EU Increases Efforts To Combat Russian Disinformation

OBC Transeu­ropa, a think tank focused on South-East Europe, Turkey, and the Cau­ca­sus, pub­lished a report last month on increas­ing EU efforts to com­bat for­eign dis­in­for­ma­tion, empha­siz­ing the threat posed by Rus­sia. Accord­ing  to the report:

Decem­ber 15, 2020  Over the last years, the EU has pro­gres­sive­ly strength­ened its com­mit­ment to fight­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion and its polit­i­cal effects. Although there are many actors that pro­duce and spread dis­in­for­ma­tion and mis­in­for­ma­tion for eco­nom­ic as well as for pow­er-seek­ing rea­sons, the EU appears to be espe­cial­ly wor­ried about the threats com­ing from Rus­sia. Top offi­cials and insti­tu­tions based in Brus­sels have explic­it­ly recog­nised the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment as a dan­ger­ous actor reg­u­lar­ly engag­ing in infor­ma­tion war, capa­ble of poi­son­ing the pub­lic debates and inter­fer­ing in elec­toral process­es as well as in cri­sis man­age­ment. Inter­est­ing­ly, the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment has not pub­licly con­firmed nor denied its involve­ment in cas­es of dis­in­for­ma­tion. As a mat­ter of fact, dur­ing the last decade the Krem­lin has shown an increased inter­est for the oppor­tu­ni­ties offered by Vladimir Putin’s pecu­liar def­i­n­i­tion of “soft pow­er”, intend­ed as a diver­si­fied strat­e­gy for attain­ing influ­ence – both domes­ti­cal­ly and abroad – thanks to the con­ve­nient use of infor­ma­tion and intel­li­gence. This con­cept is con­sis­tent with the “infor­ma­tion con­fronta­tion” doc­trine elab­o­rat­ed since the 1990s by one of Putin’s mil­i­tary advi­sors, Vladimir Pirumov.

Read the rest here.

Oth­er rel­e­vant Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ing has includ­ed a Decem­ber 2020 report on the grow­ing issue of dis­in­for­ma­tion about the US elec­tion in Europe and a Decem­ber 2020 report on an EU dig­i­tal ini­tia­tive to fight dis­in­for­ma­tion, focus­ing on elec­tion integrity.