Visually, the page looks unmistakably like that of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Graphic charter, logo, links to the official accounts of the ministry on social networks: it is similar in all respects to an official press release from French diplomacy, as the Quai d’Orsay publishes every day. Except that the information announced – the introduction of a 1.5% tax on “every monetary transaction” to finance military support for Ukraine – is totally false.
This page, very well imitated, is in reality the visible part of a vast operation of Russian influence, which has lasted for more than a year. The agents who created and distributed this false page of French diplomacy are also at the origin of very many imitations of media articles, perfectly taking up the layouts of the Worldof Parisian and of 20 minutes, as well as most major German media. Similar fakes have also been circulated in Italy, the United Kingdom and Ukraine.
Each time, the modus operandi is the same: a fake article that takes a stand for Russia, criticizing, for example, the visit of the French Ministry of the Armed Forces to Ukraine, announcing that the sanctions against Russia are ruining the German economy, or that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is leading his country to disaster.
Tuesday June 13, the Quai d’Orsay implicated Russia in this vast disinformation operation. “The investigations carried out by Viginum [organisme de lutte contre les opérations d’influence] brought to light many elements revealing the involvement of Russian or Russian-speaking individuals and several Russian companies in the realization and conduct of the campaign”, writes the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release, which sees “a new illustration of the hybrid strategy that Russia is implementing to undermine the conditions for peaceful democratic debate and therefore undermine our democratic institutions”. Formulations of unprecedented firmness, even if the French authorities have not decided, at this stage, to take legal action. Consultation must take place with other States concerned, including Germany.
Operation of rare sophistication
At the end of 2022, after initial inquiries from the German press and NGOs EU DisinfoLab And QuriumMeta had hit hard in an attempt to block what the company believed to be “the largest, and most complex, operation [de désinformation] Russian since the start of the war in Ukraine, with an unusual level of sophistication and power”. The Facebook owner then announced that he had deleted more than 1,600 accounts and 700 pages. EU DisinfoLab baptized this group “Doppelganger” – “lookalike” in German, but also an evil double in Germanic legends.
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