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Issue 44 - 18 October 2016
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If you can't fool them - scare them!
During the past week, most of the stories reported to the Disinformation Review relate to the horrific events in Syria. Pro-Kremlin outlets use their reporting to distort, deny, accuse and even threaten.
For Dmitry Kiselyov – "the central figure of government propaganda” as the EU sanctions list describes him: http://bit.ly/2eAzBcD - it is not uncommon to threaten through the spectre of a nuclear conflict. His line about turning the US into “radioactive ashes” has already become legendary (http://reut.rs/2do8Fa0) and more nuclear warnings came from him last week (http://bbc.in/2ei6E5m). But Kiselyov is not the only one deploying this worrying line. A website called Russkiy Kod invented a story that the Americans are preparing for a nuclear exchange with Russia in Syria (http://bit.ly/2eqWONv).
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One already removed Youtube film claimed this week that the US caused the war in Syria because Assad would not let them build a gaspipe in his country. A similar claim was later repeated in the popular TV show Vremya Pokazhet (http://bit.ly/2dgBYjO). But then, only a couple of minutes later on the same show, we heard a different explanation - that the West unleashed the war in Syria in order to send Daesh fighters to Russia. This accusation could perhaps divert attention from claims we have seen that, through its actions in Syria, Russia is increasing the refugee flow to Europe (see e.g. http://bit.ly/2csUQqR or http://bit.ly/2do66Vr).
Last Friday we set out in our Disinformation Digest the smokescreen of disinformation from government controlled news agency RIA Novosti regarding the bombing of the Red Crescent convoy in Aleppo (http://eepurl.com/cjTUnv). We saw similar distortion from eg RT, who tried to accuse “terrorists” of bombing the humanitarian convoy (http://bit.ly/2evHgsz). This article was later also translated into Czech (http://bit.ly/2ecI0yM).
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You're ignoring the evidence we didn’t give you!
We have already described how pro-Kremlin media have tried to bury the facts of the MH17 tragedy under multiple and contradictory versions of events - not only in 2014, immediately after the tragedy (http://eepurl.com/chQYq1), but also more recently (http://eepurl.com/cjysWv).
Sadly, disinformation-oriented outlets continue to blur the report of the Joint Investigation Team (http://bbc.in/2cBgBV5). In an article from last week, the already mentioned RIA Novosti claimed that investigators from the Joint Investigative Team ignored the radar data that Russia had provided (http://bit.ly/2eFKNUt). However, as the JIT explained to StopFake, there was in fact no data for them to ignore (http://bit.ly/2e8hpWo): Russia, it turns out, had not provided them with any.
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Russian Russophobes
We have seen some confused logic from pro-Kremlin outlets this week. We learnt for example that Ukraine is a hopeless, russophobic and undemocratic place (http://bit.ly/2dUMtsh, http://bit.ly/2dsTS1g, http://bit.ly/2e5CCik, http://bit.ly/2eePCoY, http://bit.ly/2ellp3i) – but also that it is basically Russia (http://bit.ly/2eePCoY). We learnt too that Belarus has also become anti-Russian and West-leaning (http://bit.ly/2dPjwOI) – but also that it is, basically, Russia (http://bit.ly/2eePCoY).
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We also received several reports this week centred on the issue of Russian trustworthiness, included claims that everybody in the West already knows it (http://bit.ly/2ek8f6I), especially in Germany (http://bit.ly/2d9E14q). We also learned that a group of Lithuanian intellectuals apparently urged the Nobel committee to consider President Putin for the Nobel Peace prize (http://bit.ly/2dIpD9A). Who these peace-loving intellectuals are, the story doesn't tell. Based on the Norwegian Nobel Committee's rules of procedure (http://bit.ly/2ebUt6G) we may unfortunately have to wait another fifty years to find out.
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Download the FULL TABLE (.pdf) of disinformation pieces
collected for the Disinformation Review issue No 44
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