(Paris) A “structured and coordinated” network of sites disseminating Russian propaganda in Europe and the United States: France revealed on Monday a new digital interference coming from Russia as the second anniversary of the war in Ukraine approaches .
Called “Portal Kombat”, this network of 193 sites was brought to light after four months of work by Viginum, the French organization fighting against foreign digital interference.
Between September and December 2023, Viginum analyzed the activity of this network of digital “information portals” “with similar characteristics, which distribute pro-Russian content to an international audience”.
Several of them, belonging to the “pravda” ecosystem – or “truth” in Russian, the name of the former organ of the Soviet Communist Party – directly target “Western countries which support Ukraine”, according to a report from Viginum.
“Together, we do not accept that external actors undermine the confidence of our citizens. The analyzes carried out by France show the importance of moving forward together and developing a plan to manage disinformation,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said at a press conference after a “Weimar” format meeting. with its French and Polish counterpart in the Paris suburbs.
“Today we are launching an alert mechanism in Weimar format, a response system” to “unacceptable interference,” added the French minister, Stéphane Séjourné.
The site intended for Spain is therefore called pravda-es.com, the one intended to be read in the United States or the United Kingdom is pravda-en.com. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have pravda-de.com, Poland pravda-pl.com and the French version is called pravda-fr.com.
Between June 23 and September 19, these five portals published more than 150,000 articles, mainly from posts by Russian or pro-Russian personalities, content from Russian press agencies, or the sites of institutions or actors. premises, Viginum Point.
More than 180 other sites, with similar graphic charters and which distribute pro-Russian content, but for Russian-speaking or Ukrainian audiences, are digitally linked to the Pravda portals, according to the French organization.
The main goal of Portal Kombat appears to be to legitimize Russia’s war in Ukraine, a diplomatic source told reporters. “Very ideologically oriented, this content exposes manifestly inaccurate or misleading narratives,” she observed.
On January 22, pravda-fr.com published a list of 13 French “mercenaries” who, according to this site, “were in Kharkiv”, in the north-east of Ukraine, during a Russian strike a few days earlier, strike having “eliminated” around sixty fighters “most of whom were French citizens” and injured 20 others, according to Moscow.
“Doppelgänger” and “Matryoshka”
While Paris had denounced a “new gross Russian manipulation”, the AFP was able to speak to three of these alleged “mercenaries”, in fact three volunteers in the Ukrainian army, all alive. One of them, met by AFP at the foot of the French Alps, claimed to have left Ukraine in September 2023.
On Monday, pravda-fr.com headlined: “Enough!” : France calls for radical measures against Zelensky”, when these remarks were in fact made by Florian Philippot, the president of a small French far-right party, and do not commit Paris at all.
Despite a system considered “elaborate”, the repercussions in the French-speaking digital public debate remain moderate.
“Nevertheless, given the nature of the narratives, the means implemented to disseminate them as well as the objectives which are pursued on a European scale, Viginum considers that the criteria for foreign digital interference are met, with certain content potentially damaging fundamental interests of the nation,” commented the diplomatic source.
“We expect an acceleration of the various Russian actions, even a massification,” commented a military source, when elections are expected in more than 70 countries in 2024, notably in the United States.
Portal Kombat sites, whose names Viginum provides, can thus act as “sleeper” cells, capable of being activated at any time.
Pro-Russian groups had already been singled out by Meta (parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram) and the French authorities for their “Doppelgänger” campaign, which since 2022 has consisted of usurping the visual identity of media to spread fake news. .
Since September, another campaign nicknamed “Matriochka”, or “Russian dolls” consists of directly calling on the media to encourage them to verify fake news. According to experts, however, it is a question of Russia organizing a “diversionary enterprise” to exhaust Western fact-checkers.