Last updated on April 4th, 2024 at 06:51 am

French agency warns of network setting stage for online manipulation surge

French military and cybersecurity experts have identified a Moscow-based network spreading propaganda and disinformation in western Europe. France’s Viginum agency, established in 2021 to detect foreign digital interference influencing public opinion, warns that Russia is preparing for a surge in online manipulation leading up to the European elections and other significant votes this year. The agency has named the online network “Portal Kombat,” consisting of at least 193 sites disseminating pro-Russian propaganda supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine and criticizing the government in Kyiv. Much of the disinformation is spread through social media and messaging apps, targeting those promoting conspiracy theories.

Researchers from Viginum, who studied the network from September to December last year, attribute the mass disinformation campaign to Moscow. One pro-Russian channel on the French messaging app Telegram publishes up to nine articles an hour “almost continuously.”

Disinformation has been identified by the European Commission, NATO, and UN agencies as one of the major threats to democracy in 2024. At a recent high-level conference in Brussels, a senior NATO official stated that disinformation is now considered a “national security issue.” There is a growing consensus among allies that hybrid attacks involving disinformation “could rise to the level of an armed attack.”

At the conference, Melissa Fleming, the UN’s communications secretary-general, noted that “disinformation [is] being used to create not just the fog of war, but more suspicion, and more hatred,” and highlighted its detrimental effect on peacekeeping forces.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat, emphasized that this new form of warfare is “not about bombs that can kill you,” but about words and ideas “that can colonize your mind.”

Věra Jourová, the EU’s vice president for values and transparency overseeing media and disinformation, stated, “Every day we witness the Kremlin’s efforts to spread propaganda and interfere in democracies. From Putin’s blatant lies in broad daylight to a covert network of propaganda sources recently exposed, the Kremlin spares no effort. And neither should the EU.”

She expressed appreciation for the “strong determination” of France, Germany, and Poland to “combat” the disinformation.

According to French defense experts, the websites associated with the disinformation network do not generate original content. Instead, they were created to saturate the internet with material from Russian and pro-Russian sources on social media, Russian news agencies, and other official channels loyal to Moscow.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine two years ago, these sites have focused on Russian communities in Ukraine and “several Western countries,” including France, Germany, Austria, Poland, Spain, the UK, and the US.

The Viginum report, released on Monday, explains: “While initially covering news from Russian and Ukrainian regions, this network shifted its focus the day after Russia invaded Ukraine to target the occupied Ukrainian territories and then several Western countries supporting Ukraine and its people.

“The primary objective appears to be to shape the narrative of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict by portraying the ‘special military operation’ in a positive light while denigrating Ukraine and its leadership. Highly ideological in nature, this content frequently presents inaccurate or misleading narratives.”

The report stated that the network also “contributes directly to polarizing the Francophone digital public debate.” To reach a broad audience, it selects “pro-Russian propaganda sources based on the targeted locality, extensive automation in content distribution, and search engine optimization.”

Viginum identifies three “ecosystems” in the propaganda campaign. One of them uses the website name “pravda” followed by country code top-level domains (e.g., fr, de, pl, es, com), which was established in June 2023. These sites were found to have “identical technical characteristics: a common IP address hosted on a server located in Russia.”

“Furthermore, these sites disseminate content with similar pro-Kremlin narratives, particularly regarding the supposed legitimacy of ‘the special military operation,’ disparaging Ukraine and its leaders, or criticizing ‘the collective West,'” the report concludes.

A separate network of websites aimed primarily at Russian-speaking audiences in Ukraine was established between April 3, 2022—just over a month after the Russian invasion—and December 17, 2022. “Some sites target very specific and strategic locations, such as Kherson or Mariupol,” the report notes.

While most of the propaganda focuses on the conflict in Ukraine, Viginum states that last summer, the French Pravda site published material on “various crises” involving the presence of French troops in the Sahel, including Niger and Gabon.

However, security experts suggest that the large-scale propaganda and disinformation campaign seem to be achieving limited success: the average traffic on the five portals in November 2023 was 31,000 visits, with the portal targeting France being the least visited.