Propaganda, or lies, is a method used by Russia to attack nations it wishes to control and sway public opinion before it invades.
Russia excels at target audience analysis and often tailors its attacks to exploit the specific vulnerabilities of the country in question, often adapting details to the new context to apply a strategy that has previously been successful against another target. Malign actors also learn from each other. For example, a disinformation campaign spread widely in Sweden in 2021 and 2022, claiming that Swedish authorities were taking Muslim children from their families. The campaign bore significant resemblance to a Russian disinformation campaign against Finland in 2012, which had claimed that the Finnish government was unfairly taking Russian children from their families. While the campaign against Sweden did not seem to originate from Russian sources, there nevertheless was a connection: some videos used as evidence against Sweden had circulated in Russian media in 2012. Carnegie Europe
This technique is similar to the Q Anon and MAGA disinformation campaign against liberal politicians in the US called Pizzagate.
The personal email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton‘s campaign chair, was hacked in a spear phishing attack in March 2016. WikiLeaks published his emails in November 2016. Proponents of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages that connected several high-ranking Democratic Party officials and U.S. restaurants with an alleged human trafficking and child sex ring. One of the establishments allegedly involved was the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in Washington, D.C. Wikipedia
The story was that a child sex trafficking ring was being operated by Hillary Clinton from the basement of a pizzeria in Washington DC. The owners of the Comet Ping Pong pizza received death threats, had their building shot at and suffered an arson attack. The conspiracy theory was picked up in other nations, like Turkey.
In Turkey, the allegations were reported by pro-government newspapers (i.e., those supportive of President Recep Erdoğan), such as Sabah, A Haber, Yeni Şafak, Akşam and Star. The story appeared on Turkey’s Ekşi Sözlük website and on the viral news network HaberSelf, where anyone can post content. These forums reposted images and allegations directly from the since-deleted subreddit, which were reprinted in full in the state-controlled press. Wikipedia
The same strategy was used by the Russian government against Sweden in an effort to stop their application for NATO membership.
The 2021–2022 disinformation campaign spread like wildfire in Arabic-language media and was one of the largest-scale disinformation attacks against Sweden to date, according to the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency. The campaign, together with disinformation about Quran burnings in Sweden in 2023 that was amplified by Russian-supported actors, contributed to Sweden’s troubles in its NATO accession process. The disinformation campaign even spiraled into physical violence: The Swedish embassy in Baghdad was stormed and set on fire in July 2023 and three Swedish soccer fans were shot (two fatally) after a game in Brussels by an Islamist extremist in October 2023. Carnegie Europe
Ironically the Russian invasion of Ukraine helped Sweden and Finland gain NATO membership. Who would want to attack the US left using this strategy? Someone using children to gain leverage and using the technique to set up their enemies would find this to be a perfect diversion from their own operation to control their members.
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