Tag: Russia

Disinformation and psychological interference, cyber-attacks, emerging disruptive technologies, sabotage, election interference, economic interference, instrumentalization of migration – these are just part of the issues the Hybrid Center of Excellence at countering hybrid threats is dealing with. The Head of International relations at the Hybrid CoE, Tapio Pyysalo talks about the scope of their work, the vulnerabilities of the Western...

The war in Ukraine, which began in 2014 with Russia's annexation of Crimea and escalated in 2022 with the invasion of the entire territory of Ukraine, started on the orders of the supreme commander of the Russian army, President Vladimir Putin. Joe Biden and the "deep state" certainly did not plan, prepare, or order the invasion, as claimed in...

The Russian Embassy in North Macedonia is marking the anniversaries of Macedonian  historical figures on their social media platforms. This comes off as highly unusual and inappropriate for two reasons. Firstly, it is the Embassy’s job to promote its own country, not ours. Secondly, Russia has helped not helped any of those historical figures in any way. The Russian...

The headline of the article says that “a coup has taken place in Kyiv and Zelenskyy is no longer in charge.” This claim is attributed to Iversen. Truthmeter found the connection among her statements and their dissemination in Russia where she is presented as a “journalist”. The fact that Zelenskyy changed the commander of the Joint Forces of the...

A new study by an international team of fact-checkers, led by Maldita.es, traced the path of Russian disinformation about Zelensky, his family, and those in his inner circle. The disinformation traveled from fake news portals and small YouTube channels, through X profiles (formerly Twitter), to RT and Russian embassies around the world, writes Truthmeter.mk. Under the content-sharing agreement between Truthmeter.mk...

Bloomberg published recent insights from documents revealing that Russian agent Artem Kureyev led a Russian influence campaign in Europe, managing to contact the Macedonian Darko Todorovski. They agreed on a payment of 300 Euros to write articles in two publications. Their correspondence included instructions for disseminating the articles in Russian and English translations on proxy websites such as londonnewstime.com...

A Facebook post, responding negatively to the fact that Ukraine and Moldova received recommendations for starting EU accession talks, expresses mixed: personal opinions, which the author is fully entitled to express; some undisputable facts, which, of course, are legitimate; but also tendentious silence thereby depriving the public of the entire context of the situation; and even blatant lies that...

The pro-Russian post aims to justify the military invasion of Russia in Ukraine. Presenting Ukraine as the land of the Nazis is a false propaganda platitude that Russian President Vladimir Putin used to justify the military invasion he started on the 24th of February 2022, completely unprovoked. The term “special military operation” is also a propagandistic phrase created by...

It is disinformation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy bought a casino and a hotel in Cyprus through his offshore company. High political representatives from Cyprus confirm the lack of evidence, while the site that initially published the “news”, deleted it afterward, writes Truthmeter.mk. Under the content-sharing agreement between Truthmeter.mk and Meta.mk, we republish the text in full below: We are fact-checking...

The post claims with no basis in fact that the Poles “are preparing for direct battle” against the Russians, while the latter are “ready and waiting”, suggesting that Poland would attack first. To support the claim, the post shares footage of а convoy of trucks transporting tanks, thereby leaving the impression that the Poles will attack the Russians with...

The Russian Embassy in Skopje congratulated our citizens on the holiday “Ss. Cyril and Methodius”, generally describing them as Slav educators. The greetings of the Russian Embassy in Sofia, however, described them as Bulgarian, which was not accepted well in our country. The Russian Embassy in Athens, on the other hand, calls us “Skopya” behind our backs, and while...

A shabby narrative that even Putin doesn’t use anymore is persistently repeated about NATO wanting to control Ukraine so that it can install hypersonic missiles that could hit Moscow within 4-5 minutes leaving it incapacitated to respond promptly. That justifies the Russian aggression in Ukraine, but it makes no sense – several of Russia’s neighbors are already NATO members,...

Starting in 2022 the EU banned several Russian media outlets, then on the 17th of May 2024 another four outlets were added to this list, which is completely justified. Unfortunately, disinformation has a rich tradition in Russia, dating back to the time of the czars, continuing in the USSR, and persisting under Putin’s leadership. He has stifled media freedoms...

Pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives blaming Ukraine and the West for the attempted assassination of Slovak Prime-minister, Robert Fico, recall the same accusations related to the terrorist attack of City Hall Crocus in Moscow, which Truthmeter already covered. These unsubstantiated disinformation stories are part of a wider campaign of Russian official representatives and media, including Putin himself, to blame Ukraine, NATO,...

On the 16th of April, the Kremlin published a report on a telephone conversation between President Vladimir Putin and the then-President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, regarding the conflict between Iran and Israel, claiming that the Russian President called for a ceasefire. The Kremlin statement, as reported by Reuters, noted that “Putin called upon all parties in the Middle East...

Lawyers specialized in Constitutional law said to the “Kyiv Independent” that extending Zelenskyy’s term is legal and in accordance with the Constitution of Ukraine. Due to the martial law introduced when Putin sent tens of thousands of troops to Ukraine in February 2022, elections will not be organized when Zelenskyy’s term technically expires on 20 May. The martial law...

Russian Army is somewhat advancing, but not on all fronts – mainly in the Donetsk region – while Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, informs about taking over villages such as Bogdanovka, Novomihailovka and Pervomaiskoe, which is not much of a spectacular success for a superpower. Even today Russia does not have control over the entire Donetsk region (for example...

The militant group Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack in Moscow. On the day of the attack – the 23rd of March – ISIS published a photograph of four attackers. On the 24th of March, however, ISIS released a video of the attack at the concert hall. The video, confirmed to be real by the BBC, shows...

Putin’s regime is using the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) for spreading influence in Orthodox countries. The ROC  is exerting enormous pressure on other churches and preventing the recognition of autocephaly status the Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC). By means of intelligence actions, Russian priests are recruiting members of the clergy all over the local Balkan churches, writes Truthmeter.mk in the...

Initially, I thought that the goal of the Russian influence operations was to create a kind of sympathy for the Russian regime and Russian ideology. But their main target now is simply to create more chaos inside the neighboring countries in order to kind of make us look the other way into our internal problems and stop supporting Ukraine...