Russian disinfo isn't only online
February 22, 2025 4:49 AM Subscribe
Vandals-for-hire are becoming key to Russia's disinformation war. Russia is recruiting low-budget saboteurs to carry out vandalism across Europe to stoke division in an attempt to destabilise the West, using an army of online bots to spread their messages. Ahead of the European elections and the 2024 Paris Olympics, it was believed to be behind multiple incidents of hybrid warfare in France. Now Germany is being targeted in order to stir hatred of the pro-Ukraine Greens party and hurt their election chances in the final weeks of the election campaign.
Well they have been shut out from playing in international hockey tournaments so I'm sure it's a matter of days till Putin caves
posted by ginger.beef at 8:25 AM on February 22
posted by ginger.beef at 8:25 AM on February 22
We've had a hell of a lot more fires in Poland than usual, too.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:48 AM on February 22
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:48 AM on February 22
I have believed for a long time that Russia was/is largely behind the very unCanadian 'Fuck Trudeau' nonsense, the widespread narrative that he 'ruined' Canada and the unlikely popular support for smarmy, cowardly Pierre Poilievre who has the charisma of a worm. I wish Russian interference was treated more seriously - not that there is policy that could stop it, but the public ought to be aware. Instead, you say these things and get treated like a conspiracy theorist.
posted by kitcat at 9:11 AM on February 22 [19 favorites]
posted by kitcat at 9:11 AM on February 22 [19 favorites]
Thorzdad While I agree, I also have to ask what else is a possible response given their vast nuclear arsenal precludes direct military action.
They're already subject to massive sanctions by everyone but their allies and China. Trump is relaxing the US sanctions, so in theory those could be restored if we can get a better President, but the non-military channels of retaliation are mostly already in place if for reasons other than this.
Maybe we could get the West to cut them off from the internet? Which would almost certainly result in undersea cables being cut by Russian subs.
Russia's atomic weapons are the big stopper here. Without those someone would probably have sent a few dozen cruise missiles their way and told them to knock it off.
I have no idea what the actual solution is, short of MI6 sending James Bond over to assassinate Putin or something equally drastic.
posted by sotonohito at 12:45 PM on February 22
They're already subject to massive sanctions by everyone but their allies and China. Trump is relaxing the US sanctions, so in theory those could be restored if we can get a better President, but the non-military channels of retaliation are mostly already in place if for reasons other than this.
Maybe we could get the West to cut them off from the internet? Which would almost certainly result in undersea cables being cut by Russian subs.
Russia's atomic weapons are the big stopper here. Without those someone would probably have sent a few dozen cruise missiles their way and told them to knock it off.
I have no idea what the actual solution is, short of MI6 sending James Bond over to assassinate Putin or something equally drastic.
posted by sotonohito at 12:45 PM on February 22
Mod note: Comment and response removed. Saying Russians are "as an irredeemable people, inherently dishonest and lack in any worthwile characteristics" is just flat out hateful, which means it goes against the Content Policy. Don't do that on this website.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:47 PM on February 22 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:47 PM on February 22 [2 favorites]
I have no idea what the actual solution is
It's the platforms: Google, Bing, X, Facebook, etc. need to know there's a steep price to pay for allowing disinformation to spread.
France took a step forward by arresting Pavel Durov, the owner of Telegram several months ago, and the EU had put together a Digital Services Act (DSA), specifically, to create a safer online environment. They were talking about using it against Musk for his British and German election interference ... but by then he'd already interfered in the US election, and now he's trolling them about it.
posted by Violet Blue at 6:39 PM on February 22 [4 favorites]
It's the platforms: Google, Bing, X, Facebook, etc. need to know there's a steep price to pay for allowing disinformation to spread.
France took a step forward by arresting Pavel Durov, the owner of Telegram several months ago, and the EU had put together a Digital Services Act (DSA), specifically, to create a safer online environment. They were talking about using it against Musk for his British and German election interference ... but by then he'd already interfered in the US election, and now he's trolling them about it.
posted by Violet Blue at 6:39 PM on February 22 [4 favorites]
They're already subject to massive sanctions by everyone but their allies and China.
They really aren't, though. The sanctions have never gone after the Russian energy sector, and they are de facto a petro-state. Both the US and Europe have conspicuously avoided actually hitting Russia where it would really hurt their economy, because doing so would require actual sacrifice by the West.
Until very recently, Russian gas still flowed through Ukraine at the behest of Ukraine's allies. The Russian "shadow fleet" of oil tankers still traverses the world's oceans. The Ukrainians have been prohibited from using Western weapons—the only weapons that could effectively and with precision destroy—on Russian energy infrastructure. And the banking system still allows cold, hard cash to flow back to Russia in exchange for their oil and gas.
The sanctions regime is a farce and always has been. Ukrainians are literally dying and losing territory in order to keep the heat on in Western Europe, and keep gas cheap in the US. And the Ukrainians know it.
While I suspect that the Zelenskyy government will eventually sign some sort of awful, one-sided mineral-rights deal with Trump, if they are smart—and they certainly have experience dealing with terrible self-interested politico-oligarchs, and probably much nastier ones than Trump at that—they do have some cards to play. One of those is to threaten go out in a blaze of glory and take as much Russian energy infrastructure as they can with them in the process. It might not be enough to stop their annihilation at the hands of Putin, but they could almost certainly drive the price of oil and gas through the roof, and that's something Trump probably does care about, insofar as it might adversely affect his political survival and thus his ability to continue to enrich himself.
On the other side of the coin, if they sign a deal that appears to give Trump everything that he wants, his wanton cupiditas might overwhelm the geopolitical considerations that caused his predecessors to keep the Ukrainians fighting with soft gloves. Perhaps they can extract some strategically-useful concessions in the process, like fewer restrictions on HIMARS targets, or a gentlemen's agreement not to look too hard at any Russian tankers that might suddenly start springing catastrophic leaks, or to let their intelligence services start playing hardball against Russian interests globally. Ukraine has, up until this point, been forced to fight what amounts to a very clean war against an extremely dirty enemy, at risk of alienating their allies. But if the US doesn't care about those sort of rules anymore, and the Europeans aren't offering the same level of conventional military support, a valid trade for Ukraine might be to stop concerning themselves with them. The Russian oligarch class has a vast, poorly-defended underbelly of assets around the globe—principally in Africa, and some even in erstwhile Western allies like Egypt—that have been conspicuously free from Ukrainian targeting. I don't think we actually know what an all-out greyzone war looks like, but it could be what Trump is basically pushing the Ukrainians into.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:11 PM on February 22 [7 favorites]
They really aren't, though. The sanctions have never gone after the Russian energy sector, and they are de facto a petro-state. Both the US and Europe have conspicuously avoided actually hitting Russia where it would really hurt their economy, because doing so would require actual sacrifice by the West.
Until very recently, Russian gas still flowed through Ukraine at the behest of Ukraine's allies. The Russian "shadow fleet" of oil tankers still traverses the world's oceans. The Ukrainians have been prohibited from using Western weapons—the only weapons that could effectively and with precision destroy—on Russian energy infrastructure. And the banking system still allows cold, hard cash to flow back to Russia in exchange for their oil and gas.
The sanctions regime is a farce and always has been. Ukrainians are literally dying and losing territory in order to keep the heat on in Western Europe, and keep gas cheap in the US. And the Ukrainians know it.
While I suspect that the Zelenskyy government will eventually sign some sort of awful, one-sided mineral-rights deal with Trump, if they are smart—and they certainly have experience dealing with terrible self-interested politico-oligarchs, and probably much nastier ones than Trump at that—they do have some cards to play. One of those is to threaten go out in a blaze of glory and take as much Russian energy infrastructure as they can with them in the process. It might not be enough to stop their annihilation at the hands of Putin, but they could almost certainly drive the price of oil and gas through the roof, and that's something Trump probably does care about, insofar as it might adversely affect his political survival and thus his ability to continue to enrich himself.
On the other side of the coin, if they sign a deal that appears to give Trump everything that he wants, his wanton cupiditas might overwhelm the geopolitical considerations that caused his predecessors to keep the Ukrainians fighting with soft gloves. Perhaps they can extract some strategically-useful concessions in the process, like fewer restrictions on HIMARS targets, or a gentlemen's agreement not to look too hard at any Russian tankers that might suddenly start springing catastrophic leaks, or to let their intelligence services start playing hardball against Russian interests globally. Ukraine has, up until this point, been forced to fight what amounts to a very clean war against an extremely dirty enemy, at risk of alienating their allies. But if the US doesn't care about those sort of rules anymore, and the Europeans aren't offering the same level of conventional military support, a valid trade for Ukraine might be to stop concerning themselves with them. The Russian oligarch class has a vast, poorly-defended underbelly of assets around the globe—principally in Africa, and some even in erstwhile Western allies like Egypt—that have been conspicuously free from Ukrainian targeting. I don't think we actually know what an all-out greyzone war looks like, but it could be what Trump is basically pushing the Ukrainians into.
posted by Kadin2048 at 11:11 PM on February 22 [7 favorites]
Instead, you say these things and get treated like a conspiracy theorist.
If you have intuition, use it, because most people are slow in that department, usually in denial. "Worst" case is that you accuse an evil person of doing a crime they were still planning, perhaps now foiled.
posted by Brian B. at 8:12 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]
If you have intuition, use it, because most people are slow in that department, usually in denial. "Worst" case is that you accuse an evil person of doing a crime they were still planning, perhaps now foiled.
posted by Brian B. at 8:12 AM on February 23 [3 favorites]
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posted by Thorzdad at 6:37 AM on February 22 [13 favorites]