EU accuses Russia of trying to 'sow panic and fear' in the West

Illustration: CNN

The EU's external action agency, which researches and combats online disinformation, said in an internal report that since January 22 it has recorded nearly 80 cases of disinformation about the Covid-19 epidemic linked to pro-Kremlin media.

“The overall goal of the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign is to exacerbate the public health crisis in Western countries, in particular by undermining public trust in national health care systems – thereby preventing an effective response to the outbreak,” the report said.

The report, dated March 16, said the campaign was “aimed at exaggerating confusion, panic and fear.” It said pro-Kremlin media outlets have been working to amplify a series of often contradictory narratives, “hijacking” information space in order to limit the EU’s ability to act in its own interests.

When asked to comment on these allegations, in a call with reporters on March 18, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied them, calling the accusations “baseless” and “Russophobia.”

“If this document contained at least one specific example, and a link to some specific media outlet, then I could say something concrete,” Peskov said. “This kind of Russophobia in the current situation would have been better to somehow disappear, but it clearly does not,” he added.

The EU report notes that pro-Kremlin media are not producing most of the disinformation themselves, but instead “are simply amplifying theories originating elsewhere.”

It added that Russian state media network RT Spanish was the 12th most popular source on Facebook, Twitter and Reddit when it came to coronavirus.

Much of the disinformation promoted by pro-Kremlin media claims that the virus was man-made and “weaponized” by Western countries. This disinformation is aimed at international audiences in English, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, as well as Russian and other languages, according to the report.

European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said the centre had seen a “tornado” of misinformation about the spread of the new coronavirus in recent weeks.

“EEAS Stratcom has increased its monitoring of information flows and their sources, and has publicly identified, exposed and raised awareness of coronavirus-related disinformation spread by Russian sources,” Stano said.

Also according to CNN, a shocking report by the US State Department last month confirmed that thousands of social media accounts Facebook and Twitter linked to Russia were spreading false information about the Corona virus. But Facebook and Twitter said that the US State Department has not provided evidence to facilitate these companies to investigate and possibly close the above accounts.