The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has just announced plans to launch a website dedicated to tackling fake news. It’s a noble objective but also a little ironic given Russia’s flagrant display this week of “hybrid warfare” – straightforward propaganda, that is, backed up with black ops and subterfuge.
As an optimist on Russia, it pains me to say it, but the surest proof Moscow was behind the attempted assassination of the Montenegrin Prime Minister are the official denials coming from its Foreign Ministry and its state sponsored media outlet, Russia Today.
The plan, according to last week’s Sunday Telegraph, was to incite civil war in a country looking to turn towards Nato – which sounds remarkably like the situation in Ukraine in 2014 and Georgia in 2008.
The protagonists this time were Serbian nationalists recruited by Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU. They were to mingle with protestors from Montenegro’s pro-Russian Democratic Front party before inciting them to storm the Parliament building. Once inside, other conspirators dressed as policemen would open fire on the crowd making it look like the government had just slaughtered members of their own opposition.
Naturally, Russia Today hit back. However, its main point of contention was the Telegraph’s use of unnamed Whitehall sources – even though intelligence agencies rarely give on the record interviews.
During the report, RT interviewed a Bristol Community Radio journalist named Martin Summers who dismissed the story as classic information warfare from the British government and blamed the British press for blowing the story out of all proportion.
Mr Summers has also stated, in the past, that James Foley’s murder was probably faked, Nato was behind the kidnapping and murder of Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and that we should reinvestigate 9/11.
Then came the non-denial denial from the top courtesy of Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. He suggested that the British media “have repeatedly conjured up things from thin air, like the Litvinenko case”.
That’s the same Alexander Litvinenko who, according to a UK public inquiry, was murdered on Putin’s direct orders, by serving members of Russia’s security services with a radioactive isotope. Hardly a figment of the imagination.
At least the failed coup does serve to back up those intelligence warnings which have been on the record. From MI5’s Andrew Parker saying that an “increasingly aggressive Russia is a threat to the UK” to MI6’s Alex Younger talking about “the increasingly dangerous phenomenon of hybrid warfare” and Theresa May’s “With President Putin, my advice is to “engage but beware”, the events in Montenegro are exactly what they have been talking about.
This is compounded by Montenegro’s own reports into the attempted coup. The defence minister was one of the sources the Telegraph did get on the record, he explained there was “not any doubt” that the plot was organised by Russian intelligence officers.
Across Europe, Western intelligence agencies and NGOs are all echoing these concerns. Whether it’s political parties being funded by the Kremlin, or local criminals being used as agents for Russian intelligence, the more that emerges about Russia’s activities in Europe, the harder it is to argue that the West is being paranoid and its press is peddling fake news.
Certainly we shouldn’t rush to believe every tall tale we hear about Russia. Being Putin’s enemy has become a flag of convenience for plenty of shady characters in the past, while the Russian Embassy’s Twittter feed does a useful job in publishing every outlandish claim made about Russia.
Since we detect it wherever we go, Russian intelligence must either be terrifyingly omnipresent or horrifically inept. Realistically, I think it’s more of a rundown warship belching smoke than a state of the art stealth bomber.
In any case, let’s not forget how life for many Russians has improved considerably under Vladimir Putin. Since he came to power in 1999 real wages have increased by 91 per cent, while the chances of an oligarch running off with your life savings have diminished. And though they might be run by a terrifying gang of ex-spooks, state-owned enterprises’ corporate governance is much improved and investment opportunities are there for anyone brave enough to explore them.
Hence Putin’s continued popularity. His domestic reforms have largely worked and Russia has a leading role on the world stage again. The continued carping from Nato countries that they are the villain in the piece, just stokes fears that the West really does pose a danger to Russia. Indeed, a survey published this week announced that support for conscription among Russians is at a record high.
But, then, this is all part of Putin’s game plan. Fears are stoked by covert operations in Europe which are then backed up by media painting Russia as a victim of Western meddling. That’s why Russian attempts to thwart fake news are fake. They’re just another smokescreen– but they keep us talking about Russia, which is just what Putin wants.
