A very subtle operation organized by the Russian secret services to discredit Ukraine, the European Union and Turkey. French newspaper Le Monde has uncovered the umpteenth Russian disinformation operation in Europe: In its in-depth investigation, the French newspaper reports on fake demonstrators who have infiltrated demonstrations in various European capitals to protest against Ukraine and against Turkish President Erdogan. The investigation, conducted jointly with the Dossier Center, Russian opposition online media and other European media outlets, allowed journalists to obtain and view documents drafted by the Russian intelligence services themselves. For example, what has been collected shows that a man who appeared at the demonstration on Place de la Republique in Paris on February 11 last year against Macron’s pension reforms with signs opposing the financing of the war in Ukraine was one of Moscow infiltrated fake protester was .
The same applies to the March 5 demonstration in the 18th arrondissement against Turkey: the man was photographed, filmed and shared on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube with the Ukrainian flag and the Nazi salute. The documents seen by the investigative team also include the declared need to “relieve tensions between Turkey and the European Union” and this “also in connection with Sweden’s accession process to NATO” by holding demonstrations with people burning flags or writing anti-Erdogan slogans in European cities. “Part of the Russian disinformation campaign is to play on real tensions in this type of hybrid warfare, like those already existing between Turkey and Germany or between Turkey and France,” explains a European intelligence official specializing in similar operations and quoted from Le Monde anonymously.
How would the fake protesters move?
In addition, according to the investigation, from December 2022 to date there have been at least ten actions against Ukraine organized by Moscow in some European cities such as Paris, The Hague, Madrid, Brussels and then disseminated on social networks. All operations would have taken place with the same dynamics: some men go to demonstrations unrelated to the war in Ukraine and take photos of themselves in the crowd with placards and identical messages: «NATO stop bombing Donetsk»; or again: «Do not send any more weapons to Ukraine! Zelenskyy bombs Lugansk and Donetsk.’ a very active group of pseudo-protesters: one of them, who was present at a climate demonstration in The Hague last January 28, turned up in Brussels just three days later amid a cross-union protest by health workers.
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