Russia Using COVID-19 Disinformation, Conspiracy Theories to “Subvert the West”: Repot
The European Union’s External Action Service reports almost 80 incidents of disinformation since the end of January. However, Russia has a more insidious goal than merely disseminating propaganda for the sake of it. President Vladimir Putin, who has labelled the fall of the Soviet Union nearly 30 years ago as “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century, is determined to show the international community that Russia is no longer the weak creature it was post-Soviet collapse.
Putin’s larger goal in spreading propaganda and conspiracy theories is to subvert the West. Russia seeks to seriously damage the solidarity among EU members and capitalize on any internal European weaknesses to promote broader conflicts. COVID-19 is seen as an ideal way for Russia to deal a powerful blow not only to the EU, but to inflict damage on the ties between Europe and its North American allies.
The purposes behind all these machinations are plain. Moscow wants revenge on the West for the economic sanctions imposed on Russia for its incursions into Crimea and Ukraine. Moscow also views the virus as a fortuitous harbinger of the end of the postCold War liberal world order. The new leaders to emerge from this liberal collapse, according to this view, will be Russia and China. Indeed, Russia is seeking to strengthen its ties with China, as well as with Iran, and the danger is that other rogue states could join this new configuration.
The U.S. State Department has already taken some action against the onslaught of disinformation originating with the Russians, and Canada needs to follow its example. However, the average citizen has a role to play too, by refusing to buy into information that comes from such spurious sources as Russia Today or Sputnik. Canadians’ key source of information about COVID-19 should be federal and provincial governments and Canadian authorities. People should cast a very jaundiced eye at tweets, Facebook postings and other information they find on dubious social media sites.
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Conclusion: The Main Challenges
North America and the EU have responded to Russia’s disinformation onslaught. The EU’s External Action Service (EAS) reports there have been almost 80 incidents of disinformation about the coronavirus since Jan. 22. Reuters reported on March 18 that one EAS document stated that: “[T]he overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries … in line with the Kremlin’s broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies” (Emmott 2020). Similarly, the U.S. State Department has stepped up its actions against Russia’s disinformation efforts (Taylor 2020).
Two elements, however, should be taken into consideration. First, the Russians use a broad array of tools to spread disinformation, including social media accounts, fake news outlets, state-controlled global satellite media, bloggers, pseudo-scientists and the use of Western “scholars”, “experts” and public figures, whose participation adds credibility to these fake stories. Given its experience in dealing with Russian challenges in Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia and other places, the West is equipped to deal with these issues.
The second and much more daunting challenge for the West is a new reality that is taking shape. Specifically, Moscow seems to be strengthening ties with Beijing and Tehran (Rosbalt 2020), and this could potentially include other rogue states.
Canadian citizens and policy-makers can effectively confront the array of disinformation in two ways. First, Canadians should primarily rely on information emanating from Canada’s official authorities – not outlets such as RT or Sputnik, which Russia and other actors use to promote false and misleading narratives. However, the existence of Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms could complicate this. The Canadian government must take a tougher stance on platforms/agencies operating in Canadian information space and deliberately sowing panic or discord among the population.
