Context
Stories in the ‘Context” section are not fakes. We publish them in order to provide greater insight for our readers about the techniques, methods and practices used by the Russian government in its information war.
By Polygraph Vladimir Putin Russian president “Well, everything seems normal with gasoline, only a 0.16 percent increase (in prices).” Source: Kremlin.ru, April 11, 2019 False The numbers reported by every source in Russia are higher than those claimed by Putin. During a Kremlin meeting with the government ministers on April 11, the Russian President Vladimir Putin interrupted the Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev’s speech and said that gasoline prices in Russia…
By EU vs Disinfo This past Sunday, Ukrainians elected a new president: in a landslide victory of over 73%, comedian and political novice Volodymyr Zelenskiy won the presidency from the incumbent, Petro Poroshenko. Whatever one might think of the result, the contest was ultimately a triumph of democracy, with free and fair elections followed by a peaceful transfer of power. International observers have described the elections as the cleanest in…
By Michelle Quinn, for VoA People in Sri Lanka are experiencing a second day without access to some of the most popular social media sites within the country, after the government shut down the services in the wake of a terror attack that killed nearly 300 people and injured hundreds on Easter Sunday.Facebook and its properties — Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger — were blocked. Access to Snapchat was turned off,…
By Polygraph Alexander Guschin Associate Professor, Department of Post-Soviet Countries, Russian State University for the Humanities Statement “Lithuania was not independent, it was not recognized by the international community, and accordingly the actions of the Soviet Special Forces and the army to end the unrest were legitimate.” Source: TASS Russian News Agency, April11, 2019 False Legal complexities don’t trump Soviet culpability On March 27, 2019, the Vilnius Regional Court sentenced…
By Polygraph Maria Zakharova Russian Foreign Ministry Spokespersons “Can NATO bring anyone closer? History does not know any such examples. What I can see is that NATO is adding new members, who are now being pulled in by various methods.” Source: Russian Foreign Ministry Press Briefing, April 4, 2019 False Acquiring NATO membership is a long and complicated process During a press briefing on April 4, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman…
NEW PUBLICATION Let us announce the publication of a new Kremlin Watch Report called “Operation Dragoon Ride 2015: Disinformation and Counter-disinformation Strategies”, authored by our former intern, MAJ Jennifer L. Purser (United States Army). The report is focused on the effects of pro-Russian disinformation during Operation Dragoon Ride 2015 and assesses counter-disinformation strategies for NATO convoys. ODR ´15 was a combined US Army and NATO convoy from the Baltic through Poland…
By EU vs Disinfo It took almost two hundred years, from 1163-1345, to complete the construction of Notre Dame Cathedral on a small island in the middle of the Seine. But it took only a couple of hours for the pro-Kremlin disinformation machine to exploit tragedy yet again and start spreading inflammatory, contradictory and divisive messages, even while the jewel of Paris still burned on Monday evening. The devastating fire…
By Margarita Assenova, for Polygraph Sergey Lavrov Russia’s foreign minister “When Montenegro and Macedonia were out of the blue dragged into NATO, the situation with Macedonia’s name was used in a brazen manner. They held a referendum organized in gross violation of the constitution, which in Macedonia requires a referendum to put forward only one question, but they put forward three: do you want to be a member of the…
By EU vs Disinfo As NATO turned 70 last week, pro-Kremlin media obviously felt obliged to draw their audience’s attention to NATO’s atrocities and expansive nature, not to mention some broken promises. What first draws the reader’s attention is the coordination. In Russian the guidelines about which themes to cover, who is to be treated positively, who should have negative coverage and who should be altogether ignored is called the…
By EU vs Disinfo “Guantanamo Near Donetsk: Ukraine has been building a concentration camp for the separatists.” In April 2015, this message headlined a story published by Zvezda, the official outlet of Russia’s Ministry of Defence. The story also told that “according to documents found at the facility, the construction was financed by the European Union.” Zvezda’s publication was not an isolated event. In a matter of one week in 2015, different Russian media…
