EU Study Finds Germany Main Target Of Russian Disinformation In Europe

Ger­man media is report­ing on a new EU study that has found that Ger­many is the main focus of Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion efforts in Europe. Accord­ing to the Frank­furter All­ge­meine Zeitung report:

March 9, 2021  Accord­ing to a study by the EU, Ger­many is more in the focus of Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paigns than any oth­er coun­try in the Euro­pean Union. “No oth­er EU mem­ber state is being attacked more vio­lent­ly than Ger­many,” says a report pub­lished by the EU For­eign Ser­vice on Tues­day in Brus­sels. There are sys­tem­at­ic cam­paigns both at the polit­i­cal lev­el and through media close to the Krem­lin. At the same time, Ger­man politi­cians are accused of avoid­ing dia­logue with Russia.Since the end of 2015, more than 700 cas­es have been col­lect­ed in the EU data­base “EU vs. Dis­in­fo” on the Fed­er­al Repub­lic. France, on the oth­er hand, was attacked a good 300 times, Italy a good 170 times and Spain more than 40 times. The EU’s For­eign Ser­vice ana­lyzes pub­licly avail­able media reports and state­ments on its web­site “EU vs. Dis­in­fo”. Russ­ian media cam­paigns. “The Krem­lin cre­ates an intel­lec­tu­al image of Ger­many in which there are a few rea­son­able voic­es in a cho­rus of irra­tional ‘Rus­so­pho­bia’,” the report says. Sev­er­al cam­paigns by the Russ­ian media are cit­ed as evi­dence. Since the begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary, the sto­ry of a Russ­ian fam­i­ly in Berlin has been exploit­ed whose three chil­dren have been tak­en into cus­tody by the author­i­ties because their well-being has been endan­gered. Accord­ing to the report, Russ­ian media and politi­cians accused the Ger­man author­i­ties of sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly sup­press­ing Rus­sians in Ger­many. A web­site described the inci­dent as “a response to (the arrest of Russ­ian Krem­lin crit­ic Alex­ei) Navalnyi”.

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Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) report­ing on Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion efforts in Europe has included:

• A Jan­u­ary report on increas­ing EU efforts to com­bat for­eign dis­in­for­ma­tion, empha­siz­ing the threat posed by Russia.

• A  Decem­ber 2020 report on the grow­ing issue of dis­in­for­ma­tion about the US elec­tion in Europe.

• A Decem­ber 2020 report on an EU dig­i­tal ini­tia­tive to fight dis­in­for­ma­tion, focus­ing on elec­tion integrity.