French cybersecurity service identifies 193 Western sites spreading propaganda
One future strategy could be to flood Western networks with questionable content so that journalists have neither the energy nor the time to check them
The French government agency VIGINUM, which is responsible for defending against foreign digital interference under the French Ministry of Defence and National Security, has announced that it has discovered a network of Russian websites designed to spread Kremlin propaganda in the West.
The agency noted that this "structured and coordinated" network targets Europe and the United States. The VIGINUM report said that it includes 193 websites that are very similar to each other and distribute pro-Russian content intended for Western audiences, especially in countries that support Ukraine.
Some of them use the word "pravda" as their domain name, which has different extensions depending on the language, such as pravda.en.com for English or pravda.fr.com for French.
Between 23 June and 19 September 2023, more than 150,000 articles and posts were published on these sites, mostly reposts of Russian and pro-Russian media content.
AFP reported that, according to a source from French diplomatic circles, the main purpose of the network, codenamed Portal Kombat, was to justify Russia's war in Ukraine. The source also noted that the content of the publications was marked by "strong ideological bias" and "clearly fake and misleading stories".
In January, France accused Russia of launching a new disinformation campaign after Moscow claimed that France was funding mercenaries fighting in Ukraine.
According to VIGINUM, some of the content could harm France's fundamental interests. In addition, it is possible that activity on Portal Kombat may increase in the near future.
Experts believe that one of the future strategies may be to saturate Western networks with dubious content so that fact-checking journalists simply do not have the energy or time to evaluate and verify it.
Background. At the same time, the US reportedly stopped funding the anti-Putin troll factory. Earlier, there was a scandal that the bot farm worked, in particular, in the interests of the FBC, founded by Alexei Navalny.
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