I’ll explain the weapons of Russian disinformation

19 June 20222 years ago babelfish

That's what the Kremlin's propaganda is aiming for. The analysis by Marco Mayer, professor at the LUISS Master in Cybersecurity and former advisor to the Minister of the Interior for Cybersecurity

The declassification of the document on Russian disinformation decided by President Draghi was an excellent choice, and I hope it will set a precedent for the future as well. The full text clarifies that it is a physiological and necessary monitoring of the open sources to see the trends and reconstruct the meaning of the flows and related messages. Here is the link to read the confidential document .

If you read it carefully, it clearly emerges that it is very different from the text of the Corriere della Sera article which alludes to ban lists. Among other things, he mentions only two people. Excerpts of the document were connected by the Courier with a list of names to credit – in good or bad faith – the false scoop of the alleged witch hunt was drawn up by the Courier.

Declassification helps to clarify responsibilities and transparency. To understand: the material that must remain truly confidential is limited, therefore a declassification can clear the field of many more or less sincere misunderstandings. More open and flexible intelligence is also more effective.

Whoever conceived the operation wanted to hit two birds with one stone, to use a simple expression: government policies and Copasir. The latter in recent years under the presidencies of Guerini, Volpi and Urso has undoubtedly put very sensitive issues on the agenda: energy dependence on Russia and digital dependence on China, glaring flaws in the Golden Power regulations, systemic vulnerabilities in the PA, excessive opening of the Italian banking system to autocracies, disinformation in the no vax field, vaccines and pandemics, failure of the Immuni app, etc.

Sometimes it is necessary to affix a classification of confidentiality in order not to put in difficulty (much less in danger) some of the people mentioned. But as it happens in other democratic countries, for the press and for public opinion it is fine even if, by declassifying, some names are deleted out of prudence. Another fundamental aspect is to make a qualitative leap in IT management, it would be enough to copy the CIA which with its reading room makes access to a vast range of declassified material fast and easy. Many valuable documents can be accessed within minutes.

Franco Gabrielli stated that whoever sent the "bulletin" reserved for the newspaper will be identified and punished. He is right: unfortunately this is not the first time this has happened, but it is an unacceptable leak of news.

This time the damage was very serious.

The origin may not be just domestic. It could be a typical textbook operation of Russian misdirection and disinformation techniques. While the Russians with missiles and artillery raze entire towns of Ukraine to the ground and kill thousands of civilians, the idea that Italy is undergoing a witch hunt against dissent and against independent journalists is credited. Are we kidding?

I immediately tried to highlight the serious risk of a delegitimization or, worse, a ridicule of Copasir . Indeed, the Committee has a very important role in our democratic parliamentary regime. I must say that the entire Parliamentary Committee reacted immediately, promptly and effectively. The President Adolfo Urso, during an episode of the “Porta a Porta” show, reconstructed the passages of this bad story with great clarity.

Of course, little can be done with those who operate in bad faith. Because some newspapers have reiterated the accusations as if nothing had been clarified, even going so far as to talk about McCarthyism. Furthermore, as already mentioned, an attempt was made to delegitimize Copasir and in particular its president, also on a personal level.

Even the first statements of Undersecretary Gabrielli were not taken up by those who did not want to hear and there was continued talk of "blacklisted", ignoring the facts and all the documented and authoritative denials.

With a joke I would say that a part of the media almost seems to have wanted to agree with Putin or the Chinese when they declare that freedom and democracy do not exist and are only a Western fiction. A shameful campaign that unfortunately was able to count on some Trojan horses. To combat the challenges of disinformation and the related campaigns of influence, it is first of all necessary to defend and promote maximum freedom of expression.

I recommend reading a very nice book, Defending my enemy , written by a person I have known for years and whom I respect very much, Aryeh Neier: it is a book that I really recommend, because it concerns the defense of the views of a neo-Nazi in a well-known United States court case.

Another important activity is to tell citizens how disinformation processes work, clarifying well why they are an integral part of that war that we define as hybrid (whether military or commercial). These processes cannot be reduced to just fake news which are a small piece of a much more complex mosaic.

A widespread mistake is to make public opinion believe that misinformation and hoaxes coincide. Here are two concrete examples. China has implemented a series of messages, minimizing and omissive communications to the WHO and media manipulations to make Chinese citizens and the whole world forget the serious omissions and censorships related to the initial phase of the pandemic. For about 80 days (from November 2019 to the last week of January 2020) the authorities allowed millions and millions of unsuspecting people to fly from Wuhan International Airport to all kinds of destinations.

Another school case is the complex of actions carried out by Russia to promote the great virtues of its Sputnik vaccine which, however, was not even authorized by the WHO. I would avoid – for the ongoing investigations – talking about some Spallanzani researchers and their favorable public statements …

For years, Russia and China have been building real narratives at the table which they then try to convey through a plurality of channels, as happened with support for the NoVax movements. It is not difficult to trace the sources of disinformation. The confidential document received by the Courier and then declassified indicates the specific methods relating to how the narratives originate, for example, on dedicated Telegram channels (messages produced and promoted by entities linked by the Russian Federation).

As regards China, on the other hand, a very penetrating campaign was carried out (and with significant complicity also in our country), in order to grab a very large share as regards digital technologies and telecommunications in our country.

For Chinese companies, the operation was quite expensive due to the advertising budgets used and the use of influential Italian public relations agencies. But by moving in this way – and pretending to be champion of the free market – China has been able to develop (like Russia in the energy market) a capillary penetration in our country, especially in mobile 5G and broadband fiber.

If you do not insert the single fake news in this strategic framework you do not understand the true meaning of hybrid operations. When a TV knows it can count on very substantial advertising funding, it is not at all easy to remain impartial. Without a broad spectrum analysis of disinformation strategies and methodologies, chasing individual hoaxes is of little use …

As far as narratives are concerned, a very complex and articulated study has been carried out a few years ago, to give another example of disinformation, by some Russian think tanks on the NATO question. An attempt has been made to credit the thesis that the West's most serious mistake would have been that of not having dissolved NATO in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. A story that was conveyed in a karstic way inside and outside the Russian Federation with a plurality of academic and non-academic tools. Little by little, the narrative on the alleged uselessness of NATO came to light and we took up the discourse – albeit in different versions – by various personalities. For example, I remember that of a valuable historian like Paolo Mieli.

The Atlantic Alliance is a rather effective defensive tool. It is obvious that illiberal regimes try to delegitimize it. History is not made with the ifs, but if Ukraine had joined NATO, the Russian tanks would not have dared to cross the borders. The refusal to let it in 15 years ago is due to the energy choices of numerous European countries, primarily Germany, but also Italy. The major supplier of gas and oil was not disappointed and the consequences were seen first in Crimea and today in Ukraine.

The Russians were very skilled in delegitimizing the American alerts that had been issued publicly and in a confidential manner for several months. Not even the political leaders of Ukraine believed that the United States had reliable sources and analyzes on the Kremlin's moves and the decision to invade Ukraine.

No one is speaking the basic truth out loud yet: the Ukrainian people are also fighting for our freedom. The stakes are very high in terms of ethics and the values of the rule of law. Freedom of expression must be total, God forbid. But also the freedom to counter and denounce ambiguities and hypocrisies. It really hurts to see some politicians, like Salvini and Conte, who, by a handful of votes in the next election, try to block military supplies to the Ukrainian army. It is a gift that the Putin regime just does not deserve.

I would add that some of Matteo Salvini's behaviors represent a real enigma for me. I am not talking about the League nor do I enter into the merits of political positions, but precisely about behaviors that are difficult to understand. I indicate three specific cases. In the first week of July 2018, as soon as he arrived at the Viminale, he blocked (because he had saved a few dozen migrants) the operation of an Irish military ship – the Samuel Beckett – of the EU Sofia Mission. The ship had on board sophisticated intelligence units and units to combat large-scale organized crime. If I'm not mistaken, Europol was also involved. From that moment everything was blocked for months and months just as an unprecedented and relevant EU and NATO naval air cooperation in the Mediterranean was starting.

A second case is the visits (not at all hidden) to the ambassador of the Russian Federation in Rome during the Ukrainian crisis. Salvini did not want to reveal anything about the specific contents he talked about, deliberately generating curious and inevitable suspicions. Finally, the communiqué from the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Italy. Salvini's flight tickets to Moscow (later canceled) were paid / advanced by the Russian government …

A lightness of a newly appointed Minister of the Interior can also be understood, but this persevering in erratic behavior is strange. It almost seems that the leader of the League wants to show that he can afford everything… Isn't that so?

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/propaganda-russia-destabilizzazione-italia/ on Sat, 18 Jun 2022 07:00:14 +0000.