#ElectionInterference is one of the topics for #debates. Experts focus on leaks, hacks and bots as seen in 2016, but the main threat is overlooked. Russia doesn't just meddle into elections and referendum around the world,” wrote Putin’s aide Surkov. It meddles with their brains.
"Russia meddles with their brains, and they don’t know what to do with this altered state of mind.” The Kremlin is waging information warfare: corroding the idea of democracy and planting new pro-Kremlin thinking. The battlefield is the brain.
The goal is sowing discord and confusion in order to demoralize the West. Words are a military arsenal. Language is a weapon of mass destruction of ideas. This is the war of narratives. Trump's and Kremlin's narrative: Democracy is dead and elections are rigged.
We will not see open cyberattacks in 2020. The Kremlin learns from its mistakes. What we see now is infiltration, masquerading, inception and amplification: an army of accounts impersonating ordinary Americans; joining groups, injecting anonymous memes, slogans and ideas;
liking and cross-sharing these posts; amplifying them so they trend and flooding the information flow with their narratives. "A coalition of progressive groups — led by Accountable Tech — is sounding the alarm about the possibility that Trump’s disinformation ... amplified...
"a thousandfold by this Facebook group function, and is calling on the tech giant to turn it off “until the U.S. election results are certified.” The potential of these groups to spread “disinformation, suppress voters, organize intimidation efforts, or incite violence...
...will only grow,” says the coalition, which includes groups like Mozilla, Common Cause, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Let America Vote" write @ThePlumLineGS and Paul Waldman: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/…
This interference is invisible. Whether the interference is quantifiable does not matter – it is the devastating quality of this new type of warfare that needs to be defined and brought to public attention. I wrote about it here: bylinetimes.com/2020/07/28/rus…
Do not let the conversation slide into who hacked whom and when: it is irrelevant. Stay with the main idea: Democracy is the way of the future society. Autocratic dictatorships cannot be justified. Constitutions cannot be altered. #Debates2020#debate#ElectionDisinformation
A good video created by @LuluLemew to illustrate this idea:
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1. Launches the largest air strike on #Ukraine since the start of the full-scale war
2. Runs a concert “Future is Ours” next night, w/6,200 attending, in a venue owned by Putin’s ally. Fails to prevent mass murder of which it was warned.
The concert for 6,200 (full venue) is held despite the US and other countries’ warnings of imminent terrorist attacks the same night. #Crocus belongs to Agalarov family close to #Putin and instrumental in #Trump #Moscow Trump Tower and 2016 scandal
🔴🔴🔴 The Kremlin stages a propagandist event at Times Square, New York on March 16, 2024 to coincide with the celebration of Putin's sham election victory and the 10th anniversary of the annexation of Crimea.
While the video below is fake, Russian festivities were real. 🧵
Russian Youth of America (aka “Russian Youth in America,” the “Youth Russian Society” and the “Young Russian Society”) organized the event at Times Square on March 16, 2024. roscult.org/event/times-sq…
Russian Youth of America's mission: “Creation of a major network of Russian youth in the USA.” In 2016, it distributed free T-shirts “I am Putin’s Friend.” Participants wore the uniform of Stalin’s secret police, responsible for millions of death and the predecessor of the KGB.
In the 1990s, #Trump’s cousin who worked for the Trump Organization was reported by Ivana Trump to click his heels and say, “Heil Hitler” on entering Donald Trump’s office. vanityfair.com/magazine/2015/…
Ivana Trump: ...#Trump kept a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, My New Order in a cabinet by his bed. Trump said Marty Davis, "a Jew" gave him a copy of Mein Kampf. Davis said it was a copy of My New Order, Hitler’s speeches, not Mein Kampf, and noted that he was not a Jew.
March 17 2018: analysts, journalists, politicians gathered in NY to warn the world (again) of the danger #Putin brings to the world if re-elected.
March 16 2024: a review from under fire in Ukraine, 2 years into the full-scale Putin war.
There'll be more if we don't stop him.
David Satter, journalist: Putin and the FSB carried out the 1999 apartment bombings. This terrorist action similar to the Reichstag fire brought Putin to power. The West accepted the Russian government's explanation of the apartment bombing and left it without consequences.
Arkady Babchenko, journalist: “The most powerful and terrible weapon Putin has is propaganda. Goebbels must be applauding from the grave. Pumping of hatred through propaganda is the foundation of Putin’s reign...
#Transnistria, a mini-USSR, with pro-Russian authorities and the Kremlin-brainwashed population, is the tool.
In the 90s, Russian “peacekeepers” were stationed in Transnistria after a brief but intense armed conflict.
In 2022, FSB had 3 scenarios for capturing Moldova:
->forming a corridor to Transnistria thru southern Ukraine, w/the subsequent recognition of the region;
->the capture of the whole territory of Moldova;
->access to the borders of Transnistria w/o recognition of its independence
These scenarios were assessed as too risky. Other methods suggested: cultivating puppet political parties to lobby Moldova’s return to Russia; preparing a referendum; creating “a government in exile” + “Moldovan volunteer battalions for the war with Ukraine.”
The democracy in the US and the world is in extreme danger.
#Trump used #Kremlin’s mechanism to suppress investigations by stacking courts & appointing loyal people to key positions of power.
KRUGOVAYA PORUKA.
It is the way to a lifelong presidency.
🧵 art by @LuluLemew
Steps towards silencing and suppressing criminal investigation:
→ Strategic hires block trials.
→ Through bribes, blackmail, murder, investigations silenced, stopped.
→ Public opinion formed by the press working for the government.
→ Independent journalists killed/exiled.
Trump nominated Kavanaugh soon after the latter was quoted nine times in a motion filed by the lawyers of a Russian firm indicted by the special counsel for interfering in the US elections.