deterrence.”

“These days, it is nuclear issues reawakened by the Ukrainian war, the widespread discussion of war with China provoked by the Taiwan dispute, the unsettled Iran question and the growing North Korean capability that are in the limelight. They are being treated as something novel under the sun. That is perplexing – and disturbing. Decades ago, very able minds conducted fine-grain examinations of the logic and psychology of nuclear strategy which produced analysis of remarkable sophistication. It acquired further authority by the experience of the past 70 years. Yet, today self-proclaimed experts and pundits take exceptional liberties that reflect neither focused thought nor history nor any awareness whatsoever that the matters they freely pronounce on have been addressed previously in a thorough-going fashion.

This situation has prompted me to attempt a summing up of what we have learned since 1945 and to apply it to present and prospective circumstances. It is intended to establish a conceptual framework for consideration of the two current deviations from orthodox nuclear wisdom that have gained currency: 1) the feasibility of employing low yield tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) to alter the balance in a conventional military conflict; 2) the possibility that the protagonists could engage in restricted nuclear exchanges without it escalating into a cataclysm. The commentary is unusually lengthy due to the inclusion of supplementary material. (…)

10. This above logic manifestly has been absorbed by everyone who has been in a position to order a nuclear strike. No civilian leader (and nearly all military commanders) with the authority to launch a nuclear attack ever believed that the result would be other than a massive exchange -mutual suicide for those with large arsenals. Certainly, that was true from the early 1960s onwards once the USSR had deployed reliable retaliatory nuclear weapons and the notion of ‘winning’ a nuclear exchange of any kind faded in the Pentagon and among its intellectual auxiliaries. This sobering reality did not encourage risk-taking at lower levels of conflict. Just the opposite.

(…)

2b. Two things deter: certainty (see ‘3’); and total uncertainty (see ‘1’ above). Certainty can take the form of tripwires: e.g. Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Europe deployed on the battlefield that almost surely would escalate into strategic, inter-continental exchanges. Certainty could take another form: “launch-on-warning.” That is to say, as soon as incoming missiles are detected – in whatever number, on whatever trajectory – ICBMs and SLBMs are activated and launched. That also obviates the risk that an incoming strike might ‘decapitate’ the targeted government’s leadership – leaving it paralyzed to respond. Knowledge that such arrangements are in place should be the ultimate deterrent to an intentional first-strike. However, in the event of an accidental launch or limited launch, you have committed both sides to suicide. The U.S. government never has stated that in has in place any such arrangement to provides a direct link between warning system and release of ICBMs – but there are recurrent assertions that in fact they have existed since Jimmy Carter’s day.

(…)

4d. In nuclear matters, it is dangerous to put together a team of intelligent strategic planners who have plenty of time and a mandate to think out of the box. They likely will generate intricate schemes which have a surface plausibility but in fact only a tenuous connection to reality. The performance of the RAND Corp in service to the Air Force confirms that fear. Here is an example of the extreme proposals that can emanate from this type of blue-sky thinking; One idea that got off the drawing board envisaged a reaction to signals that NORAD had picked up flights of Soviet missiles on a trajectory pointing to our own missile silos. It called for a synchronized startup of our 1,000 plus liquid-fueled ATLAS rocket engines which would produce such a tremendous reverberation as to stop the rotation of the earth for a micro-second. As a result, the Soviet missiles would miss their targets – winding up in Missouri cornfields, Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone Park instead. Physicists possessing a modicum of knowledge realized that it was a ridiculous expectation – and, if such a shock could be produced, the earth itself would split open. (See Ellsberg for a fuller account).

In short, the nuclear doctrine with attendant deployments that is most effective as deterrent is the worst to have in place were actual hostilities to break out.

Theoretically, there is a way to reconcile the two objectives: loudly announce that you have set in place launch-on-warning arrangements but refrain from doing so. Nobody is likely to call your bluff.

(…)

This reasoning highlights how reckless is both the idea that a conventional war between nuclear powers could be fought without escalating to the nuclear plane, and the belief that there is no escalatory ladder from battlefield TNWs and an all-out nuclear exchange.

7g. For a while, concocting nuclear scenarios – strategic (counterforce) and tactical focused on TNWs in Europe – was a sort of intellectual parlor game among defense intellectuals (including some military people). By the mid-70s, it ran its course as everyone came to accept the ‘Bomb’ even if they didn’t come to love it. The role of SLBMs in solidifying MAD was the capstone.

(…)

8h. Here is one general thought about extended deterrence as a ‘generic’ type. Throughout the Cold War years, the United States and its strategically dependent allies wrestled with the question of credibility. Years of mental tergiversations never resolved it. For one intrinsic reason: it is harder to convince an ally than it is to convince a potential enemy of your readiness to use the threat of retaliation to protect them. There are two aspects to this oddity. First, the enemy has to consider the psychology of only one other party; the ally has to consider the psychology of two other parties. Then, the enemy knows the full direct costs of underestimating our credibility and, in a nuclear setting, will always be ultra conservative in its calculations. By contrast, the ally that has not experienced the hard realities of both being a possible target of a nuclear attack and the possible originator of a nuclear attack cannot fully share in this psychology.

(…)

It is imperative that we restate and absorb the understanding acquired decades ago. For there is a new generation of writers on nuclear strategy that seems bent on either ignoring or rejecting it. One is the revival of “counterforce” doctrine. Simply put, “counterforce” is apposite to Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) in that it posits the possibility of fighting a winning a nuclear encounter. The postulated ability to destroy the retaliatory capability of the enemy through a first-strike that eliminates its missiles (land or sea-based), strategic bombers and nuclear tipped cruise missiles deployed on ships. Such a disarming blow, as the scenario goes, neutralizes the opponent’s deterrence – making the country hostage to your coercive demands. General speaking, it encourages risk-taking in crisis-management.

‘Counterforce’ concepts defined American nuclear war plans throughout the 1950s. Kennedy and McNamara forced modifications but the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) designed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff was amended only gradually. Right into the 1970s, the SIOP gave primacy to variations of ‘Counterforce’ doctrine – this despite the Soviet Union’s development of an assured second-strike retaliatory capability. They remain an integral part of the SIOP to this day.

“Counterforce” ideas always have encountered two analytical obstacles: one technical, the other psycho/political. In order to contemplate such a strategy,` one must have at its disposal missiles of extreme accuracy able to destroy hardened missile silos, means to detect and destroy nuclear armed submarines, and wide coastal coverage that ensures the targeting of surface vessels. This conjectured capability, moreover, must possess a degree of reliability and precision that makes success a near certainty. Otherwise, you open your country to destruction by the enemy’s surviving force – a small fraction of which are adequate to wreak intolerable damage on population centers. Any government that perceives even a slight vulnerability to a first-strike would, of course, reject the idea of playing a “counterforce game” and instead threaten massive retaliation.

New-age “counterforce” revivalists focus on technical advantages which might aid the aggressor. In particular, there is reference to improved missile accuracy aimed at hard targets.4 Reducing the CEP (Circular Error Probability) by a few tens of feet, though, is not the crucial variable. That number already has been extremely low (50 – 100 feet) for decades. Emphasis is also placed on improved tracking technique for detecting submarines. What lacks is assurance that the net effect is to reduce the odds on retaliation by SLBM to near zero. Unless one can do that, unilateral deterrence sets in.

That leads us to the second precondition: the ability to intimidate a nuclear armed opponent by a) demonstrating a first-strike capability or b) launching a comprehensive first-strike and daring the enemy to retaliate with the remnant of its own nuclear force and face destruction itself. The counter to the first, as noted above, is to threaten retaliation against high-value targets (cities) and perhaps to deploy and advertise “launch on warning” or trip-wire mechanisms. The counter to the second is a matter of will and emotion. Nobody considering a first-strike can know with confidence what the enemy’s state of mind and emotion would be in the hypothetical circumstances. When the stake is your continued existence as an organized society, no reasonably sane person(s) will tempt fate in the hope of guessing right.

(…)

All doctrines and strategies for nuclear war-fighting – whether of the ‘counterforce’ variety or TNW variety – are largely fanciful. Not only is their logic flawed, as demonstrated above, but they predicate a cool-headed rationality of individuals and institutions which is unrealistic. Human beings are not calculating machines, no matter how high their office or how grave the matters they treat. They are susceptible to emotions and impulses that can distort or even override pure rationality. When you place them in settings where multiple other human beings are involved under intense pressure, the possibility of deviating off the track of impeccable logic increases.

In truth, we have no grounds for assuming that government leaders, at multiple levels making decisions and charged with operationalizing them, will collectivity behave as postulated by nuclear war-fighting scenarios. Herman Kahn, the early Henry Kissinger, Thomas Schelling at times, and today’s self-conscious revisionists have fantasized about a world that doesn’t exist.* These days, when the head of the biggest nuclear power is Donald Trump, the purveyors of doctrines that feature intricate nuclear games are as deluded as the President himself.

(…)

Nuclear strategy is a bit like Marxism or Freudian analysis or market fundamentalist economics. A lot of superior minds deploy their talents to concoct ingenious elaborations of received Truth that demonstrate brilliant logic – but their conclusions are completely divorced from reality.”

#nuclear weapons #nuclear war #russia ukraine war #wwiii #russia #posideon #henry kissinger #herman khan

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ukrainenews · 2 years

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Daily(ish) Wrap Up September 24-25, 2022

Under the cut:

More than 730 people were detained across Russia at protests against a mobilisation order, a rights group said, three days after their president, Vladimir Putin, ordered the country’s first military draft since the second world war

Ukrainian forces have repelled Russian attacks in various location east of Kramatorsk, a city near the eastern edge of Ukrainian-controlled territory, the country’s military said Sunday

About 18,550 citizens in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic took part in a referendum organized by Russia-backed authorities on the first day of voting, a separatist leader told Russian state media RIA Novosti

According to independent Russian media outlet Meduza, the ban will come into effect after the end of sham referenda in the four occupied regions of Ukraine. The news outlet cited two sources in the Kremlin saying that the most likely date the borders will be shut is Sept. 28

Ukrainian officials completed the exhumation of 436 bodies from a mass burial site in Izium on Friday, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration

(I was super tired yesterday after a really busy special event at work, so you get a double update today.)

“More than 2,000 people in total have been detained across Russia for protesting against President Vladimir Putin’s partial military mobilisation, including 798 people detained in 33 towns on Saturday, according to independent monitoring group OVD-Info.

Reuters reports that frustrations even spread to pro-Kremlin media, with one editor at the state-run RT news channel saying problems such as call-up papers being sent to the wrong men were “infuriating people”.

When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was asked on Saturday why so many Russians were leaving the country, he pointed to the right of freedom of movement.”-via The Guardian

“Ukrainian forces have repelled Russian attacks in various location east of Kramatorsk, a city near the eastern edge of Ukrainian-controlled territory, the country’s military said Sunday.

“The Defense Forces repelled the attacks in the areas of the settlements of Soledar, Vyimka, Kurdyumivka, Zaitseve,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement.

The Ukrainian military also announced that its artillery hit ten Russian weapon and military hardware targets in the eastern part of the Zaporizhzhia region.

“As a result of the fire impact on enemy facilities in the temporarily captured territory of Zaporizhzhia region, about 10 units of enemy weapons and military hardware were destroyed in the area of the settlement of Huliaipole, as well as one S-300 air defense system with ammunition storage near the city of Tokmak,” Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces said.”-via CNN

“About 18,550 citizens in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic took part in a referendum organized by Russia-backed authorities on the first day of voting, a separatist leader told Russian state media RIA Novosti.

The referendums, taking place in four parts of Ukraine under Russian control, have been widely denounced by Western governments as a sham. The European Union has said it won’t recognize the results and has indicated it is preparing a new package of sanctions against Russia.

“Yesterday over 550 citizens of the DPR voted on the territory of the DPR embassy, and almost 18,000 citizens of the DPR voted on the territory of the entire Russian Federation,” Olga Makeeva, head of the office of the separatist DPR in Moscow, said Saturday, according to RIA. State media said the so-called Central Election Commission of the DPR claimed turnout at the end of the first day of voting in the referendum was 23.64%.

Another Russian official claimed that overall turnout on the first day of voting exceeded 15% in the four regions: the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, RIA reported.”-via CNN

“According to independent Russian media outlet Meduza, the ban will come into effect after the end of sham referenda in the four occupied regions of Ukraine. The news outlet cited two sources in the Kremlin saying that the most likely date the borders will be shut is Sept. 28.

On Sept. 21, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the army planned to mobilize 300,000 conscripts for the war against Ukraine following Russian President Vladimir Putin's announcement of "partial mobilization" in Russia. Later, Meduza citing undisclosed sources, reported that Russia plans to mobilize 1.2 million conscripts for war against Ukraine.

Russian proxies in the occupied parts of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts have announced that between Sept. 23 and 27, they will rush sham "referendums" on these areas joining Russia. This is a violation of international law.

On Sept. 22, Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad called Putin's address to the nation "pitiful" and said that mobilization "will end up in the overthrow of Putin as president of the Russian Federation."”-via Kyiv Independent

“Ukrainian officials completed the exhumation of 436 bodies from a mass burial site in Izium on Friday, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv region military administration.

Most of the bodies have signs of violent death, and 30 have traces of torture, Syniehubov said in a Telegram post.

"There are bodies with a rope around the neck, with hands tied, with broken limbs and with gunshot wounds. Several men had their genitals amputated. All this is evidence of the terrible torture to which the occupiers subjected the residents of Izium. Most of the bodies are civilians, 21 are military," he said. Syniehubov vowed to find out the circumstances of each of their deaths "so that their relatives and friends know the truth and the killers are punished."

He thanked 200 individuals — forensic experts, police officers and employees of the State Emergency Service, who he said had been working there every day for their "morally difficult but necessary work."

Syniehubov also said there are at least three more mass burial sites in other liberated areas of the Kharkiv region.

"All crimes of the occupiers will be documented, and the perpetrators will pay for what they have done," Syniehubov said.”-via CNN

#Daily Update #Ukraine #Russia #War in Ukraine #izium #luhansk #donetsk #kherson #Zaporizhzhia #kramatorsk

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novumtimes · 2 days

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Microsoft says Russian troll farms are targeting the Harris-Walz campaign

Kremlin-affiliated Russian troll farms are running disinformation campaigns that aim to interfere with this year’s US presidential elections, and according to Microsoft, they’re focusing their efforts on discrediting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. The company has published a new report detailing the movements of two troll farms being monitored by the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center. These Kremlin-backed actors apparently struggled to find the right approach shortly after President Biden stepped down as a candidate, but in late August and early September, one of them started circulating inauthentic videos that managed to generate millions of views. One video depicted a supposed attack by Harris supporters on Trump rally attendees. Another video used an actor to accuse Harris of being involved in a 2011 hit-and-run incident that paralyzed a 13-year-old girl. The second video, which went viral, was released by a days-old website pretending to be a San Francisco based media outlet. Meanwhile, the second troll farm stopped producing content about the 2024 Paris Olympics games and started creating videos showing Harris in a bad light. One fake video showed a New York City billboard claiming that Harris wants to change children’s gender. It was initially published on Telegram, before being shared on X and getting more than 100,000 views within just a few hours. Microsoft warned that people should expect more Russian-made disinformation materials, including more staged and AI-edited videos, to circulate online as we get closer to the election. Earlier this month, the US government indicted two employees of Russian state media outlet RT, accusing them of planning to pay a Tennessee company $10 million to spread 2,000 propaganda videos on social media. The Treasury Department also sanctioned ANO Dialog, a Russian nonprofit that was allegedly involved with a campaign known as “Doppelganger,” to create fake websites that would appear to American readers as legitimate major news sites. Microsoft said in its new report that it suspended more than 20 accounts connected to ANO Dialog. Meta also recently banned RT and other Russian state media outlets “for foreign interference activity.” According to its notes, which the company shared with Engadget, it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to interfere with foreign governments and to evade detection in the past. It said that it expects them to keep trying to “engage in deceptive influence attempts across the internet.” It’s not just Russia that’s trying to influence the outcome of this year’s US presidential elections, though. Microsoft, Google and even the feds published reports back in August that Iranian hackers had been trying to spear-phish several advisers of the Biden-Harris and Trump campaigns. Microsoft also found campaigns made to sway votes in the US by groups connected with the Iranian government. One such group created a website that attacks and insults former President Donald Trump. This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Source link via The Novum Times

#The Novum Times

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justiceheartwatcher · 15 days

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Hypocrisy Alert: Biden Regime Accuses Russia of 2024 Election Interference Using Kremlin-Run Media While US Fake News Media Pushes Misinformation to Sway Voters

Fool Me Once… For years, the American people have been bombarded with wild accusations of Russian meddling, from claims that Moscow was behind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss. Now, the Biden regime is reviving the same tired accusations without offering any new evidence, all in an effort to shift attention away from its failings. While the Justice Department gears up to go after RT, the American people are wondering when this administration will get serious about real threats—like rampant election fraud committed by Democrats, skyrocketing crime, economy teetering on the edge of collapse, and election interference committed by Democrats as they tried to imprison Trump and remove RFK Jr. on the ballot. As always, the real disinformation is coming from within. The mainstream media—complicit as ever—is eager to parrot the regime’s talking points. Biden-friendly outlets like CNN are quick to push this Russia narrative, all while glossing over the regime’s utter failure to handle domestic crises. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris and her VP Minnesota Governor Tim Walz can barely muster a coherent defense of their policy failures, relying on the media to do damage control. It’s time for Americans to wake up and see this for what it is: a blatant attempt by the Biden regime to deflect attention from their ongoing incompetence an

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progressive-globe · 3 months

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MintPress News:

When it comes to attacking alternative media, Weiss, in particular, has a notable past. In late 2016, an anonymous organization called PropOrNot published a list of some 200 websites that it classified as routine peddlers of Russian disinformation. Many leading alternative media outlets were on that list, including MintPress News, WikiLeaks, Truthout, Truthdig, Naked Capitalism and Antiwar.com. The charges were false, but the effect was staggering. The PropOrNot list went viral, boosted by mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, which insinuated that a massive, Kremlin-controlled propaganda network was responsible for Donald Trump’s electoral victory. Google, Facebook and other prominent social media platforms subsequently changed their algorithms to punish the outlets on the list and promote “authoritative” content like the Washington Post or Fox News. MintPress News lost more than 90% of its Google search traffic almost overnight, never to return. It was later revealed that PropOrNot was likely Weiss’ brainchild, meaning that the hysteria over foreign government interference in our media was probably a domestic government-funded operation.

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mariacallous · 4 months

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Russian state-controlled media apparatus closely followed legal troubles of the former U.S. President Donald J. Trump, spicing up most of their coverage with pro-Trump clips from Fox News and Tucker Carlson. Russian propagandists were openly hoping for a hung jury and were visibly disappointed when Trump became a convicted felon on all 34 charges he was facing.

On Friday morning, Dmitry Kulikov, host of Solovyov Live, the self-described “most patriotic channel” in Russia, said on-air, “They wronged our Donald Trump!” Malek Dudakov, a political scientist who specializes in America, said that the hope for a miracle—meaning a hung jury—was extinguished. He said, with Russia’s affectionate middle name usage, “The miracle did not happen. Our Donald Fredovych was found guilty on all 34 counts.” For that, Dudakov blamed the judge and the jury and baselessly claimed that all of them were prejudiced against Trump. “Now, he is a felon,” he surmised, while also noting that the former president’s incarceration as a result of this conviction is unlikely.

Dudakov expressed hope that despite his legal troubles, Trump would still win in the upcoming presidential election. Kulikov and Dudakov jointly echoed Tucker Carlson’s assertions that their preferred candidate will prevail, “unless desperately panicked Democrats will organize an assassination of Donald Fredovych.” They expressed hope that Biden—not Trump—would die before the elections.

Similar reaction reverberated across Russian media outlets. Appearing on a state TV show 60 Minutes Friday morning, State Duma member Aleksei Zhuravlyov opted to discuss Trump’s conviction before addressing other bad news Russia is facing, with Western governments broadly signing off on Ukraine’s right to defend itself by striking Russia on its own turf. Zhuravlyov said he would address this “escalation” later and started with his rant against America for turning Trump into a felon.

Mischaracterizing the prosecution by describing it as “a lawsuit brought by Stormy Daniels,” host Olga Skabeeva chimed in and described Trump as “a former and potentially future U.S. president.” She surmised that the situation is too ridiculous for words and keeps escalating on every front. Skabeeva complained that earlier predictions of a hung jury did not come true, bitterly adding in perfect English, “Shit happens.”

Zhuravlyov angrily asserted, “There are idiots in every country, but this is the only instance where idiots have their own country. This is something new in history.” The state lawmaker complained that in supporting Ukraine’s right to defend itself by striking Russia’s territory, Americans are not even afraid of the retaliatory nuclear strikes by Russia. Skabeeva scornfully added, “Our universally beloved Donald Trump thinks they can sit it out across the pond.”

Even Trump’s alleged suggestion that he would have bombed Moscow in response to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and attack Beijing if China invaded Taiwan on his watch was not enough to dampen the support for the former U.S. president by his Russian cheerleaders. Describing Trump as Russia’s “useful idiot,” state TV propagandists repeatedly insisted that he remains Moscow’s preferred candidate.

Appearing on 60 Minutes, State Duma member Oleg Matveychev said that unless Trump’s conviction leads to civil war, America should be officially considered “a fascist country.” The same hope was expressed one night earlier by state TV host Vladimir Solovyov, who urged Republicans and Democrats to take up arms and violently confront each other. Solovyov also volunteered to host the upcoming debate between Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden.

During Thursday’s broadcast of 60 Minutes, Dmitry Abzalov, Director of the Center for Strategic Communications, explained that Trump’s potential re-election would benefit Russia and assured the viewers that the former American president didn’t mean it when he said he would bomb Moscow. Abzalov predicted that if Trump returns to the Oval Office, he would treat China—not Russia—as America’s main enemy. Skabeeva surmised, “The Chinese are hoping that Americans will fight the Russians and want Biden to remain in power. We are secretly hoping that Americans will start to fight China and want Trump to come to power, because he is more predisposed to confront Beijing.”

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speedyposts · 8 months

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People detained at Russia protest calling for troops to return from Ukraine

About two dozen people, mostly journalists, were briefly detained at a protest in central Moscow, as wives and other relatives of Russian servicemen mobilised to fight in Ukraine called for their return, according to media reports.

The soldiers’ relatives gathered on Saturday to lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, just outside the Kremlin walls. They marked 500 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2022 ordered a “partial mobilisation” of up to 300,000 reservists in Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

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The call-up was widely unpopular and wives and relatives of some of the reservists have campaigned for them to be discharged and replaced with contract soldiers.

Saturday’s demonstration was organised by one such campaign group, The Way Home, that on Friday posted on Telegram calling on “wives, mothers, sisters and children” of reservists from across Russia to come to Moscow to “demonstrate [their] unity”.

“We want our husbands back alive,” one of the protesters, who only gave her name as Antonina for fear of reprisals, is heard saying in a video published by independent Russian news outlet SOTAvision.

Antonina insisted she does not want compensation from the Russian government if her husband is killed, and said she would instead “either go to a convent or follow him”.

Saturday’s demonstration was the ninth and largest of similar weekly gatherings organised by The Way Home. One popular Russian Telegram news channel estimated that some 200 people turned out.

The Reuters news agency reported that about 20 people were detained and then released at the protest, including a Reuters journalist who was covering the story and an AFP video journalist.

According to OVD-Info, an independent website that monitors political arrests in Russia, police detained 27 people during the protest, mostly journalists.

Police had detained the group of Russian and foreign reporters – all men – outside Red Square and took them to a police station.

According to SOTA, most were later released, although a male protester was still in detention on Saturday evening.

Additionally, a number of people were also detained at other locations in central Moscow, also protesting against the mobilisation, OVD-Info said.

Allies of jailed Kremlin foe Alexey Navalny and Russian opposition politician Maksim Kats voiced support for the protest on Friday, while the Moscow prosecutor’s office early on Saturday warned Russians not to participate in “unauthorised mass events”.

Calls from wives and relatives to bring mobilised Russian reservists home have been ignored by the state-controlled media, and some pro-Kremlin politicians have sought to cast them as Western stooges. Protesters on Saturday angrily rejected the accusation.

Maria Andreyeva, whose husband and brother are fighting in Ukraine, told SOTAvision that she saw the fighting in Ukraine as “a great tragedy that happened between two brotherly peoples”.

“Almost every Russian has relatives in Ukraine, close and distant, so … this is a situation that has struck us to the core. After the second world war, it seemed to us that our grandfathers died so that there would never be another [conflict],” Andreyeva said.

Saturday’s protest came weeks before the Russian presidential election, scheduled to take place in March, that Putin is all but assured to win.

After Andreyeva and others laid flowers at the monument, they headed to Putin’s campaign headquarters to present their demands to him.

Last month, another Russian presidential hopeful met with Andreyeva and other soldiers’ relatives campaigning for their return. Former local legislator Boris Nadezhdin, who openly opposes the war in Ukraine, criticised the Kremlin’s decision to keep them in the ranks as long as the fighting continues.

“We want [the authorities] to treat people who are doing their duty in a decent way,” Nadezhdin said.

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recentlyheardcom · 1 year

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The United States and NATO breathed a sigh of relief this week when the Serbian government said it would be pulling back troops after ordering a swift military buildup along its border with Kosovo. The National Security Council had referred to the buildup as “a very destabilizing development”—and news of the apparent de-escalation was “welcome,” the U.S. State Department said.But according to officials and experts in Kosovo who spoke with The Daily Beast, only a symptom of the problem is gone. Beneath the surface, Serbian-Kosovar tensions threaten to bubble over still, with Russia stoking them behind the scenes through a vast and entrenched influence operation in Serbia.Russian propaganda runs rampant in Serbia, spreading falsehoods and pro-Kremlin lines on territorial ambition, violence, the war in Ukraine, and NATO and the West. The sweeping Russian disinformation and propaganda operation is aimed at stoking violence and is partly aimed at propping up Serbia’s efforts to control Kosovo, Kosovo’s ambassador to the United States, Ilir Dugolli, told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview.“We’ve seen different attempts from Russia… and echoed of course in Serbia, about instigating violence, about portraying this… dire situation of Serbs in the northern parts of Kosovo in particular and also in other areas… to incite violent attacks and overall instability,” Dugolli told The Daily Beast.Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, after separatist ethnic Albanians fought against Serbian rule in the late 1990s, prompting a crackdown from Belgrade. A NATO bombing campaign in 1999 eventually forced Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo.Putin’s Favorite Authoritarians in Hungary, Serbia, and France Had a Great Week But Serbia and Russia, along with a handful of countries, have not recognized Kosovo’s independence. Serbia’s current president has vowed to never recognize Kosovo’s independence, and Russia has long harbored concerns about Kosovo, noting for years that it will categorically deny Kosovo’s independence.In recent days, those long-standing tensions have spiraled into violence.The alarming buildup at Serbia’s border with Kosovo came in quick succession after Serb gunmen stormed a village in northern Kosovo in armed vehicles, leading to a shootout, with one police officer and several gunmen killed late last month. Kosovo accused Serbia of being behind the attack, claiming Serbia sought to destabilize Kosovo.Serbia boasts some ties with the West—it was identified as a candidate for the European Union in 2012. But Russia’s strong influence, combined with its control over the media and the information environment in Serbia, helps to spread narratives that further entrench pro-Russia and anti-Western sentiments that keep Belgrade in Russia’s orbit.Many news outlets in Serbia are owned by oligarchs with links to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, who maintains close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In 2015, Russia established a hub for Russian state news agency Sputnik. Currently, Russia is in the process of deepening its channels for disinformation in Serbia: Russia’s state-funded RT said last year it would establish a local language version in Serbia, to be headed by the daughter of the editor of Sputnik.Oozing DisinformationThe Russian narratives that have swept Serbia in recent years include anti-West and anti-NATO narratives that seek to solidify Serbian public opinion that Kosovo is not independent.In Serbia, the focus is on reminding Serbs about NATO’s bombing campaign, and blaming the West for essentially pulling Kosovo away from Serbia, said Ruslan Stefanov, co-director and co-author of the Kremlin Playbook, a joint project of the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.“In the case of Serbia, the No. 1 narrative of course is, ‘Don’t forget NATO… it helped Kosovo secede. It is a part of your country,’” Stefanov told The Daily Beast. “‘This is part of NATO’s expanded campaign.

’”In recent months, some of the most popular narratives on Russian and Serbian media in the country involve Kosovo, Goran Georgiev, an analyst with CSD, said.“The topic of Kosovo is the main topic for Sputnik and RT and also for local media, the majority of which are pro-Russian,” Georgiev told The Daily Beast.Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty ImagesAccording to data from Similarweb CSD shared with The Daily Beast, the most popular sites by traffic in Serbia are Kurir.rs—boasting 60.7 million visits in August—followed by Blic.rs, Novosti.rs, sd.rs, and RTS.rs, many of which spread pro-Russia lines. On Facebook, Sputnik and RT have garnered the most interactions in the last 30 days, according to data from CrowdTangle.The Serbian media space is filled with mischaracterization of facts and propaganda, with Alo and Kurir.rs accounting for over half of the news spreading disinformation, according to a watchdog report from CRTA, the Center for Research, Transparency and Accountability. Večernje novosti and Informer, two dailies, are the next most egregious offenders, according to the analysis.Sputnik in Serbia’s homepage has been brazen about Kosovo in recent days. One headline lamented that “The West’s action has never been more morbid: They do not know that the day of mourning for the Serbs lasts until freedom comes to Kosovo,” echoing a longstanding belief in Serbia that Kosovo is under a kind of “occupation.”The piece claims the deadly attack in Kosovo represents a hatred in Kosovo towards Serbs’ lives. “Evil reigns in Kosovo,” the piece states.In another piece, Sputnik trumped up comments from the president of the National Assembly of Serbia, Vladimir Orlić, blaming Kosovo for the soaring tensions. He “pointed out that the situation is extremely difficult” with Kosovo right now, the story noted, adding “it is solely the fault of Aljbin Kurti,” the prime minister of Kosovo.The homepage of Kurir.rs has also paid homage to Serbia’s territorial ambition in Kosovo this week. On Wednesday, one piece focused on denying Kosovo’s independence, while noting optimism about Serbia’s effort to work with the likes of Russia and China on Kosovo and “defending” Serbia’s territory.More broadly, narratives about territorial ambition in Serbia have closely followed Russian perspectives on violence and war. In the case of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Russian media and Serbian media have focused on spreading fake information about the war in Ukraine. Headlines such as “Ukraine started a war against Russia,” or “Ukrainian troops shelled the maternity hospital” cropped up in Serbia shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, according to Vox Ukraine and the Centre for International Crisis and Conflict Studies (CECRI).The Most Sincere Form of FlatteryThe military buildup and violent incidents in recent days have raised questions about whether further escalation in the Balkans is on the horizon, and who is to blame.Concern has grown in Kosovo that Russian influence has played a part. Serbia is likely taking inspiration from Russia’s effort to seize Ukraine following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Kosovo’s ambassador to the United States said.“With the war in Ukraine” there was “the realization of their aspirations against my country… would kind of be easier,” Dugolli told The Daily Beast.Serbia “mimics Russia, and tries to mimic Russia in their hegemonic aspirations by threatening the existence of neighboring countries,” Dugolli added. “They have this sort of hegemonic mindset.”Belgrade has long been conducting military buildups at its border with Kosovo. Last year, Serbia sent troops to the border. In 2021, too, Serbia sent warplanes.Russia’s ambassador cheered on the escalation, Kosovo claimed at the UN. Russia’s ambassador had visited a Serbian garrison at the time while it was in a state of increased combat readiness.From Kosovo’s perspective, the longstanding aim is to create an environment where escalation is so commonplace that when an eventual territorial grab in Kosovo comes, it will look like the status quo.

“What they’ve been doing for years now is… they’ve raised the army to the highest levels several times, they’ve amassed their army at the border,” Ambassador Dugolli said. “This is one part of their plan to try to normalize threat of force, to escalate.”In parallel efforts, disinformation on the topic has festered in Serbia. In 2020, Twitter took down a network of thousands of trolls that promoted Serbia’s ruling party and applauded its policies on Kosovo.One of the troll army’s tweets with the most engagement noted that: “Kosovo is not a state but is part of Serbia and no compromise can be found,” according to a Stanford analysis of Twitter’s release. (Twitter and X have deleted the post about the network.)Russian outlets in Serbia through the years have promoted stories about Kosovo being at the heart of Serbian history to promote the push to take it back. And on the flip side, media outlets close to the Serbian government have run disinformation campaigns on Kosovo in attempts to make it look like Kosovo’s westward lean was in jeopardy.While the status of Serbia-Kosovo tensions is grave now, Dugolli said he fears the worst is yet to come.Not Now, Europe. Second War Threatens to ExplodeThey are “really looking for that good moment, where they would try to destabilize entirely, try to have territorial gains,” Dugolli added. “They want to have an incursion.”For Putin, a Serbian-Kosovar conflict may serve as a gift as his war flags in Ukraine. A flashpoint between Serbia and Kosovo could distract NATO, which maintains a peacekeeping force in Kosovo.Ensnaring the region could also serve a larger Russian goal of keeping Serbia and Kosovo at loggerheads to help Russia project power and control in the region.“Looking at the Kremlin playbook… I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually caused by some desperation or sort of somebody somewhere along the line of chain of command saying, ‘Hey how about we cheer up our dear leader at some point and do something?’” Stefanov said.Dugolli said the faltering war was likely a trigger for Serbia to take action.“The fact that the war hasn’t gone as Russia was hoping and the leadership in Serbia were hoping as well, maybe that created an initiative… they’re trying to reposition themselves,” Dugolli said. “Russia would benefit from opening up another front.”Erkin Keci/Anadolu Agency via Getty.Russia’s interest in stirring tension between Serbia and Kosovo is rooted in broader territorial ambition as well, according to Kosovo’s president, Vjosa Osmani.Osmani called the recent flashpoint a “Crimea-style annexation” attempt in an interview on CNN, in a reference to the Ukrainian peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014.The president added she harbors concerns that Putin is pulling strings behind the scenes. The incident shows Serbia is working “to allow Putin to open a new front in the West, in the western Balkans,” Osmani said.Puppet MasterRussia has had fertile ground in Serbia to spread the Kremlin line for years—but Belgrade has taken on a particularly unshakeable role in channeling Russian influence in recent months.Just in the last year, the European Union banned Russian-controlled media operating in their countries since Russia invaded Ukraine. But Belgrade has not shut off the spout of Russian propaganda, allowing Serbia to serve as a key foothold for Russian influence in the region.“Serbia has allowed the free rein of Russian propaganda,” Stefanov said, leading to a cycle of amplification among politicians, the public, and Serbian media outlets citing Russian outlets. “These same lines are parroted by major political parties… which of course amplifies that.”The Serbian media landscape’s reach is not just local. While a majority of the traffic to Kurir.rs in August came from Serbia, for instance, over 20 percent of traffic also came from Bosnia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Croatia, CSD’s Georgiev noted.“The Serbian language is a gateway to informational influence in former Yugoslavia for Serbian political actors, as well as the Kremlin,” Georgiev said.

Heavy lifting for Russian influence operations in Serbia is not always necessary.At times, the line between where Russian disinformation and Serbian disinformation end and where organic sentiment begins can be difficult to discern. In Serbia, the disinformation space is characterized by people looking for information that reinforces their deeply ingrained beliefs about the West and Kosovo they have held for years.On Ukraine, only 12 percent of Serbs polled said that they believed it was necessary for Russia to withdraw in order to achieve peace, echoing a classic stance from Moscow, according to a poll conducted by Datapraxis and YouGov in coordination with the Open Society Foundations last year. As many as 63 percent of Serbs polled held the West responsible for the war in Ukraine, not Russia.The Serb public buys into opposition to Kosovo’s independence as well: 52 percent of Serbs believe Serbia should not recognize Kosovo.“There is a lot of authentic, natural behavior mixed in,” Georgiev said.Through the years, Russia has made a point in Serbia to execute a classic influence operation that works to juice existing sentiments and tension.“In the case of Serbia, when you have a population that has been so heavily exposed and really bombarded with ultra-nationalistic narratives, authoritarian narratives, highly emotional narratives from the bombing to today, society adopts that whole mentality,” Georgiev said. “This information breathes for itself.”Read more at The Daily Beast.Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your inbox. Sign up now.Stay informed and gain unlimited access to the Daily Beast's unmatched reporting. Subscribe now.

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