Canada’s electronic espionage agency is warning that Russian state-backed actors are seeding online disinformation around the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.
While the news comes as no surprise to those familiar with Russian information warfare tactics, publicly releasing an assessment based on classified intelligence gathering is an unusual step for the Communications Security Establishment.
“Since Russia’s brazen and unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine, we have observed numerous Russia-backed disinformation campaigns online designed to support their actions,” the agency wrote in a series of tweets Friday morning.
The CSE specified the alleged disinformation storylines: that Ukrainian authorities were harvesting organs from fallen soldiers and civilians, and that Russian troops were only attacking military targets in their “special operation” on Ukrainian soil.
The agency also identified, “Russia’s efforts to promote stories that falsely categorize Russian protesters and citizens opposed to invasion as supporting neo-Nazis and genocide.”
The CSE said it is sharing the intelligence to help Canadians protect themselves from Russian disinformation, which is spread on social media and with the aid of pseudo-journalists and less reputable websites.
Russia and Ukraine have been waging an information war alongside the kinetic battles in Ukrainian urban centres and countryside. Global’s Ashleigh Stewart documented how both sides are attempting to control the flow of information and shape the narrative around the invasion, which Canada and its allies have labeled unprovoked and illegal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have sought to spread false narratives of Ukraine being run by “Nazis,” pushed conspiracy theories about U.S.-backed bioweapon labs on Ukrainian territory, and spread disinformation about the purpose of what they call a “special military operation” that has killed thousands and displaced millions of Ukrainians.
The Kremlin’s narratives have found willing audiences with Russian state-controlled media, but also with some right-wing media outlets in the West – most notably, Fox News.
But the Ukrainian government has also attempted to control information and shape the war’s narrative – particularly in western countries they rely on for the weapons and resources required to defend the country. Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy has been omnipresent since the invasion started, making video appeals to western governments and rallying his people to the country’s defence.
While the CSE’s intervention Friday was rare – Canadian intelligence agencies don’t typically share intelligence publicly, outside of the occasional carefully scripted official report – western spy agencies have increasingly releasing their assessments of the war’s progress publicly. The daily reports from the U.K.’s intelligence services add ammunition to the information war. American intelligence agencies publicly predicted the war’s outbreak, as Russian troops began to mass on the Ukrainian border.