Russia’s disinformation machinery breaks down in wake of Ukraine invasion

For decades now, Vladimir Putin has carefully and stealthily managed his online and offline networks of influence. Russia became more influential than a country that was corrupt and institutionally fragile because of these efforts. Some of the smaller 18th-century empires would be shamed by the economic holdings of the Kremlin and its proxies. It had a network of useful idiots that it helped get elected and could count on for support, and it controlled much of the day-to-day narrative in multiple countries. Many people had no idea.

Many remained unaware or unwilling to accept that Putin's machine was influencing them on a wide range of issues, despite a few big events like the US election and the UK's exit from the EU. Small groups of determined activists tried to convince the world that the Kremlin had manipulated the economies, politics, and psychology of much of the globe, but these warnings were mostly met with silence or even ridicule.

All that changed the moment Russian boots touched Ukrainian soil. Almost overnight, the Western world became overwhelmingly aware of the Kremlin’s activities in these fields, shattering the illusions that allowed Putin’s alternative, Kremlin-controlled information ecosystem to exist outside its borders. As a result, the sophisticated disinformation machinery Putin spent decades cultivating collapsed within days. Advertisement

Russia's influence was as large as it was complex. In Europe alone, the Kremlin has spent millions of dollars and hours nurturing and fostering the populist right, the far right, and even the far left. For years, elected politicians in these and other countries have been standing up for Russia's interests and defending Russia's transgressions. The Kremlin-run media such as Sputnik, and a host of aligned websites, helped spread an alternative view of the real world. They played a key role in spreading misinformation to audiences in and outside of Russia, even though they were often marginal in reach.

Russia found the most success in opening new fronts in the digital realm. All the time, social media, quasi-legitimate blogs, and bots reached ordinary people. Russian operatives tested and retested how to polarize audiences. They used different platforms, content, and messaging to build up a profile of users for their targeting purposes and then reflected back to them a picture of the world that would make them angry, frightened, and despairing. In recent discourse in the West, the Kremlin has amplified everything from climate denialism to the anti-vaxx movement. Millions of people believe that climate change was made up by Green extremists, despite the fact that all these things already existed.