2023-24: "DOPPELGäNGER" AND "PORTAL KOMBAT" OPERATIONS
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the aggressor country has distinguished itself by its hybrid strategy: in addition to the conventional offensive it is waging on the front line, it is also waging informational warfare in the West.
At the beginning of February, the French government department responsible for combating foreign digital interference Viginum has published a report on "Portal Kombat": comprising "at least 193 sites", this "network of digital 'news portals' with similar characteristics" disseminates "pro-Russian content aimed at international audiences".
In its analysis, Viginum explains how it works and what its objectives are: "The sites in this network do not produce any original content, but instead relay publications mainly from three types of source: social networking accounts of Russian or pro-Russian actors, Russian press agencies and official sites of local institutions or actors".
"The main objective seems to be to cover the Russian-Ukrainian conflict by presenting the "special military operation" in a positive light and denigrating Ukraine and its leaders. Highly ideologically oriented, this content exposes manifestly inaccurate or misleading narratives which, with regard to the portal targeting France, pravda-fr.com, play a direct part in polarising the French-speaking digital public debate."
In 2023, Viginum had already uncovered another Russian operation. Called "Doppelgänger" ("evil double" in German) or "RNN" (named after the Reliable Recent News website), it consisted of duplicating the graphics of official or news websites in Western Europe, but with misleading pro-Russian content. "At least 58 articles" were published on sites in France posing as those of Le Monde, 20 Minutes, Le Parisien and Le Figaro, as well as the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs.
2018: FACEBOOK-CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA SCANDAL
In the mid-2010s, the British company Cambridge Analytica (CA) began illegally "mining" the personal data of millions of Facebook users - more than 87 million in total. It then offered to target certain users according to their political preferences, based on their behaviour on the social network.
Through "micro-targeting", users see certain information displayed in their news feed that is likely to influence them. Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign was one of the first clients, along with that of his rival Ted Cruz. Facebook users identified as Trump supporters receive positive images of their champion in their feed, as well as practical information about polling stations. As for undecided voters, they see celebrities supporting Trump, or negative content about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, claiming, for example, that she is corrupt.
However, it remains difficult to determine to what extent the data delivered by Cambridge Analytica favoured the election of Donald Trump. With regard to the referendum of 23 June 2016 on the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union, more commonly known as "Brexit", several whistleblowers have helped to better document the deceptions. Through AggregateIQ, a Canadian company owned by the same shareholder as it, Cambridge Analytica provided data from Facebook to several organisations in the 'Leave' camp, after cross-referencing it with election data. Christopher Wylie, research director at CA, said after deciding to blow the whistle: "Without AggregateIQ, the 'Leave' camp could not have won the referendum, which came down to less than 2% of the vote."
1944: OPERATION FORTITUDE
The Second World War was the occasion for numerous disinformation operations - we remember, for example, the role of the American Elizabeth Peet McIntosh, who rewrote letters from Japanese soldiers to their families by blackening reality in order to demoralise the rear. But the most famous of these operations, which included several others, concerned the Allied landings in Normandy on 6 June 1944: Operation Fortitude.
While the massive arrival of troops in France was being prepared in the United Kingdom, the Allies were trying to "poison" the Germans by suggesting that the landings would take place in Norway (Operation Fortitude North) or in the Pas-de-Calais (Fortitude South). To give credibility to these hypotheses, dummy units were set up on British soil, with a real command, real insignia and as much radio activity as in real barracks, but with inflatable tanks, dummy planes and dummy landing craft. Double agents passed on false information to the Nazis, while diplomats from neutral countries were also fooled, deceiving the German services in turn. The Pas-de-Calais was heavily bombed, particularly on 5 June.
The next day, when the landings took place on the Normandy beaches, Fortitude entered a second phase: making people believe that it was just a decoy, and that the real landings would take place further north. It was a success: the Germans kept the bulk of their troops in the Pas-de-Calais, and only realised this at the end of August/beginning of September. In the meantime, Paris had been liberated.
1812: THE FALSE WILL OF STONE THE GREAT
Shortly after the invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, criticised in no uncertain terms a statement by his then British counterpart, Liz Truss. The latter had just stated that if Russia was successful in Ukraine, it could attack the Baltic states and Moldova. Denying this, the Russian retorted: "This is quite exemplary of British culture, politics and diplomacy. The British wrote Peter the Great's forged will in exactly the same way."
This reference takes us back 210 years, to the eve of Napoleon 1's Russian campaign.er. In 1812, an anonymous work appeared in Paris. It contained what was presented as the testament of Tsar Peter the Great (1672-1725), the moderniser of Russia. In it, he advised his successors to ally themselves with the two great Western European powers of the time, before betraying them in order to dominate the entire continent:
"It is important to propose separately, and under the seal of secrecy, to Versailles and then to Vienna, to share the world empire with them. If one of the two accepts, which is easy to obtain by flattering ambitions and self-esteem, it will be appropriate to use it to annihilate the other, before crushing the one who remains... The outcome of the battle is not in doubt, because Russia already possesses the whole of the East and most of Europe."
Under Napoleon and up until the First World War, these few sentences were used in anti-Russian propaganda in Western Europe. It was only in the 20th century that historians proved that this will was a forgery - Peter the Great did not leave any. But whatever Sergei Lavrov may think, the forgery did not come from an Englishman. Its author was Michal Sokolnicki, a Polish officer exiled in Paris during the Revolution, anxious to obtain support for his country against Russia.
VIe CENTURY BC: THE PRECEPTS OF SUN TZU
The oldest surviving treatise on strategy is the famous "Art of War". Its author, the Chinese general Sun Tzu (or Sun Zi), is thought to have lived from around 544 BC to 496 BC. The 13 articles of the Art of War, which deal with all aspects of tactics and strategy (means, topography, attack, etc.), have influenced every theorist since.
In his 13e and final chapter, "On Concord and Discord", Sun Tzu discusses disinformation. Referring to "five kinds of division" (or discord), he lends "death division" the same objectives as "Portal Kombat" in 2024: "polarising debate" and undermining cohesion in enemy ranks. Here's how the strategist defines it: "The division of death is that by which, after giving false opinions on the state in which we find ourselves, we spread tendentious rumours."
He goes on to explain the expected effect. In ancient times, long before the mass media and the Internet, we inevitably think of the contemporary situation - just add to the equation public opinion, non-existent at the time: "If you have spread rumours, both to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe about you, and about the false steps you assume to have been taken by the enemy generals; if you have passed on false information to the court and the council of the prince against whose interests you are fighting ; if you have been able to cast doubt on the good intentions of the very people whose loyalty to their prince is best known to you, you will soon see that among the enemies suspicion has taken the place of trust, that rewards have been substituted for punishments and punishments for rewards, that the slightest clues will take the place of the most convincing evidence to destroy anyone who is suspected. "