DISINFO: The UK and the West fund an information war against Russia
SUMMARY
Internal documents of the British Foreign Office revealed by hackers show that the UK funds opposition media outlets (for example, Meduza and MediaZona) and bloggers. Thus, the documents speak of direct intervention by London in Russia’s internal affairs. The West is waging an information war against Russia and uses for this war formally Russian media.
RESPONSE
The “proof” provided by the article does not provide evidence for the claims. This article promotes recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about UK and alleged Western interference into Russia.
The claim is made in light of the alleged leak of the alleged internal documents of the British Foreign Office published by the Grayzone and allegedly obtained by Anonymous. The authenticity of the documents has not been established, while the media mostly reporting on the issue are pro-Kremlin outlets.
The claim has already been debunked by The Insider on 20 February 2021. There is no evidence to support the claim that the UK (or the West) is waging an information war against Russia.
MediaZona has a media license in Russia and was founded by two Russian political activists with the aim to focus on controversial aspects of Russia’s justice system. The website is mainly funded by donations and speaking fees generated from the activists’ appearances.
Meduza is based in Riga, as most of the people who started the outlet moved there after resigning from Lenta.ru. The decision to start the outlet in Riga was based on the fact that it is not possible to develop such an independent publishing house in Russia, while Latvia offers conditions to work in a transparent manner. See here Meduza’s code of conduct.
On the claim about the bloggers funded by the UK: one of the companies mentioned in the alleged leaks openly describes on its website how they built a network of 20 Russian-language influencers for a project aimed to catalyse the growth of the Russian-language media sector in the Baltics.
Similar disinformation cases claimed that Bellingcat is a Western weapon against Russia, that Belarus is the main target of Western psychological war against Russia, that RT is the voice of truth or that an Information war against Russian vaccine is taking place.