France had revealed an enormous Russian campaign whose aim was to undermine Western support for Ukraine, reported the French state agency Viginum, whose purpose is to fight foreign digital interference.
“Engaging Russian embassies and cultural centres that were actively involved in reinforcing this campaign, including through the official social network profiles is just another illustration of the hybrid strategy applied by Russia to subvert the conditions for democratic debate” reflected the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna.
According to the report of the Agency, the campaign consisted of disseminating pro-Russian contents, imitating popular French media such as “Mond”, “Figaro” and “Le Parisien”, as well as governmental websites, including those of the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France; creating websites for francophone news with polarizing opinions, coordinating false profiles for spreading created contents.
The disinformation campaign was called “Hope – Latest News”, according to the pro-Russian website.
This is the second wave of the so-called Doppelgänger operation debunked last year by EU DisinfoLab and Meta.
Although Russia Today and Sputnik were blocked, Russian disinformation is still spreading in the EU through media funded by Kremlin.
The basic thesis of the disinformation campaign is the inefficient sanctions against Russia, the assumed Russo-phobia of the Western countries; the alleged dominance of Nazi ideology of Ukrainian functionary; and the negative consequences from accepting Ukrainian refugees by the European countries.
In 2021, France established the Agency Viginum for debunking manipulations with information coming from the outside. The Agency is under the leadership of the General Secretary for Defence and Security.
