In Moscow, Kiev, or even Paris, information has more than ever become a weapon of war. As the Russian invasion is underway in Ukraine, propaganda and disinformation play a major role in the conflict. Vladimir Putin’s surprise speech on television, on the night of Wednesday February 23 to Thursday February 24, announcing the launch of a “military operation” in the neighboring country, is one of the most salient examples. Virulent charge against NATO, “denazification”, “genocide”… For a few days, the elements of language of the Russian president are deployed in the regions traditionally close to the positions of Moscow, as in the newspapers close to power in Serbia.
But not only: in France too, Putin’s rhetoric is repeated by media and personalities directly attached to or close to the Kremlin, such as RT or Sputnik, as well as by very active Twitter accounts, defending Russian military action. The American platform Mythos Labs, which specializes in the fight against fake news, has thus noticed a sharp increase in the number of French-speaking tweets spreading false information about the conflict.
No contradictory
In recent days, the most transparent dissemination of pro-Kremlin rhetoric has often found itself exactly where it is expected: on the French version of the RT news channel and on the website of the press agency Russian Sputnik. The latter largely deals with the conflict. And the published content clearly sticks to the version put forward by Moscow. “Russian defense addresses the Ukrainian population”, “How does the special operation in Ukraine reinforce Russia’s ‘African success’?”, or even “The Russian army announces that it has blocked Kiev at the ‘west’ are some of the articles that were featured on its site on Friday, February 25.
Also according to the site, on Friday, “the Russian embassy sends evidence of crimes against humanity from Kiev to Paris”. An accusation in line with that issued by Putin: in his speech of February 24, the Russian president promised to bring “to court those who have committed numerous crimes, responsible for the bloodshed of civilians, in particular citizens Russians”. In the articles, the declarations of Vladimir Putin and those of other Russian officials – for example, his spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, evoking in turn the “denazification of Ukraine” -, are repeated without contradiction.
Sputnik’s Parallel World
But it is on its YouTube channel with 217,000 subscribers that Sputnik seems to best develop its version of reality. With a focus: repeated criticism of NATO, presented as the main cause of the conflict. On February 19, four days before the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, its presenter, Rachel Marsden, joked about the “Russian obsession” of Americans, in a video titled : “It is not Russia which is going towards NATO, but NATO which is going towards Russia”. “Joe Biden is crying wolf,” the description read.
His special “decryption” guest, Colonel Jacques Hogard, explains most of the tensions by the aggressiveness of the Atlantic Alliance towards Moscow. “NATO is in a strategy of encirclement [qui] affects the vital interests of Russia”, he assured, before evoking a conspiracy thesis according to which the popular revolution of Maïden, in 2013, would have been a “fascist” revolt. “I think that NATO is a wrongdoing organization of war today”, he insists.
In another video published a few days later, on February 23 – and recorded on the 21st -, Roland Pietrini, a “former member of French military intelligence” compared the American warnings “to the process of justifying the United States to start the war in Iraq” in 2003. A few days later, after the Russian invasion on Ukrainian territory this time, a new video, interviewing Nikola Mirkovic, presented as a “humanitarian worker and a founder of the West-East NGO”, is published on the YouTube account by Sputnik. “The Americans, we can say that they have achieved their ends, since this crisis situation has exploded, there is a war today in Ukraine”, he declares, inviting France to “hand over all the world around the table”.
RT ensures “expose all points of view”
Its television counterpart, RT France, plays its own score. Very criticized in the United Kingdom, banned in Germany since the beginning of February, the French version of the news channel Russia Today is scrutinized by the executive, like Sputnik. This Thursday, during a press conference in Brussels at the end of the European Council, Emmanuel Macron, spoke of the essential “protection” to be put in place against, in particular, “Russian propaganda relays on the ground European”.
ofafter information from World, “possible sanctions or suspensions” are envisaged, even if a decision can only be taken by the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom, ex-CSA). The latter also assured that she was watching “with particular vigilance for the respect, by the channel RT France, of its legal and conventional obligations”, while an investigation into it is still in progress. In response to these statements, RT France condemned “the political pressure exerted on Arcom, which goes against the legal basis aimed at protecting freedom of expression”, and claims to have covered the beginnings of the crisis “in a complete, exposing all points of view”.
“You have to reread and listen to Putin!”
In order to keep its TV license, the channel tries to keep a relative neutrality, so as not to be accused of practicing misinformation. When Sputnik delivers almost exclusively the point of view of the Kremlin, the journalists of RT France also relay the condemnations of the international community. The press conference after the meet between Emmanuel Macron, François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, was broadcast in full… but that of the president of the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk too.
When, on February 24, the channel’s journalists took care not to utter the words “war” or “invasion”, the General Dominique Trinquand, invited, however evoked the fears of a Russian occupation of Ukraine. “RT France has always had the desire to place itself as an actor that involves different positions, with a desire to attract credible profiles and institutions, explains Julien Nocetti, associate researcher at the Russia-NIS center of the French Institute of (Ifri). But in fact, the majority of the personalities invited are openly pro-Russian and/or spread a very anti-American discourse.”
Dominique Trinquand was thus succeeded by Emmanuel Leroy, ex-pen of Marine Le Pen, known for his love for “Holy Russia”. “All the key organs of the Ukrainian government are controlled by NATO advisers, especially Americans,” he said on set. “I believe that the goal of the Russians in encompassing these breakaway republics is to end the war by destroying all the infrastructure,” he continued, echoing the Kremlin narrative that the shots from Moscow will not did not affect the people. “These are bombings not on civilian populations but on strategic military infrastructure, on arms depots. Not the civilian population, we must read and listen to Putin!”, He insisted.
Media claiming to be “alternative”
Beyond the media gravitating in the orbit of Moscow, the narrative of the Kremlin is also shared by certain content coming from “alternative” media. Among them, Livre Noir, web TV very close to Eric Zemmour’s teams. Thursday, the YouTube channel with 220,000 subscribers published an interview lasting more than an hour with Aymeric Chauprade, former MEP (ex-National Front, FN). Presented by Livre Noir as one of “the finest specialists in Russia and Eastern Europe”, Chauprade had sparked controversy in 2019 for having employed the daughter of Vladimir Putin’s spokesman on an internship, then he exercised in the European Parliament.
In his interview, the ex-Mister geopolitics of the FN largely takes up the arguments of the Kremlin, according to which Putin wants to “reconstitute a glacis of security for Russia” and the “denazification” of Ukraine. “At home, it means something, it means: ‘We faced the Nazis, a large part of the Nazis who committed abuses and were recruited in the western part of Ukraine. They are the same as the ‘we find in the paramilitary forces that we have faced since 2014, they are the same ones who are nostalgic who go to cemeteries where you find swastikas, “he says.
Statements that do not surprise Julien Nocetti. “Disinformation also passes through people who will relay by membership, or for other reasons, Russian speeches, he observes. They can be both former political leaders, as well as single individuals in their corner.”
Twitter accounts in action
This dissemination of disinformation is also largely done through Twitter accounts. According to the Mythos Lab platform, which measured in two recent reports the volume of tweets related to disinformation in Ukraine, the number of messages has multiplied greatly in recent months: it has increased by 3,000% compared to to last September. The playground of these tweets is English-speaking, but also French-speaking, the “two official languages of NATO”.
Mythos Labs also noticed a bigger spike in the number of posts in French related to Russian disinformation. “Since the beginning of February, these tweets seem to want to divide Americans and Europeans,” notes Priank Mathur, founder of Mythos Labs. Through videos, often coarse, using archive images or sometimes even extracts from video games, these accounts try to relay the narrative in favor of Moscow.
“In recent days, we have also noticed, in French tweets, an increased use of pathos, continues Priank Mathur. They will, for example, stage a little girl from Donbass, terrorized by what is presented as gunfire. Ukrainian army.” The message is clear: local populations are suffering because of the intense war waged by Kiev.
If the origin of these accounts is difficult to trace – this information is held by Twitter -, Mythos Labs has nevertheless noticed a common point in these shared contents. “The messages published are very consistent: they say that the Ukrainian government is criminal, that the West is to blame for this Russian invasion, that the CIA is behind the problems of Kiev, continues the founder of Mythos Labs. These accounts retweet usually with each other and post at similar times”.
Several of them also use a tool to program their tweets: Amplifier, owned by a company of the same name, based in Russia. “We cannot say that a Russian entity or individuals are behind these accounts, admits Priank Mathur. But there are a number of clues.” A nebulous mode of action, difficult to trace… And perhaps all the more effective.