Putin’s secret propaganda war
Scotland has become the base for a push by the Kremlin into Britain’s media and elite universities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched a secret propaganda assault on Britain from within its own borders, The Times reports.
The Kremlin is spreading disinformation through a newly opened British bureau for its Sputnik international news service, and is infiltrating elite universities by placing language and cultural centres on campuses.
Analysts said the push was part of Russia’s military doctrine, which specifies the use of ‘‘informational and other non-military measures’’ in conflicts.
The Russians’ main British target is Edinburgh, which has been chosen as the United Kingdom headquarters of Sputnik. Since opening in the city, the news agency has published reports suggesting that Labour MP Jo Cox may have been killed because of a plot by supporters of the European Union to sway the referendum result, a conspiracy theory that has run on Russian television.
It also peddles the myth that the West agreed never to expand Nato to Russia’s borders, a key plank of Moscow propaganda to excuse its 2013 invasion of Ukraine.
Although Sputnik is a fringe broadcaster, its stories are picked up by respectable media and politicians.
Its immediate predecessor, Russia’s international news agency RIA Novosti, used Scotland as a testing ground for a black propaganda exercise by claiming that the 2014 referendum vote to stay in the UK had been rigged. The spoof story led to a 100,000-signature petition for a recount.
It can also be revealed that the University of Edinburgh accepted £221,000 from the Russkiy Mir (Russian World) Foundation to host Britain’s first Moscowsponsored language and cultural centre. The foundation has also opened centres at Durham University, which accepted £85,000, and St Antony’s College, Oxford.
Russkiy Mir and Sputnik were created by decrees issued by Putin.
Sputnik, which was set up in 2013, is the international wing of a government-controlled news
Nato source
The Russian information effort is to muddy the waters, to create uncertainty. agency. It is headed by Dmitry Kiselyov, who is notorious for his homophobic pronouncements and has been put on an EU sanctions blacklist for being the central propagandist for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Russkiy Mir was launched by the president in 2007 and is run by Vyacheslav Nikonov, a former assistant to the head of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s spy agency. Vladimir Yakunin, a long-standing member of Putin’s inner circle, sits on the board of the foundation.
Nikonov, a dean at Moscow State University who outflanks even the president in anti-Western rhetoric, is the grandson of Stalin’s deputy Vyacheslav Molotov, whose 1939 pact with the Nazis led to the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states. The agreement that Nikonov signed with the university, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2012, gives his foundation the right to be consulted on staff appointments at the learning centre in Scotland.
A Nato source said: ‘‘The Russian information effort is to muddy the waters, to create uncertainty. Sputnik is part of an overall effort [to] present a Russian view.’’
Putin backs the concept of a ‘‘Russian world’’, in which the millions of speakers of the language inside and beyond its borders have a shared ‘‘living space’’. His invasion of neighbouring Ukraine was under the pretext of defending the rights of Russian speakers in Crimea.
Scotland is an attractive strategic target for Russia, which sees Britain as a check on its ambitions. The Scottish National Party’s desire for independence from the rest of the UK is compared favourably in Russian media with Crimea’s departure from Ukraine.
Scotland also has a ban on fracking. Some analysts have suggested that a vote for independence would make the country dependent on natural gas from Russia.
The University of Edinburgh said it was working with the foundation on the Russian centre as ‘‘part of our wider commitment to increasing the understanding of different parts of the world’’. It said the centre ‘‘should be judged by its academic and cultural activity, which demonstrates its progressive vision, academic rigour and an evidence-based critique of the regime in Russia’’.
Sputnik said: ‘‘We have no preference towards one political force.’’