We’re Winning, Say Russia’s Fake News Manufacturers; Center for European Policy Analysis, October 16, 2024

Olga Lautman, Center for European Policy Analysis; We’re Winning, Say Russia’s Fake News Manufacturers

"Did you see the German woman complaining on social media that her country’s industry is suffering and needs cheaper energy? Or the American woman of the same age arguing that Israel and Ukraine are wasting US taxpayer’s money?

Both were crafted in Russia, according to a huge trove of documents leaked to Western media in September, and published by the VSquare investigative site among others. They were just two of 33.9 million social media comments fabricated by the Social Design Agency (SDA), a Kremlin disinformation subcontractor, in the first third of 2024 alone.

If anyone thought wartime Russia might lose focus in its truth-twisting campaigns against Ukraine and the liberal democratic states, think again. Putin and his aides still see disinformation as a key element of the colonial endeavor against Ukraine and the embitterment and fractiousness of Western voters.

Faced with international sanctions, military setbacks, significant losses, and growing isolation, Russia has increasingly ramped up its disinformation operations, political subversion, and the manipulation of public opinion in the West — echoing the KGB’s tactics of psychological warfare and subversion."