The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (also known as FSB) launched full-scale information operations to discredit Ukraine in the eyes of the world community. The operation is mainly aimed at Germany. This was expected because Vladimir Putin found several weak points and a hidden “partner” who can influence Angela Merkel long ago.
This complex operation is carried out not only at the political level in backstreet intrigues but in the information field as well. The cyber army of the Russian Federation has livened up; it should be noted that Russia widely announced creation of the cyber army in 2013.
We are observing a surge of activity of these special services in blogs, sites and social networks; the experts declare the third round of information operation against Ukraine. It is generally known that Russia’s campaign to shape international opinion around its invasion to Ukraine has extended to recruiting and training so called “online trolls” that have been deployed to spread the Kremlin’s point of view on the top news websites – in the USA, Europe, Great Britain etc.
Below are some links proving this:
- Hunting for paid Russian trolls in the Washington Post comments section [1]
- Russia’s Online Troll Army Is Huge, Hilarious & Already Everywhere [2]
- Russia is secretly hiring an army of Internet trolls [3]
- Etc
Those “cyber warriors” spread instructions on “how to break the information blockade” (translator’s note: it was very difficult to translate the text word for word because of the slang and spelling errors; however, we did out best to convey the meaning and emotionality of the original text):
Dear fellow cyber warriors – there are millions of us! [If] each of us uploads something somewhere – this will be the flow of tens of millions of videos which can cause shock among Gayropean society (translator’s note: “gayropean” is derived from “gay” + “European”; it is known that Russia is a homophobic country [4] and this is why Russian propaganda depicts their ideological opponents as gays, thus playing on people’s emotions and creating a repulsive image of the opponents)! Seek out contacts exactly with editors and editorial boards and only if this does not work out – then “throw” [your material] in the comments to the already published materials. And it DOES NOT MATTER if you comment is “off topic”, the main thing is that it should be noticed by the EDITORS – all comments are reviewed by the respective staff of the media! Remember, our goal is the EDITORIAL STAFF, and NOT the community.
The sites they “throw” their material include DW.de, News 23 (Germany), Fox News, Reuters, CNN, BBC, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Spiegel, Bild, Stern, Heute, Focus.de, tagesshau.de, Süddeutsche Zeitung etc.
Instructors explain that “#SaveDonbassPeople” hash tag should not be used anymore because it is now associated with terrorists and that Donbas should be saved from terrorists. The suggested hash tags are now “#SaveDonbassPeopleFromUkrainianArmy”, “#SaveDonbassPeopleWeAreKilledByUkrainianArmy” or “#SaveDonbassPeopleFromUKRArmy”.
Instructors also give recommendations as to which materials should be sent to those media sites:
[We] need to disseminate information about Russia’s role in the liberation of the OSCE observers and continue to make fun of the Spokesman of the U.S. Department of State
Instructors advise to send sentimental Russian films about the events in Odessa and Donbas; very often such videos are recognized as fakes [5].
It should be noted that the strong army of FSB cyber bots realizes that they will not get the desired effect by just spamming the sites with their materials and this is why they actively call the vast human resources of the Russian Federation to join in.
Russian version: ФСБ РФ развернуло информационную операцию против Украины [6]