Russian spies as disinformation actors

For years, one of the biggest obsessions of pro-Kremlin disinformation peddlers has been convincing their audiences that any and all protests happening in Russia’s neighbourhood, let alone in Russia itself, are the result of nefarious Western interference.

So, using terms like ‘colour revolution’ has become a major pro-Kremlin disinformation trope. Every time a protest takes place, Russian state-controlled outlets exhibit a knee-jerk reaction to label it as a ‘colour revolution’ – a foreign-orchestrated coup disguised as a grassroots protest against corruption or authoritarianism.

This narrative serves as a template to delegitimise genuine democratic movements. And pro-Kremlin outlets frequently spice it up with additional allegations that the people demanding their rights have been paid to do so.

For example, in 2020, when the Belarusian people took to the streets after a sham presidential election, pro-Kremlin and Belarusian state-controlled outlets alleged that the West had transferred 6 billion USD in cryptocurrencies to fuel the protests against Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

The pattern keeps repeating. Recently, the Russian state-controlled outlet Sputnik falsely claimed that the EU Delegation to Georgia was plotting to pay 120 EUR a day to every protester demonstrating against Georgia’s current government. At a glance this particular claim looked like one more falsehood in the ever growing heap of the Kremlin’s lies. But in Georgia’s case, the Kremlin’s information manipulators took an unusual step in planting this false message in a press statement by the Russian foreign intelligence agency, the SVR.

Russian spies and Russian lies

This is far from the first time the Russian spy agency has tried to ignite a disinformation fire. The head of the Russian foreign intelligence agency, Sergey Naryshkin, has made many outlandish claims. During the COVID-19 pandemic he falsely alleged that the EU was trying to discredit the Russian vaccine Sputnik V. In the context of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he justified military aggression, falsely claiming that Ukraine embodied an ‘anti-Russia’ and was killing civilians in Donbas.

At first glance, public statements such as those of Mr Naryshkin may seem to be at odds with the modus operandi of a shady spy agency. The go-to approach for Russian intelligence services is to operate in the shadows, hiding behind proxies and laundering (dis)information emanating from Russian state structures to generate a veneer of legitimacy. They have purposefully ‘leaked’ doctored reports and run clandestine Telegram accounts targeting Ukraine as well as a whole range of disinformation websites targeting international audiences, even a cyber-unit within RT – Russia’s best known disinformation outlet.

But the fact that in the latest attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the protests in Georgia the Russian foreign intelligence agency chose to publish a ‘press release’ is an indicator that it may be more emboldened to operate in the open.

The gloves are off and Russian spies seem to be comfortable operating both in the shadows and in broad daylight. Russian intelligence services have become a fully fledged information manipulation actor.

A tip of an iceberg

Russia’s foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) operations are characterised by a high level of adaptability, where different manipulation techniques are tailored to specific context and audiences.

Overall, Russia’s FIMI architecture consists of four interconnected layers, moving from overt to covert. It encompasses official state institutions and state-controlled outlets operating publicly, as well as entities that are evidently linked or aligned with state-controlled channels, but seek to obscure their ties to the Russian state.

Russian intelligence services are only one of the actors, but they have a distinct role to play in each of the layers of the Kremlin’s FIMI architecture. Their activities across the overt/covert spectrum of operations in the information domain further indicate the willingness and ability of the Russian state intelligence apparatus to adapt various FIMI tactics, techniques, and procedures in their operations.

One must have an overview of the overall FIMI infrastructure, run by Moscow, to understand the scope of Russian FIMI operations in Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova, and elsewhere, and the role of Russian spies in it.

To learn more, read the latest EEAS report on FIMI threats.