HOW THE KREMLIN’S STOKING DISCORD AROUND THE WORLD
UNITED KINGDOM
PM THERESA MAY accuses Russia of a ‘campaign of cyber espionage and disruption’. Moscow suspected of involvement in 14 recent ‘killings’ in Britain including the murder of former Soviet spy Alexander Litvinenko, and businessman Alexander Perepilichnyy. Russia suspected of using fake social media accounts during the EU referendum, and exploiting terrorist incidents to try to trigger public unrest. London is a centre of widespread money laundering by Russians.
ITALY
IN 2016, Russia was blamed for a four-month cyber-attack on foreign ministry email system. Far-Right Northern League party has a co-operation agreement with Russia, and the anti- establishment Five Star movement is pro-Kremlin.
SCANDINAVIA
SWEDEN: Scaremongering stories about immigrationrelated crime and a staged riot attributed to Russia’s fake news operation. NORWAY: Russian hackers attacked government computers in 2016. DENMARK: Regular cyberattacks, including access to unclassified emails in the defence department.
THE BALKANS
MONTENEGRO: Russia is accused of attempting to derail its accession to Nato, and Russian spies allegedly directed a failed coup in 2016. Agents disguised as policemen were supposed to fire on crowds, seize parliament and kill the pro-Western PM.
SERBIA: With strong historical ties, the country remains a bastion of Moscow influence. Recently, Serbia received a ‘gift’ from Moscow of six MiG-29 warplanes’.
UNITED STATES
RUSSIAN hackers stole and leaked politically damaging emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign ahead of the 2016 presidential election. Moscow operatives also accused of spreading pro-Trump propaganda on social media, and paid for campaign ads on Facebook.
Members of Donald Trump’s campaign team are under FBI investigation for alleged collusion with Russia.
THE MIDDLE EAST
RUSSIA’S military intervention on the side of the dictator, Bashar Al-Assad, in Syria has established it as a regional power-broker along with Iran and Turkey. In chaotic, oil-rich Libya, where civil war rages, Russia is backing Khalifa Haftar, an antiWestern warlord. In Afghanistan, the Moscow government is providing the Taliban with weapons and funding in a bid to defeat Islamic State and to make life harder for the Nato forces still operating there.
FRANCE
RUSSIA backed the pro-Kremlin, farRight National Front (NF) party with a £8 million loan in 2014. The NF won a record share of the vote in this year’s presidential election. Russian media was accused of spreading rumours about winner Emmanuel Macron’s personal and financial affairs, and hacking his campaign’s computers.
SPAIN
THE government believes that Russian Twitter and Facebook accounts promoted Catalon i a’ s illegal independence referendum last month in a bid to create further instability in the European Union.
GERMANY
IN 2015, a Russian cyber-attack took down the parliamentary computer system for four days. German authorities also blame Russia for hacking political parties last year, and for spreading fake news to foment unrest, including the abduction and rape, allegedly by migrants, of a teenage girl. In this year’s election, the anti-migrant, pro-Russian party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) took 13 per cent of the vote, and is in coalition talks with Angela Merkel.
AUSTRIA & HUNGARY
IN LAST month’s election, the farRight Freedom Party — which signed a ‘co-operation’ deal with Russia — finished second. Now in talks to form the next coalition government, it wants EU sanctions against Russia to be dropped.
In Hungary, the pro-Russia PM has agreed a nuclear deal with Moscow. Some fear that Hungary is Putin’s EU ‘Trojan Horse’.
NETHERLANDS
DUTCH intelligence says Russia tried to hack the email accounts of at least 100 leading figures. In March, electronic voting for the parliamentary election was scrapped over fears of a Russian cyberattack. Last year, Russian propaganda was credited with persuading Dutch voters to reject an EU trade deal with Ukraine in a referendum.
EASTERN EUROPE
LATVIA, ESTONIA AND LITHUANIA: All live in constant fear of their neighbour. Britain has hundreds of troops deployed in Estonia as part of a Nato mission to safeguard the Baltic states.
In August Nato jets intercepted three Russian jets in Estonian airspace. In Lithuania, Russiangenerated propaganda questions the legitimacy of the country, prompting fears of an invasion.
Russia is accused of disrupting Latvia’s mobile phone network for several hours in August in what is believed to be a test run for a wider cyber attack.
UKRAINE: In February 2014, armed men seized buildings in the Crimean capital, Simferopol. Putin later admitted to deploying Russia troops and formally annexed Crimea in March.
This sparked unrest in the Donbas ( Eastern Ukraine), where conflict between rebels, who have Russian equipment such as the Buk missile system used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in July 2014, is ongoing.
BELARUS: Russia wants a permanent military base here. Fears are Belarus could be a flashpoint in a future east-west conflict.
POLAND: Russia accused of supporting anti-Western far- Right groups and fuelling Polish enmity towards Ukraine.