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As the US Presidential elections approach, Russian Intelligence expert Zarina Zabrisky provides a comprehensive guide to Putin’s latest propaganda ploys.
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The Kremlin’s disinformation playbook for waging its self-declared global information war was originally developed by Soviet military strategists. During the Cold War, the Soviets conducted over 10,000 disinformation operations — among them was the fabrication and dissemination of conspiracy theories about FBI and CIA involvement in the assassination of J.F. Kennedy and the US government inventing the AIDS virus. At the height of the Cold War, up to 15,000 KGB officers are said to have worked on psychological and disinformation warfare, which they learnt in a special “active measures” course created by then KGB head Yuri Andropov.
Russia’s disinformation campaigns evolved with the times to include spreading disinformation through international news agencies, TV channels and online news websites. Today, they have become increasingly sophisticated, moving on from outright falsehoods to more subtle forms of audience manipulation — all with the help of RT, Sputnik and others in the network.
There’s one principal goal to Russia’s disinformation efforts: weaken the Western democratic system from within.
According to experts, Russia has been trying to destabilise Europe through disinformation since 2015. However, it was the aftermath of the 2016 US Presidential elections that attracted international attention to the issue as US intelligence agencies called out Russia’s propagation of false news and inflammatory media stories meant to sway the vote in Donald Trump’s favour. There’s one principal goal to Russia’s disinformation efforts: weaken the Western democratic system from within. While RT and Sputnik use a plethora of disinformation techniques derived from the Soviet era, we are concentrating on the most pertinent ones in the Kremlin’s playbook.
1. Pushing Kremlin Narratives
The Kremlin has been working on creating a new “post-Western world order” narrative, in which Western countries and institutions are no longer enjoying the same amount of power and influence they once did. Major Kremlin narratives include negative narratives: anti-elite, anti-EU, anti-NATO, and promote a danger discourse (the rising extremist, migrant and Islamic terrorism threat) and positive narratives: Russia and Putin as saviours of traditional values.
2. Amplifying Extreme Voices
This is one of the Kremlin network’s most used tactics, with a variety of far-right activists, conspiracy theorists and extremists featured as commentators on its media outlets. Manuel Ochsenreiter, the editor of the neo-Nazi magazine Zuerst!, is a frequent guest speaker on German politics on RT.
Other examples of extreme voices featured on RT include a neo-Nazi and white supremacist Richard Spencer. The types of groups and opinions these extreme voices are meant to amplify include the following, as explained in a textbook taught in Russian military education institutions: “Encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements — extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes.”
3. Rapid Fire Conspiracy/Overload
This method promotes an overflow of images of violent protests, vandalism, fire, injuries, deaths intended to shock the nervous system and cause stress in the target audience. Repetition of triggering words and images, rapid switching of stories and inconsistency are intended to result in depression, panic, fear and confusion.
During global information campaigns, like those propagated by RT and Sputnik, large amounts of conflicting information disorient the target audience and it seems that their programmes deliberately create an atmosphere of danger and crisis. With sufficient exposure, PTSD symptoms develop and cause the inability to think critically and act rationally.
The propagandists offer solutions at the time of perceived crisis. Physiological changes to the brain alter individual and collective behaviour. As an example, during the Yellow Vests movement, RT, Ruptly and Sputnik streamed live reports from protests in France, Belgium, Germany and other countries on YouTube and Facebook focusing on violence and graphic and disturbing images. The difference between the coverage of violent events by RT, Sputnik et al and that of most international news outlets is the volume of disturbing coverage designed to overwhelm the viewer and the deliberate strategy of audience manipulation associated with Russian state coverage.
4. Influence by Suggestion
Suggestion is used to target groups that lack critical thinking, such as the very religious, under-educated, conformists, youth, and people in a state of panic, fear or stress. Using the “authority aura” effect, recognized leaders deliver emotionally charged speeches. Group environments, such as rallies and online forums, create the effect of “psychological contagion” and help to consolidate people around the ideas presented.