“Bear in sheep’s clothing”

(Image: Wilfried Martens Centre)

This summer has been particularly fertile on multiple studies focusing on pro-Kremlin disinformation campaigns. In case you would have missed them, we summarize some of them for you.

Winning the Information War
“How has Russia’s pollution of the information space shaped international discourse on alliances, organizations, public institutions and mainstream media? What can be done to filter these digital toxins from our democratic system?”

Answers to these questions are provided by the top experts Edward Lucas and Peter Pomerantsev in the latest report for the CEPA’s Information Warfare Initiative called Winning the Information War.

The authors analyse the impact of Russian disinformation by drawing on dozens of case studies, and they also expose the tools of Russian information warfare—overt propaganda channels as well as the political forces, civil society actors, businesses and public figures who use them. They also put together a highly valuable set of various recommendations (both on tactical and strategical level) to defend against the disinformation machine.

The Bear in Sheep’s Clothing
“Russian and Russia-funded GONGOs, NGOs and think tanks belong within the framework of a particular vision of ‘soft power’. It is one that relies on coercion more than on attraction, opposes democracy and human rights, offers ‘traditional values’ and ‘a strong leader’, and promotes the narrative that the US is a common enemy for Russia and Europe,” write the authors of The Bear in Sheep’s Clothing, a report published by the Wilfried Martens Centre.

This study focuses on organisations funded by Russian government (both officially and unofficially) working in the EU, seeking to influence decision-making in Europe.

The Weaponization of Culture
Russia’s “ideological expansion” is the theme of the third study, The Weaponization of Culture: Kremlin’s traditional agenda and the export of values to Central Europe by the Political Capital Institute from Budapest.

Leading experts from Central Europe describe the situation in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

The authors conclude that these pro-Kremlin activities met with the growing popularity of far-right and far-left parties and illiberal movements, as well as with the growing disillusionment with liberalism, human rights and democratic ideals.