Since the war in Ukraine started, Chinese diplomats and state media have attempted to portray their country as a neutral third party interested only in restoring peace to Europe. But that effort has been belied by Beijing’s own messaging, which has [...]
Russia Russian government-affiliated Twitter accounts marked Victory Day, which celebrates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazis in World War II, by launching a patriotic messaging push across social media. Russian diplomats and state media posted more [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week posted 764 tweets that referenced either “gas” or “rubles” as propagandists detailed Europe’s effort to cope with Moscow’s decision to cut gas supplies for Poland and Bulgaria. Russia made the move [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week posted more than 800 tweets that referenced “Mariupol” or “Azovstal,” which is the name of a steel plant in the city that has become a holdout for Ukrainian soldiers. Kremlin-linked accounts celebra [...]
Highlights The Russian Embassy in Paris was the author of nine of the top ten tweets by French-language Russian accounts last week. As in previous weeks, its messaging focused on the war in Ukraine and ignored domestic French politics. Russian st [...]
Highlights The Russian Embassy in France attempted to deny and deflect after evidence of mass killings in Bucha shocked the French public last week. Top tweets by the embassy implied that the killings only surfaced days after Ukrainian troops took o [...]
Russia The push by Russian propagandists last week to distort information on the atrocities in Bucha marked the Kremlin’s most aggressive disinformation campaign of the war. Russian diplomats and state media tweeted the term “Bucha” more than 1,000 [...]
A report from the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue by Iris Boyer, Zoé Fourel, Sasha Morinière, Bret Schafer, and Etienne Soula. Introduction On March 2, 2022, Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik were [...]
On Sunday, April 10, French voters will choose which two of the 12 presidential candidates will proceed to the second-round runoff. Most polls predict incumbent Emmanuel Macron to come in first, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen or far-left can [...]
Etienne Soula, research analyst with the Alliance for Securing Democracy, speaks to Newsy on the rise of the far right ahead of France's presidential election. [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week spread disinformation to discredit reporting on Russia’s alleged war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine. With images of destruction and death in Bucha coming to light as Russian troops leave the area, Kremlin [...]
Russia Last week, “Biden” was the third most used phrase by Russian diplomats and state media on Twitter, as Kremlin-linked accounts attacked the U.S. president for saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “butcher” who “cannot remain in p [...]
Highlights Despite being less than a month away from the first round of the presidential election in France, the elections have received far less coverage in state-backed media outlets than the war in Ukraine and other topics. None of the top 10 key [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week promoted new evidence to support their conspiracy narrative about the presence of U.S.-funded bioweapon labs in Ukraine, though the number of tweets from Russian propagandists with the term “biologi [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week tweeted the word “biological” nearly 600 times as they advanced their disinformation campaign about U.S.-funded bioweapon facilities in Ukraine. U.S. officials and independent reporters have stated [...]
On February 4, 2022, Russia and China surprised many observers by releasing a joint statement promising a “no limits” friendship, which they described as “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.” Just after the Beijing Olym [...]
Russia Kremlin-linked messengers last week pushed a series of false claims about Ukraine’s pursuit of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. On Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had documents that show Kyiv ordered the “emergency destruc [...]
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has shocked the European Union and its member states into decisive action. With Germany upending decades of foreign policy choices and unprecedented economic sanctions imposed on key parts of the Russian economy and l [...]
Russia Russian state media celebrated Putin’s recognition on Monday of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic, sharing images of fireworks and people waving Russian flags in the regions. Russian President Vladimir Putin just [...]
Last week, Russian state media in France aggressively pushed the Kremlin’s Ukraine-related narratives. However, their France-focused content—freedom convoys, public health measures, and vaccines—still garnered more engagement, with a few exceptions. [...]
Russia Russian disinformation on the Kremlin-instigated crisis in Ukraine reached a new level of intensity last week. Months of Russian warnings about a Ukrainian provocation developed into baseless accusations that Ukrainian forces had launched an [...]
As France gears up for a presidential election in April, several foreign officials and state-sponsored media are promoting narratives in France’s public debate that are conducive to their foreign interests, sometimes to the detriment of French democ [...]
Russia Russian officials last week continued to insist that Moscow has no plans to invade Ukraine and made more calls for diplomatic solutions. Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations claimed there is “not even a hint of common sense [...]
Overview Chinese diplomats and state media’s relentless promotion of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics between November 1, 2021 and February 1, 2022 highlights the crucial importance of the games for China. More than a sporting competition, Beijing s [...]
Russia Russian officials and state media last week pushed familiar narratives about Ukraine, claiming NATO is the aggressor and Russia is seeking a peaceful solution. On February 1, President Vladimir Putin spoke for the first time since December ab [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state-directed media last week continued to claim that Russia does not want to go to war in Ukraine, where the Kremlin has perpetuated a conflict since 2014. “If it depends on Russia, there will be no war,” Foreign Minis [...]
Russia Russian officials and state media last week framed the West as being solely responsible for increasing the chance of war in Ukraine. RT, Sputnik, and others closely followed shipments of Western military aid to the country. Foreign Ministry s [...]
Russia Russian officials and state media last week focused on three rounds of high-level diplomatic meetings between Russia and the West. Kremlin-linked accounts gave live updates of U.S.-Russia talks in Geneva on January 10. State media complained [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media launched a high-volume propaganda campaign around protests in Kazakhstan, which were started by anger over fuel prices and suppressed with the help of Russian troops. Kremlin-backed messengers refe [...]
Russia For the past two weeks, Russian diplomats and state media continued to focus most of their attention on the conflict in Ukraine. On December 30, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged warnings over the Ukraini [...]
Russia Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published two draft treaties—one for NATO and the other for the United States—that listed a series of demands that would limit the alliance’s presence in Eastern Europe. The recommended agreemen [...]
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week continued to focus much of their attention on developments around the conflict in Ukraine. On December 7, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a virtual meeting to disc [...]
Last week, U.S. President Joseph R. Biden hosted a virtual Summit for Democracy with 110 countries and governments, in which he called on leaders to make commitments to bolster democracy before an in-person summit is hosted later in 2022—but did the [...]
Russia Kremlin-backed accounts last week continued to focus heavily on the tension between Russia and the West caused by Russia’s military buildup along the Ukrainian border. RT warned that “the risk of an all-out armed conflict in south-eastern Ukr [...]
On December 9 and 10, U.S. President Joseph R. Biden will bring together leaders from 110 countries and governments for a virtual Summit for Democracy based around three key themes: defending against authoritarianism; addressing and fighting corrupt [...]
Olivia Enos interviews Etienne Soula on the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD)'s Authoritarian Interference Tracker. Etienne is a research analyst with the ASD and spearheaded the expansion of the tracker to cover over 150 incidents of Chinese i [...]
Russia Last week, Kremlin-affiliated messengers pushed combative messaging around the conflict in Ukraine. Russian officials and state media continued to blame the “'collective West’ under the leadership of the USA” for tensions along the Ukrainian [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media put forward a massive amount of commentary on the migrant crisis taking place on the Belarusian-Polish border. Six of the top ten most frequently used phrases by Russian accounts tracked on Hamilto [...]
Russia Russian officials and state media continued their messaging push around the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference, making the meeting’s abbreviation, COP26, the most used hashtag last week by Moscow-linked accounts monitored on Hamilton 2 [...]
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media disparaged NATO to justify the Kremlin’s move to suspend its permanent mission to the alliance. Moscow’s decision followed NATO’s expulsion of eight members of the Russian mission for allege [...]