4. Russian Exploits in Europe
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Coordinated social media posts widely attributed to Russia tried to persuade Swedes that if their country drew closer to NATO, the military alliance would secretly stockpile nuclear weapons in Sweden and even attack Russia from Swedish soil.
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While Russian disinformation aimed at the U.S. has become common, Europe has been hit even harder and for much longer. Methods introduced in Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine have migrated west to France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. In each instance, updated active measures have sought to undermine public confidence in national and/or pan-European institutions.37 The “Lisa” case in Germany exemplified Russia’s multifaceted digital-attack strategy. In 2016, the German-language branch of RT and other Russian statesupported media broadcast reports into Germany of a 13-year-old RussianGerman girl who purportedly had been sexually assaulted by a group of Middle Eastern immigrants. Facebook and Twitter posts reinforced the anti-immigrant tale even after the German police determined it was false. Nationalist furor ensued, spawning demonstrations against German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The disinformation ultimately was traced back to a Facebook group called Anonymous Kollektiv and an anti-refugee website called Asylterror, which had Russian ties.38 The same year as the Lisa affair, Sweden faced a disinformation blitz widely attributed to Russia. Coordinated social media posts contested a proposed Swedish military partnership with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. One of the durable motifs of Russia’s European disinformation has been the threat NATO supposedly poses to Russian security and sovereignty. Russian trolls and bots try to open fissures among NATO members and between the organization and friendly non-members. If Sweden moved closer to NATO, the social media campaign falsely claimed,
the military alliance would secretly stockpile nuclear weapons in Sweden and even attack Russia from Swedish soil. The Swedes, like their neighbors in Denmark, Finland, and Norway, generally display a high level of resistance to Russian disinformation. Sweden agreed in May 2016 to allow NATO to operate more easily on Swedish territory.39 Often it is difficult to find Moscow’s fingerprints on disinformation because of the use of “cutouts,“ or intermediaries. In the Netherlands in 2016, a group described as consisting of Ukrainian emigres used social media to oppose a proposed European Union trade pact with Ukraine. The opponents portrayed the pro-Western Ukrainian govenment as murderous, corrupt, and unworthy of Dutch support. It turned out that the most active members of the “Ukrainian“ team were actually from Russia or from breakaway regions of Ukraine run by Russian-supported separatists. In a referendum, the Dutch voted down the EU-Ukraine agreement.40 Russian involvement in French and Spanish politics illustrates Putin’s goal of promoting nationalist and separatist movements that threaten stability in
COMBATING RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION: THE CASE FOR STEPPING UP THE FIGHT ONLINE
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