Wednesday, March 18, 2020

EU Accuses Russia Of Deploying Coronavirus Pandemic Disinformation To Sow Panic In The West

Fake blood is seen in test tubes labelled with the coronavirus (COVID-19) in this illustration taken March 17, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

Reuters: Russia deploying coronavirus disinformation to sow panic in West, EU document says

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Russian media have deployed a “significant disinformation campaign” against the West to worsen the impact of the coronavirus, generate panic and sow distrust, according to a European Union document seen by Reuters.

The Kremlin denied the allegations on Wednesday, saying they were unfounded and lacked common sense.

The EU document said the Russian campaign, pushing fake news online in English, Spanish, Italian, German and French, uses contradictory, confusing and malicious reports to make it harder for the EU to communicate its response to the pandemic.

“A significant disinformation campaign by Russian state media and pro-Kremlin outlets regarding COVID-19 is ongoing,” said the nine-page internal document, dated March 16, using the name of the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus.

“The overarching aim of Kremlin disinformation is to aggravate the public health crisis in Western countries...in line with the Kremlin’s broader strategy of attempting to subvert European societies,” the document produced by the EU’s foreign policy arm, the European External Action Service, said.

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WNU Editor: This EU document provides no proof or evidence of this Russian disinformation campaign.

More News On The EU Accusing Russia Of Deploying Coronavirus Pandemic Disinformation To Sow Panic In The West

EU accuses pro-Kremlin media of using coronavirus crisis to undermine West -- Telegraph
EU accuses Russia of looking to destabilise west with coronavirus disinformation campaign -- The Independent
Even during a global emergency, Russia’s disinformation campaign continues -- Emerging Europe

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

The first clip occurred in Hong Kong subway and the second in Belgium.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-clervN2hw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mgh27Mh2i4

Anonymous said...

Any time I see "Russian deception" I always rewrite that to "Chinese deception masquerading as Russian".

Russia has nothing to gain from this but China does.

Toster said...

there is evidence here

Russian media ‘spreading Covid-19 disinformation’

copley7 said...

Big problem is Chinas disinformation campaign.

Anonymous said...



The public is less confident in how President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are responding to the crisis: Fewer than half are very or somewhat confident that Trump (45%) and Pence (48%) are doing a good job responding to the crisis.

Here are the other major findings from the new survey:

News media’s response to coronavirus outbreak. An Election News Pathways report out today finds that Americans are closely following news about the coronavirus outbreak, and they give the news media fairly high marks for their coverage: 70% say the news media are doing very or somewhat well covering the story. And misinformation is also part of the story: 48% of Americans report having seen at least some news they thought was made up about the virus.

Strongly partisan reactions to the government’s response to COVID-19 outbreak. Partisanship is evident in the public’s views of most national problems, and so far, the coronavirus outbreak is no exception. Perhaps the most striking example of this: 59% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the outbreak is a major threat to the health of the U.S. population as a whole; only 33% of Republicans and Republican leaners say the same.

Bob Huntley said...

Perhaps the Democrats see the Coronavirus as a negative, the Republicans a positive.

Anonymous said...

There are rumors that the United States government created the Chinese coronavirus. This claim was first made by the Russian news network, Channel One, during a live news broadcast. A news presenter said the US government created the virus to destroy China’s economy. He added that the US might have also created it so they could sell vaccines to the Chinese government.

The presenter based his claim on the fact that corona means crown in Russian and Latin. As we all know, President Trump used to be a judge on beauty pageants and was sometimes in charge of crowning the winner. The presenter said this was the reason the virus was named after crowns. Meanwhile, scientists say they named the virus after its crown-like shape.[1]