How pro-Russian disinformation is laundered

SWE

HOW PRO-RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION IS LAUNDERED

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A Russian-linked influence campaign – designed to stop the West's support to Ukraine.

SVT:s verification team has gone through hundreds of newspaper articles and posts on social media to reveal the methods.

Pro-Russian disinformation is systematically planted and laundered before it reaches us in the West.

Follow the path of lies – step by step.

Step 1: Planting a lie

December 21st

It starts with a video clip published by an anonymous YouTube account. A man claims that his brother, an Egyptian journalist, has been murdered by Ukrainian special forces after exposing how Zelensky's mother-in-law bought a luxury villa in Egypt.

The story of the luxury villa began spreading as early as August, also by a YouTube account with a false identity. SVT was able to reveal at that time that it was false.

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Step 2: The Story is picked up by Egyptian media

December 21st and 22nd

The story is next published by three Egyptian newspapers. Two of them have previously spread fake news from the same influence campaign several times before.

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Step 3: The false news is published in English

December 23rd

Now the first English-language site picks up the story. Clearstory.news gives the impression of being an American news site, but SVT can connect the domain to a Russian IP address. The IP address can in turn be linked to other domains, one of them is DC Weekly which, like Clearstory, spreads Russian disinformation in English. Behind the sites is the pro-Russian American Mark Dougan.

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Step 4: Disinformation spreads to the rest of the world

December 25th

Now, as the story has been laundered through several channels, Russian media begin reporting on the journalist's murder. At the same time, the story reaches an audience in the West via social media.

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The big pattern

Our example is just one of many. Researchers at Clemson University in the United States have been able to document 12 other false news stories that follow the same pattern – but in reality, there are many more.

In all cases, false ”testimonies” are planted on social media and then systematically spread by African newspapers and a Russian-linked English-language site before reaching the rest of the world. The goal is for the lies not to be traceable back to Russia.

Click to see more examples