Russia using Salmond in propaganda war
HIS new party is polling at one per cent. He is struggling with questions about his character and about his credibility. But Alex Salmond still has his defenders. And not just in Scotland. Earlier this month a website called Newsfront came to the rescue of the embattled former first minister turned Kremlin TV host.
Mr Salmond had just faced a barrage of criticism for casting doubt on whether the Russian government was behind the Salisbury chemical weapons attack, the attempted assassination of double agent Sergei Skripal in 2018.
The Alba leader was accused of spinning propaganda for Vladimir Putin. And, bluntly, that was exactly what he was doing, whether he understood this or not.
Newsfront, however, had a different take: Mr Salmond, it said, was the victim of “Russophobia”. Theoretically, that last word means prejudice against Russia and
Russians. Practically, it is just an insult thrown at foreign critics of Mr Putin.
Unnamed experts, according to Newsfront, argue that the Salisbury “scandal was used by the British Government to distract attention from the political crisis linked to Brexit”.
In an article published in Russian, it added: “Today the events of 2018 are once again serving the interests of London. The Skripal case is being used to discredit Alex
Salmond.”
This is nonsense. “London”, whatever that is supposed to be, did not force Mr Salmond to host a show on Mr Putin’s main international mouthpiece, RT, and it was this which sparked questions about the Skripals.
Moreover, “London” did not make the former SNP leader echo the talking points of the Kremlin about what happened in Salisbury. He did that himself.
Mr Salmond could have avoided the controversy altogether by following the lead of his successor and arch-rival Nicola Sturgeon, who has repeatedly blamed Mr Putin for the attack.
After all, we know a lot about the attempted assassination of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia and the related fatal poisoning of Dawn Sturgess.
British authorities have charged two officers of Russian military intelligence,
GRU, with these crimes. The same men were this week also linked to an explosion at an arms depot in Czechia in 2014.
European intelligence agencies are understood to believe the agents are part of a squad, called Unit 29155, responsible for sabotage, subversion and assassination. Russia says this is absurd.
So, essentially, does Newsfront. It has been publishing all sorts of conspiracy theories about Salisbury ever since images of scary hazmat suits in Wiltshire first appeared on our TVS three years ago. Why?
Because this is no ordinary news site. Last week America’s new Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, announced sanctions against the publication, calling it a “disinformation and propaganda” outlet and accusing it of trying to undermine a human rights group and recklessly spreading false information about Covid vaccines.
From a base in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Mr Putin seized in 2014, Newsfront fires off stories in nine languages with a special emphasis on issues which preoccupy the Kremlin far more than Scotland, such as the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Newsfront, the US intelligence community has concluded, is a front for Kremlin spies, specifically the FSB, the main successor agency of the Soviet-era KGB.
It is not alone. The Treasury last week sanctioned three other news and comment sites: Southfront, the Strategic Culture Foundation and Inforos. All three, at first glance, look like real news or views sources. They are, say the Americans, nothing of the kind.
Southfront is ostensibly in the middle of a crowdfunding drive. Yet, according to the US Treasury, it is an “online disinformation site registered in Russia that receives taskings from the FSB”.
The US added that Southfront “attempts to appeal to military enthusiasts, veterans, and conspiracy theorists, all while going to great lengths to hide its connections to Russian intelligence”.
It continued: “In the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election, Southfront sought to promote perceptions of voter fraud by publishing content alleging that such activity
took place during the 2020 US presidential election cycle. Sergei Skripal”
Southfront is also interested in Scottish views on Salisbury. It has republished the Edinburgh blogger Craig Murray verbatim on the topic.
Mr Murray, who says his blogs are free to be republished, is currently awaiting sentencing after being found in contempt of court over internet posts about Mr Salmond’s sex crimes trial, when the former first minister was cleared of all charges.
The Strategic Culture Foundation, described by the US Treasury as an online journal linked to the Russian equivalent of MI6, the SVR, also republishes Mr Murray, though its interest in all things Scottish tends to wax and wane.
Just ahead of the 2014 referendum, it claimed a Yes vote would be an inspiration to people in the breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk.
The two self-proclaimed republics formed a short-lived unrecognised federal state called Novorossiya, whose flag, the SCF stressed, was a saltire, albeit one that looked more like that of America’s Confederacy than Scotland’s.
SCF, says the US, “created false and unsubstantiated narratives concerning US officials involved in the 2020 presidential election” and “publishes conspiracy theorists, giving them a broader platform to spread disinformation, while trying to obscure the Russian origins of the journal so that readers may be more likely to trust the sourcing”.
Inforos, the last sanctioned website, was declared by the Americans to be run by GRU. It too sometimes covers Scotland. Last month it published an article speculating that MI5 may have been behind the leaking of a Daily Record story about the sex allegations of which Mr Salmond was later cleared.
Does any of this matter? Yes. I doubt Mr Salmond or anybody in Scotland has ever given much or any thought to these sites. But they should.
Because the reality of the 21st century is that what we say and do in this country can be twisted and turned to serve agendas overseas we rarely understand. On sites just like these.
Newsfront editor Konstantin Knyrik, meanwhile, responded to the sanctions by joking about the FSB and saying he thought Russian secret services should do more in the media.
“We opened some Crimean wine and celebrated,” he told another Russianlanguage news site when asked about the US Treasury move. “Because this is recognition”.
The reality of the 21st century is that what we say in this country can be twisted to serve agendas overseas we rarely understand