Crisis in Ukraine: place for uninhibited low-cost disinformation from Moscow

Published on : 02/22/2022 – 18:36

There is no shortage of examples on the Internet: a photo of an alleged Ukrainian armored vehicle on Russian territory, a video of Ukrainian troops infiltrating Russia for an “invasion” or yet another video supposed to demonstrate that Ukrainian “saboteurs” or Poles would seek to blow up Russian tanks.

These documents, presented as so many “proofs” of the belligerent attitude of the Ukrainians, circulate in pro-Russian groups on the Telegram messaging service and have been relayed by the official media in the past forty-eight hours. They are supposed to justify the decision taken on Monday, February 21, by Russian President Vladimir Putin to recognize the independence of the two pro-Russian separatist republics in the Donbass region, in eastern Ukraine. The strongman of the Kremlin would have only come to the aid of the Russian-speaking populations, threatened, according to him, of “genocide”.

“Lazy” edits

But these videos and images have not escaped the “fact-checkers”, on the lookout for any Russian disinformation on the Internet. The video of soldiers “speaking Polish” and trying to sabotage Russian tanks has been dissected down to the smallest bit of sound to reveal a whole fabrication, says Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat, an investigative site on Russia specializing in the exploitation of open access sources. Some of the footage was filmed in early February, while the editors added footage and sound from a video shot at the occasion of a Finnish military exercise in 2010.

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A first proof that falls in the water. But the same applies to the photo of the alleged Ukrainian armored vehicle supposed to advance into Russian territory. This is a Soviet-era troop transport truck “not belonging to the Ukrainian arsenal”, highlights the Oryx Twitter accountspecializing in military equipment issues.

More sensitive still, the assertion, with video support, by the FSB – one of the main Russian intelligence services – that a shell fired from Ukrainian territory destroyed a Russian outpost on the border on Monday left the experts of the Conflict Intelligence Team, a group of specialists in Russian military matters, are dubious. “The nearest Ukrainian garrison is located more than 37 km from the impact zone. To reach this target, it would have been necessary to use a weapon which does much more damage than what we see on the video. “, rate these experts on Twitter.

“This is yet another example of shoddy editing done to provide a pretext to launch a military operation against Ukraine,” concludes the Conflict Intelligence Team. This group is not the only one to point out the amateurishness of the video montages and disinformation efforts deployed in recent days by pro-Russian propaganda. “It’s very, very, very lazy [comme travail]”, note Aric Tolera Bellingcat journalist closely following these examples of “made in Kremlin” disinformation.

Enough to convince the Russians?

The lack of sophistication can indeed surprise. Russia is said to be a master of online propaganda since the exploits of its agents during the 2016 US presidential campaign. Moscow had, moreover, “already used the same techniques in 2014 to justify the annexation of Crimea”, recalls Stefan Meister, specialist in Russian security and disinformation issues at the German Council on International Relations, contacted by France 24.

For him, “it is impossible to imagine today’s Russia waging a conflict without a dimension of cyberpropaganda”. How then can the well-oiled Russian machine give birth to such “low-cost” disinformation?

“Simply because, for the moment, the Russian authorities do not need to do better”, summarizes Stefan Meister. The Kremlin wants and must above all convince its own population. “A military operation in Donbass, Ukraine, is much less popular with Russians than the annexation of Crimea in 2014 was,” said Valentina Shapovalova, a Russian media and propaganda specialist at the university. from Copenhagen, contacted by France 24.

The authorities have thus developed a whole rhetoric and have resorted to images “which are similar to all the disinformation that has been sold for eight years to the Russian-speaking population about Ukraine”, notes Yevgeniy Golovchenko, specialist in Russian disinformation at the University of Copenhagen, contacted by France 24. It is no coincidence, for example, that Vladimir Putin used the term “genocide” to refer to the situation in the Donbass. “This is what he had already done in 2014 before launching the invasion of Crimea”, recalls Stefan Meister.

So no need to reinvent the wheel and tweak the details of misinformation. It can remain simple and work “because it is aimed primarily at an already receptive public”, concludes Yevgeniy Golovchenko.

“Fog of Misinformation”

Moreover, it is not so much the quality as the quantity of misinformation that counts. “The goal is to create so many different, and sometimes even contradictory, versions of what is happening at the border that no one can really tell right from wrong anymore,” said Valentina Shapovalova. It’s what she calls a “misinformation fog.” The Kremlin hopes that the Russian-speaking populations, from Moscow to the Donbass, no longer knowing which reality to turn to, will cling to what is familiar to them: the voice of the Kremlin.

Disinformation, even coarse, can also have its raison d’être at the international level. “Moscow knows very well that the Western public will, in any case, find anything that comes from Russia not very credible. What interests the Kremlin is above all that American or European analysts and decision-makers waste time tracking down this disinformation. and talk about it,” says Stefan Meister. The purpose of this heavy-hitting propaganda may be to divert attention, to create informational background noise intended to distract the adversary.

Finally, another possible explanation is that Moscow is purposely playing Washington’s game. “The United States has warned more than once that Russia will create incidents from scratch before any invasion or military operation in Ukraine,” recalls Yevgeniy Golovchenko. All the Russian propagandists then need to do is create crude montages for everyone to cry wolf and a “false flag” operation to justify the war. What, in short, put pressure on Ukraine and NATO without even having to move the slightest tank.