Thursday, September 18, 2025

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. They appear on our site with the permission of their original publisher and reflect the views of the authors and not necessarily the position of StopFake’s editorial board.

How many non-existent apples go into two apples?

By EU vs Disinfo Distracting the audience is one of the goals of the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign. One of the techniques how to do this...

The curious case of Pavel Stroilov

By Sarah Hurst (@XSovietNews) A middle-aged Russian “student” who was once described as a friend of Alexander Litvinenko has also been former Soviet dissident Vladimir...

Russia-Linked ‘American’ Site Downplays Russian Connections

By Polygraph Unknown Editor of USA Really Website “This exciting new project will encourage our colleagues and fellow citizens to think critically, and to provide a large...

Kremlin Watch Briefing: Is the staged murder of Arkadiy Babchenko a success story?

The Prague Manual Funded by the International Visegrad Fund, The Prague Manual (1) describes the toolkit of Russian subversion operations in Europe, (2) comes up...

Smile! You’re on Russian State TV

By EU vs Disinfo A smile was apparently added to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s facial expression in a Sunday night show broadcast on 3 June by...

The death and resurrection show; Babchenko’s staged murder and bias against Ukraine

By Stephen Komarnyckyj, for Byline When Ukraine staged a murder to save a journalist it was vitriolically attacked while Russia, which commissioned his murder, was...

Paris wants tools to fight against the disinformation

Source: AFP France is the next country willing to fight against the wave of false information by introducing new laws. However, as always in the...

WhatsApp is a black box for fake news. Verificado 2018 is making real progress...

By Laura Hazard Owen, for NiemanLab The growing stream of reporting on and data about fake news, misinformation, partisan content, and news literacy is hard to...

Retracing the steps of a disinformation campaign

By EU vs Disinfo 2018 has already seen several clear examples of the ongoing pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign. First came the disinformation surrounding the Skripal poisoning, then...

Russian disinfo patterns: same actors, different sets

By Lukas Andriukaitis, Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, special for StopFake The dark arts of disinformation has many different shades. Have you ever had the...