How it can affect your life and the situation in your country
Deadlines
Russian propaganda is the information policy of the Kremlin, which is formed by the top leadership of the aggressor state in order to influence domestic and foreign audiences. The purpose of propaganda within Russia is to intimidate its own population and at the same time to convince that all the actions of state leaders are aimed at the benefit of their people. Example: "You should go kill Ukrainians, because Russia cannot allow the spread of a new form of Nazism and the dangerous influence of the West on our culture."
Russian fakes is the information that is presented as fact, but with distorted details or frankly made up. The goal is to influence a certain audience by creating the illusion of the desired (customer of fakes) reality. Example: "The USA and the EU have decided to negotiate with Putin." At the same time, the words of marginal politicians or experts are cited as confirmation, not of US and EU officials.
Why is it dangerous?
The fact is that any information, political or expert statements emanating from Russia or its satellites primarily protects the interests of the Kremlin. In Russia (under the leadership of Putin), there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of expression of the will of the people, no opposition and no independent media. Do you think that in such a situation it is possible to trust the information broadcast by Russia and its satellites? Any reasonable person will say: "No". This is what happens in most democratic countries, but many people still believe that Russia should be reckoned with, it should be respected, and economic and cultural ties should be developed with it. Despite the huge number of bloody and catastrophic conflicts initiated by the aggressor state. It's time to remove the veil from your eyes. An aggressor will always be an aggressor.
Therefore, at this very moment, the special forces of the Kremlin are preparing and distributing new fakes in order to influence you, the leaders of your states, and public figures. To achieve their imperial interests: weakening competitors, opponents, appointing loyal people to leadership positions, capturing entire business industries and clusters, forming the necessary public opinion. Russia (now allied with China) independently decides in which world we should live with you. And she is not interested in our opinion. Even international norms, agreements and institutions are not the truth for the Kremlin's cleaners.
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True reality
The political leadership of Russia long ago chose a course to restore the "great" Russian empire. This is confirmed by the words and state acts of the aggressor country itself (Google for help).
Any empire cannot coexist with democratic states, because it considers them a threat to its regime. The very form of democracy and its possible spread to its own "zones of influence" is a direct threat to Russia. This is what happened to Ukraine, which, against the will of the Kremlin, chose a course for EU rapprochement and the establishment of real democracy in the country. You know what happened next. And before that there was Georgia. And even earlier - Moldova. Until now, Georgia remains "under the curatorship" of the Kremlin. It didn't work out that way with Ukraine. But the leaders of the Kremlin are ready to unleash bloody wars and special operations in order to take whole nations and states under their personal "guardianship".
If we look deeper into history, immediately after the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union (that is, the leaders of the Kremlin) illegally (against the will of the peoples of these countries) established their regimes in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, part of Germany and in some European countries. They covered themselves, as always, with good intentions. Only with the collapse of the USSR, these countries were able to get rid of Soviet "curatorship".
It is also worth mentioning Russia's support of the criminal regime in Syria and Belarus, as well as special operations in African and Latin American countries. Today, there is not a single continent that is not of interest to Russia.
What is wrong with the people of Russia and ordinary people?
The fact is that the people of Russia voluntarily renounced democracy and the rule of law. Most Russians are very close to the "strategy of restoring the empire", the strategy of dominating the rest of the world. They sincerely rejoice at the capture of foreign territories and any victories over "harmful democracy". Although the standard of living of ordinary Russians is somewhere at the level of the countries of central Africa. And the level of freedom and rule of law is at the level of North Korea. They have voluntarily lived in such conditions for over 20 years, watching and hearing Kremlin propaganda every day 24/7. Do you think that this people can have pure and bright thoughts that differ from the Kremlin's policy?
As a confirmation of this, you can see how "agents of Russian intelligence" are exposed almost every day in various countries of Europe, Asia and America. Every adult with a Russian passport outside his country fulfills a certain role. Someone just uses their voice to spread propaganda and fakes, someone collects important or secret information, someone bribes local leaders, and someone helps arrange special economic operations to circumvent sanctions.
The biggest fakes
Russia interferes in German elections: Storm-1516 cyber group exposed
The cyber group is linked to the bot farms of the Prigogine and russia's Main Intelligence Directorate. So far, the criminals have created more than 100 fake news sites imitating legitimate media, investigators from the German publication Correctiv have found. They use artificial intelligence and diplomatic fake news technologies to spread disinformation about politicians and socially sensitive topics. For example, that ‘German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck abused a young woman’ and ‘the head of the Bundestag Defence Committee, Markus Faber, is a russian agent’.
Fake news and videos are spread through a network of pro-russian influencers on Telegram, X and other platforms. In addition, in January, the Bluesky platform recorded the activation of 100 German-language accounts associated with Doppelgänger. They spread narratives discrediting Ukraine and the German coalition. According to CeMAS analysts, fake posts blame the Green Party for economic problems and criticise Chancellor Olaf Scholz for supporting Ukraine.
At the same time, hundreds of German-language posts that have appeared over the past month have expressed only affection and support for the far-right AfD party.The posts monitored by CeMAS contained links to fake German news sites or to articles on real sites that confirm their narrative, or simply images. These posts demonstrate typical examples of the russian Doppelgaenger disinformation campaign model.The goal of the campaign:- discrediting German politicians;- influence the outcome of the Bundestag elections;- creating chaos in the information field.More details here.
How DeepSeek spreads disinformation in favour of China
The threats posed by the Chinese AI assistant DeepSeek are so obvious that the chatbot is being banned in different countries. In Italy, the national regulator did this to protect user data. Due to security risks, the chatbot is also prohibited for government agencies in Taiwan. Employees of the Congress, the Pentagon, and the US Navy have been banned from using it. Australia's largest cybersecurity company urged critical organisations to stop using DeepSeek. The UK and Irish authorities are also checking it for security risks.In addition to problems with the security of personal information, DeepSeek has already been caught in Chinese propaganda.
The researchers tested the chatbot's capabilities and found that its answers not only reflect Beijing's view of certain events in the world, but also directly spread disinformation. For example, DeepSeek distorted the words of former US President Jimmy Carter, who allegedly agreed that Taiwan was part of China. This was one of several examples documented by NewsGuard, a company that monitors disinformation on the Internet.
NewsGuard has called DeepSeek a ‘disinformation machine’.South Korea's National Intelligence Service (NIS) has accused the DeepSeek of excessive collection of personal data and using all incoming queries for its own training. Unlike other services with generative AI, DeepSeek's chat history can be shared with other parties, as the app has a function to collect keyboard input patterns, which allows it to identify users and connect with servers of Chinese companies such as volceapplog.com.Obviously, artificial intelligence is becoming a key tool in the spread of disinformation, regardless of who creates it. And we, as conscious citizens, should take this into account when we draw new knowledge from the neural network.
The trend of official organisations abandoning their accounts on social network X
The City Hall of Paris announced that it was closing its account on X. The farewell post says that the account will be closed as of 20 January, as social media platform X ‘reduces the reach of factual and objective messages, fuelling hate speech and disinformation’. Instead, the city authorities of the French capital announced the transition to the Bluesky social network.
Earlier, on 15 January, the German Ministry of Defence announced its decision to leave the social network X. A few days earlier, the Belgian newspaper De Morgen left Elon Musk's platform. This was announced by the newspaper's editor-in-chief Remy Amcreutz:
"Our publication does not want to be part of a social network where conspiracy theories and racism are spread without any moderation. That's enough. Elon Musk's values are completely opposite to those of a democratic society and De Morgen".
In addition, more than 80 French NGOs have been leaving social network X since 20 January. In an open letter, the signatories note that ‘the lack of moderation and the configuration of algorithms contribute to the spread of hateful content, the spread of conspiracy theories and theories that deny climate change’.
Russian hackers launch first phishing campaign on WhatsApp
The launch of the campaign through this platform indicates a change in the tactics, methods and procedures of cybercriminals who are trying to avoid detection in this way, Microsoft said in a blog post.The mechanics of phishing are as follows: the attackers initiate electronic communication with the targeted organisations [organisations that support Ukraine in the full-scale war with russia] to attract their attention.
Next, an email with a malicious link is sent from an address purportedly belonging to a US government official.
The email contains a QR code that allegedly directs users to a WhatsApp group with information about ‘the latest non-governmental initiatives to support Ukrainian NGOs’.
After scanning the QR code, which is actually used by WhatsApp to connect the account, the attackers access the messages using existing browser plugins that are designed to export messages from the account to the WhatsApp web version.
TikTok is suspected of criminally ignoring fake accounts before the Romanian elections
The social network's CEO is being summoned to the European Parliament to explain the role of the platform in the Romanian presidential election. A Politico article quoting the head of the liberal group Renew Europe, Valerie Haier, states that TikTok's management must prove the platform's transparency and compliance with the Digital Services Act.
According to Keita Kili, coordinator of the Bulgarian-Romanian Digital Media Observatory, the platform had a ‘significant impact’ during the first round of elections, as TikTok's rule banning paid political advertising was ‘largely ineffective’.
It is worth noting that the far-right and pro-russian candidate Kelin Georgescu won the first round of the election. He had no party support and was not among the favourites in opinion polls.