Russian television channel REN TV presented a recent strike called by the faculty of Ukraine’s Medical University as a strike organized by the students. REN refers to a post on the University’s official Facebook page declaring the strike. In the comments to that post however, it becomes clear that the students have nothing to do with the strike and do not support it at all. During a press conference the…
By CEPA People often assume that Latvia has two completely separate, self-sufficient information spaces: one for Latvian speakers and the other for Russian speakers. While this is largely true for traditional media, a recent study of international news by Latvia’s Center for East European Policy Studies (CEEPS) shows that online, this division is less conspicuous and more nuanced. The study, conducted in collaboration with CEPA experts, offers a more subtle…
By Polygraph Sergey Lavrov Russian foreign minister “We are alarmed as unfortunately, the US and NATO military in Afghanistan makes (sic) every effort to silence and deny [the IS group’s presence in Afghanistan].” Source: TASS, February 20, 2018 False The claim is unsubstantiated. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasized the Islamic State’s presence in South Asia and downplayed Western efforts at a February 20 press conference that followed talks with…
Topics of the Week Twitter is banning the methods used by bots and trolls to spread false stories on the network. Twitter users will no longer be able to post identical messages from multiple accounts or use software to perform other simultaneous actions. Do you have to ensure the cybersecurity of your political campaign but lack the resources? The Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs has prepared…
Elisabeth Schimpfossl and Ilya Yablokov, for Open Democracy A leading British newspaper is using patchy “evidence”, insinuation and intrigue to vilify the UK university protest. We know these techniques well from our research into Russian propaganda. This is an open letter in response to an investigative article in The Times entitled “University activists have been plotting the strike for seven years”. The article appeared after day two of an ongoing…
Fake: IMF and Kyiv fail to compromise on Ukraine aid; Ukrainian food prices nearly equal EU; Right Sector radicals attack peaceful Russians in Greece.
By EU vs Disinfo On 6 February, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria released a statement saying that it was investigating multiple reports that bombs allegedly containing weaponised chlorine had been used in the town of Saraqeb in Idlib and in Douma in eastern Ghouta. The pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign prepared its usual answer: a week later, Russia Today and Sputnik claimed that the Syrian civilian rescue group White Helmets together with Al-Nusra Front terrorists were “preparing…
In the aftermath of the International Monetary Fund’s visit to Ukraine last week, Russia’s official 24/7 English language channel RT declared that according to its own anonymous source in the Ukrainian Finance Ministry, Ukraine and the IMF failed to reach a compromise on the allocation of the IMF’s fifth tranche of aid. Meanwhile the IMF called the recent visit to Kyiv technical, whose aim was to discuss various aspects of…
By Dalia Bankauskaitė, for CEPA On 5 February, Lithuanian news outlets reported that Russia had stationed several of its newest high-precision weapons—the Iskander-M nuclear-capable missile, with a range of 415-500 km—in the Kaliningrad region and that it intends to leave the missiles there permanently. Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė said the deployment “is not just a threat to Lithuania, but to half of all Europe.” Three pro-Kremlin media outlets in Russian and Lithuanian—Eskerptai.eu,…
Pro-Kremlin site Ukraina.ru published an article this week claiming that food prices in Ukraine have grown to equal those of Europe. This claim is based on a Facebook post by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov, who served under ousted President Viktor Yanukovych. Azarov’s claim meanwhile is based on RIA Novosti’s data presented in an attractive but questionable infographic. RIA Novosti’s data is not sourced, it is not clear where…
