National Post (National Edition)
Countering the Kremlin narrative
As the Kremlin gins up its cyberwarfare capabilities by using hackers to interfere with western elections, Canada is being asked to assist a European project to counter an older, but equally sinister information warfare campaign by President Vladimir Putin to influence ethnic Russians and others in what Russians call the Near Abroad.
Jerzy Pomianowski, who leads the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), was in Ottawa Thursday to discuss with Foreign Minister Stephane Dion whether Canada would consider funding a project designed to provide Balts, Moldovans, Belarusians and other eastern Europeans with access to Russian-language TV programming not produced in Moscow.
While Russia Today — the state-controlled English-language international all-news network — and other Russian media projects in Europe and the Middle East are used to spread highly biased ideas, this was “a secondary issue compared to the damage that has been done by the Kremlin narrative within the Russian language media space” in countries with significant ethnic Russian minorities and where local populations often speak Russian well, Pomianowski said after meeting Dion.
What the former Polish deputy foreign minister was referring to is immediately obvious to travellers to places such as Latvia and Lithuania.
Russians there readily tell visitors that the only news sources they pay attention to emanate from Russia. Reports are often extremely untruthful — and sometimes incendiary — especially surrounding events such as Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, the shooting-down of a Malaysian Airliner over Ukraine by a Russian missile system or the alleged mistreatment of Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics.
There is a perverse echo in Armenian, Kyrgyz and Azeri-language media, too, because much of their content is lifted directly from reports originally provided in Russian and produced in Moscow. That is aside from the immense amount of time and money that Russian invests in Internet trolls operating mostly in English and German who criticize or ridicule people in social media who have criticized the Kremlin.
“We observe this. It is quite a common practice,” Pomianowski said. “But it comes into a market that offers many other options so it is much less effective than it is in the Russian language media space.”
As part of a propaganda strategy developed over 15 years, the Putin government first captures the hearts and minds of native Russian speakers with high quality entertainment and nostalgic films and songs that glorify the Soviet era, said Pomianowski, who became politically active during the heady days of Poland’s Solidarity Movement more than 25 years ago.
“This content is designed to appeal to their emotions and feelings,” he said. “It is used as a tool to keep them glued to the screen and then brainwashed through false debates and lies that are spread through the news programs.”
The EED is affiliated with the EU and based in Belgium. Its intent is not to create counter-propaganda but to encourage open debate and alternative narratives and to assist independent Russian-speaking voices outside Russia.
Estonia has already created a state TV channel broadcasting in Russian to its Russian minority. A centre in Prague has been established where Russian-language journalism is being produced, including some investigative journalism. It is a hub where Russian-language media from outside Russia can also exchange news reports.
Seed money is being sought from abroad, including Canada, to allow independent producers to create high-quality dramas or infotainment for Russian minorities and others who speak Russian and live in the Near Abroad.
“The amount of funds being mobilized is not dramatically impressive,” Pomianowski said. “What we are talking about is 10 million or 15 million euros a year” — roughly $15 million to $21 million.
Canada is already providing the EED with a $5-million grant to support the development of grassroots democratic values in Ukraine. As regards the EED’s new initiative to create Russian-language programming, “there is a big hope that Canada will join these efforts” because of what Pomianowski called the country’s “commitment to core democratic values” and because “sooner or later problems become global. Even Canada, on the far side of the ocean, is not that far away.”
Since Putin took power in 2000 his government has developed a direct and indirect stranglehold over most media that recalls the power that the Politburo once had. He has achieved this by closing news agencies and radio and television stations or by organizing new owners for media companies who immediately purge the staff.
“In the West, we pretend that we are discovering this strategy,” Pomianowski said. “But everything was clear and well analyzed five or six years ago. We were just in a different mood. The U.S. was resetting relations with Russia so it was not in fashion to talk about such trends.
“That is the weakness in our part of the story. We see things when they hit our eyes with great strength rather than acting when they are visible but not yet at full speed.”