On the publication of their annual report, Rob Bertholee, the head of AIVD, told reporters Russian had not succeeded in “substantially influencing” the election, saying: “I think they have tried to push voters in the wrong direction by spreading news items that are not true, or partially true.” According to the report, the agency assessed the threat posed – by Russia to the Netherlands and Europe – as having escalated over the preceding twelve months, adding that Russia had become “extremely active in espionage,” not limiting itself just to elections. “In its efforts to position itself as a superpower, Russia is not afraid of using Cold War methods to obtain political influence. Russia is using the freedom of open and democratic societies of the West [to do this],” the agency added.
In Italy, initial concerns about disinformation and hostile influence operations emerged during the constitutional referendum in December 2016, when the rising anti-establishment Five Star Movement proliferated disinformation and pro-Kremlin propaganda. Nonetheless, the report starkly highlighted: “The government is still not taking any action to counter these efforts. Italy is also a Kremlin ally when it comes to halting new EU sanctions related to Kremlin-sponsored atrocities in Ukraine and Syria.” From April 2016, then Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi, complained privately to his counterparts about Russia meddling in his country’s politics by supporting anti-establishment parties. He was referring in the main to the Five Star Movement, led by comedian Beppe Grillo (who I’ve watched on TV and can say, with my hand on my heart, is simply not funny). In November 2016, a month from the vote, Renzi privately discussed the spread of fake news with other European leaders and President Obama at a meeting in Berlin. The Kremlin had previously enjoyed close relations with Italy for a very long period, in particular under the leadership of billionaire Silvio Berlusconi. The former prime minister and media tycoon was a personal friend of Putin.
Converse to Berlusconi’s rise with the Mafia-linked Forza Italia, Grillo’s party was initially founded as an online movement25. Grillo’s co-founder was Gianroberto Casaleggio, an entrepreneur who passed away in 2016. Casaleggio’s internet and publishing company, Casaleggio Associati, still controls several widely viewed websites which follow the Breitbart mould and the more sensational, alternative reports found on Sputnik Italia, one of the Kremlin-created websites which disseminate Putin’s worldview. One of Casaleggio’s sites, Tze, ran nonsense articles26 with titles such as “Is the US trafficking migrants into Italy?” Though Tze makes no mention of its connection to the Five Star Movement, again following the alt-right model and claiming independence from the mainstream media, large portions of content around the referendum were dedicated to damaging Renzi and his reform campaign. Many of the posts appeared to show thousands of people allegedly protesting against the referendum. A newspaper investigation, however, revealed the people had, in fact, gathered to support Renzi and his proposed reform. Grillo himself, producer of the most widely read blog in Italy, went on to post a picture of a Naples piazza, suggesting the crowds had come to protest against Renzi, describing “a sea of humanity in the square, the people can’t take it anymore.” In fact, the crowd had gathered to hear a speech from Pope Francis.
Recognition of Russian threats, the Kremlin Watch report concludes: “Results in certain efforts to manage the crisis” but, in the fight against fake news, “governments often seek the help of corporations like Google and Facebook in order to protect their elections.”
“These companies have very limited assistance options,” the authors point out and the conclusion rings true, startlingly so, when set against everything I discovered independently. Particularly in that “most measures undertaken at the last minute turn out to be “too little, too late” and lack necessary coordination. Importantly, policies against hostile foreign influence must be designed and implemented long in advance.”
Rightly, the report's authors highlight that Germany’s position could be the “game-changer” in the current hybrid conflict. As they surmise: “With federal elections in September 2017, Germany is currently preoccupied with developing resistance against Russian meddling.” Over the last few months, Germany has begun taking the threat posed by Russia much more seriously than ever before, “actively boosting its cyber defence and also promoting cyber security internationally, even creating a new Bundeswehr command.”
“If the next German government tackles this threat with true German precision and intensity,” the Kremlin Watch authors wrote, “it will spill over to EU policy and prompt substantive democratic counter-pressure. Until now, the concerns of mostly smaller EU members on the Eastern flank have been insufficient to instigate a shift in EU policy.”
Northern Europe, very often thought of as the exemplar in terms of military, political, and economic standards, is far from exempt from criticism. Disturbingly, the report is clear the United Kingdom had been “supporting many strategic communications projects in the Eastern Partnership region, but the debate on Kremlin subversion in the UK was very limited before the Brexit referendum in 2016.”
“The UK’s close ties to Kremlin-linked money has also not featured on the agenda until recently” the report added.
It would be easy to assume this obliquely referred to the 2008 story of then Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, who became involved in a conversation with banking heir Nathaniel Rothschild over the possibility Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch, could donate to the Conservative Party27. Osborne, of course, insisted he did not seek any money from Mr Deripaska and claimed the Conservative party had simply rejected a donation from a British company owned by the controversial billionaire. “At no point did Mr Osborne solicit or ask for a donation, suggest ways of channelling a donation or express any wish to meet with Mr Deripaska to discuss donations,” said a statement released by the party, which detailed five meetings between the men – four of which took place in Corfu. However, as my own investigation went on to find, this wasn’t even the tip of a very large iceberg – the ties between British politics and Russia are insidious, often overt, and the money is, somewhat unexpectedly, the wrong trail to follow. The old journalist’s adage is as defunct as traditional warfare.
The report correctly states MI5 chief Andrew Parker had warned Russia’s threat to the UK was growing and had stated that Russia’s spy activity in the UK is extensive, as was its subversion campaign in Europe in general. It also correctly identified that MI6 chief Alex Younger had also highlighted the issue of subversion and the disinformation campaign waged by Russia and that it was the British intelligence services who first alerted the US about the Democratic National Committee hacks and the alleged Trump-Russia connection in 2015. The authors also picked up on the London School of Economics publication of a report raising alarms about “weak British electoral laws” which can “allow foreign interference to undermine British democracy by allowing an influx of funds from unknown or suspicious sources to fund political campaigns.”
The conclusion, under the United Kingdom’s heading made for grim, but accurate, reading, saying: “The UK government appears to be more concerned with the diplomatic and international aspects of Russian influence rather than malign domestic effects,” while “Facebook has warned that the June 2017 British General Election may become a subject of attack by fake news and other disinformation online.”
As things stand, the Information Commissioner’s Office launched an investigation into British election interference and voter manipulation, following the submission of detailed evidence gathered in the course of my own investigations, along with submissions by others. But this alone isn’t enough – a retrospective action by a statutory body with insufficient firepower to respond to the Alternative War in any effective way.
We really have gotten into a very grave mess and only the benefits of time and distance will, I fear, provide the ultimate resolution.
Two:
The European Union itself is already fully engaged in dealing with the Russian threat. Though it took me a w
hile to get hold of the right person, mainly due to staff moves, I eventually tracked down Maja Kocijančič, the Spokesperson for EU Foreign Affairs and Security Policy28. She was happy to tell me: “The EU coordinates on all substantial threats, such as terrorism, cyber or hybrid attacks, or propaganda, obviously along the competencies it has.”
One of the biggest moves the bloc has attempted to make, which Britain – a divisive voice which is soon to step out altogether – has been key in resisting, is the step towards a greater alignment and combined expenditure on defending the member states by creating a combined military force. Brexit has, in a somewhat unexpected benefit to the union, pushed this agenda forwards at pace without dissent. This is unsurprising once you get a handle on precisely how aware of the hybrid threat the EU is.
“Cyber-attacks are a growing concern worldwide – including for the European Union. Recent attacks experienced in different sectors require a coordinated response. While Member States remain in the front line for much of this work, the EU has an important role to play,” Kocijančič added. The change in unified position is now moving at some pace. “In this regard, we will update our Cybersecurity Strategy and reinforce the regulatory framework at EU level on cybersecurity,” she told me.
When it comes to hybrid threats, insofar as they relate to national security and defence – and the closely interwoven maintenance of law and order – the primary responsibility, according to the centralised parliament, also lies with individual EU member states. The union is very much alive to the fact that many of them face common threats, which can also target cross-border networks or infrastructures, so single country measures alone are unlikely to be effective.
“Such threats can be addressed more effectively with a coordinated response at EU level by using EU policies and instruments,” Kocijančič said, highlighting a deep and progressive understanding of the scale and nature of the issues faced and recognising the need for a more cohesive approach in the future. To this end, the Commission and the High Representative have already presented a unified communication entitled Joint Framework On Countering Hybrid Threats – A European Union Response, adopted in April 2016 just as Britain’s Brexit referendum campaigns officially began. Kocijančič explained the action taken after the framework was launched, telling me: “Finland established the Centre of Excellence for countering hybrid threats in April this year [2017]. While it is a Finnish national initiative, it constitutes a direct response to one of the twenty-two actionable proposals made in the Joint Communication.”
On the launch, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, who is also Vice-President of the European Commission, said: “As the European Union, we will grant our full support to Finland in driving the new Centre of Excellence for countering hybrid threats forward to a full operational capacity and in its future work in delivering expert strategic analysis on countering hybrid threats, which will contribute to security in Europe. The establishment of the Centre in Helsinki will further strengthen EU-NATO cooperation, particularly on one of the greatest challenges in today's world.” A coming change in the structure and functions of both the EU and NATO is highly indicated in this statement alone.
In total, nine nations signed the memorandum of understanding which brought the Centre into being. Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom and, somewhat surprisingly given the current situation, the United States. Other NATO and EU nations are expected, according to the nine, to join the Centre in the near future. While the European Union will not be a signatory to the memorandum of understanding between the various participating members states and allies, it has been invited to support the steering board with its expertise. As the Centre develops, the EU has openly stated its looks forward to “being able to develop a close working relationship, drawing in particular on the experience gained through the European Union Hybrid Fusion Centre that operates at a technical level in Brussels.” The Centre will engage in strategic level dialogue, research, training and consultations. It will also conduct practical training exercises aiming to improve readiness to counter hybrid threats. The purpose of the Centre is to raise awareness of hybrid threats and societies’ vulnerabilities which can be exploited in hybrid operations but the aim is also to help foster the resilience of democracies. Based as planned in Helsinki, the Centre brings together a network of experts from the participating countries and the initial annual budget was set low, at around one and a half million Euro. Half of the funding is covered by membership fees and the host country, Finland, provides the other half, covering the premises, telecommunications and, in part, human resources. It opened on the 11th of April 2017.
Things have moved forwards since the EU’s initial joint communication, and Finland is not the only concrete action to have been taken. “Cyber and hybrid threats are part of the new, important cooperation between the EU and NATO, agreed through a set of forty-two concrete proposals in seven different areas identified by the Joint Declaration signed in Warsaw,” Kocijančič told me. The EU has also put in place its own specialist division aimed at improving the EU's capacity to forecast, address and raise awareness of disinformation activities by external actors. There are no open questions as to who these actors are.
The EU STRATCOM (Strategic Communications) Task Force was set up specifically to address Russia's ongoing disinformation campaigns. From the outset one of the key focus areas was “analysing disinformation trends, explaining disinformation narratives and myth-busting.” They publish ongoing fact-checks under the banner of the Disinformation Review Team, which can also be found on Twitter.
Though the following of the scheme is still low – sitting under thirty thousand followers on Twitter versus the millions who follow the false reporting of the alt-right – the content the unit provides is exceptionally good and they don’t hold back from calling out Russia as the culprit of ongoing disinformation. In one example, a bulletin from mid-May 2017, STRATCOM, exploded one myth relating to Swedish doctors and the use of chemical weapons in Syria29. “As we have previously explained,” the bulletin begins, “Russian state-owned media regularly make use of international “experts” to give legitimacy to pro-Kremlin narratives, even if the experts are known as such only by pro-Kremlin media.”
During the weeks leading to the bulletin, STRATCOM analysts had identified the strategy in action once again, citing a little-known organisation from Sweden, “Swedish doctors for human rights” (Swedhr). It was virtually unknown in Sweden, or abroad, until the head of the organisation was cited by the Syrian delegation to the UN and by the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Mariya Zakharova. Russian and Syrian representatives used the organisation’s analysis of a two-year-old video as “evidence” that the chemical attacks in Syria were fake or false flag operations carried out by the NGO White Helmets. It transpires Amnesty International in Sweden, Human Rights Watch in Sweden, the Swedish Society of Medicine, and the Swedish Medical Association all say they had never heard of Swedhr, which describes itself as an “alternative NGO,” yet the head of the organisation is regularly cited in Russian state outlets such as RT (Russia Today).
In addition to the mystery of the source, nearly all of the outlets and representatives quoting the video as evidence for casting doubt on current chemical attacks in Syria omit the fact the video analysed by Swedhr was already two years old. STRATCOM, citing previous articles on Russian Syria narrative, conclude the bulletin by saying “during several interviews in Russian state media (RT among others), the head of Swedhr, who is a retired doctor of psychiatry and public health, gives supposedly expert opinions on who is behind the chemical attacks in Syria, in line with the pro-Kremlin narrative on Syria.”
The role of Swedhr, which was founded in 2015, has also been covered by Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, which concluded Swedhr pursues a clear agenda in its narratives, such as statements the Ukraine is governed by fascists and the Swedish mainstream medi
a (among them Dagens Nyheter) are Russophobes. “These are common pro-Kremlin narratives,” STRATCOM confirms.
The diversity of Russian-led strategic disinformation is astonishing and deeply disturbing. I discovered the CIA has provided rather detailed analysis on one Russian outlet, Russia Today30. RT’s Editor in Chief, Margarita Simonyan, has close ties to top Russian Government officials, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. Especially, they say, to Presidential Administration Deputy Chief of Staff Aleksey Gromov, who reportedly manages political TV coverage in Russia and is one of the founders of RT. She was also on Putin's 2012 presidential election campaign staff. Simonyan has claimed Gromov shielded her from other officials and their requests to air certain reports, and Russian media consider Simonyan to be Gromov's protégé. (She replaced Gromov on state-owned Channel One's Board of Directors.)
Government officials, including Gromov and Putin's Press Secretary Peskov, were involved in creating RT and appointing Simonyan, according to the CIA report. Gromov oversees political coverage on broadcast media on behalf of the Russian state, and has periodic meetings with media managers – where he shares classified information and discusses, or possibly directs, their coverage plans. Some opposition journalists, including Andrey Loshak, claim he has also ordered media attacks on opposition figures. The Kremlin, the CIA states, not only staffs RT but closely supervises the coverage it provides, specifically recruiting people who can convey Russian strategic messaging because of their ideological beliefs. This extends beyond “alternative NGOs” like Swedhr, and includes even British political figures, Nigel Farage being a specific case in point. The structure of RT also confirms additional links between Farage and the upper echelons of the Kremlin, which makes sense of a lot more I uncovered while investigating this rather intricate web. According to Simonyan, the Russian Government sets rating and viewership requirements for RT and, “since RT receives budget from the state, it must complete tasks given by the state.” Tasking is a specific indicator of espionage connections and this deepens when you consider additional factors. For example, the head of RT's Arabic-language service, Aydar Aganin, was rotated from the diplomatic service to manage RT's Arabic-language expansion, suggesting a close relationship between RT and Russia's foreign policy apparatus. And, in addition, RT's London Bureau is managed by Darya Pushkova, the daughter of Aleksey Pushkov, the current chair of the Duma Russian Foreign Affairs Committee.
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