Russia’s dissemination of false information
By: Hugo Tai
Mar 15, 2022
The rise of false information campaigns has become a major challenge to democracy. This week’s graph shows a dramatic intensification of the Russian government’s spread of disinformation. It started back in 2008-2010 but has worsened since. While the government only rarely spread disinformation in the early 2000s, the government now often disseminates disinformation across many political issues.
2008 was a turning point in Russia’s disinformation operations. After Russia started a war with Georgia it tried spreading fake news to justify its invasion but ended up losing in the media confrontation. For this reason, Russia modernized its approach to information warfare, increased its propaganda budget by 250% between 2013 to 2015, and launched successful disinformation campaigns during major subsequent events, such as the Crimea crisis in 2014 and the US Presidential Elections in 2016 and 2020. History repeats itself. The latest evidence shows Russia has again staged fake news to alter the perception of reality, fabricate pretexts and gain support for its current invasion of Ukraine.
