Despite the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the problems associated with it, Russia has not changed its aggressive policy. At the same time, Moscow is actively manipulating the sensitive topic to achieve its geopolitical goals while calling for the global lifting of sanctions, for supposedly effective cooperation in the fight against the pandemic.
Sanctions lifting is not the only goal of the information warfare launched by the Kremlin against the West. And in this war misinformation and propaganda have become the main weapon of Russia. Whipping up the atmosphere of fear and mutual distrust, Russia is trying to destabilize the situation in European countries, to cause a quarrel between the U.S. and the EU, to shake the unity of NATO.
As the epidemic began to spread in Europe, Russian-controlled media and agents of influence in other countries began to actively spread information about the artificial nature of the coronavirus, claiming that the virus was supposedly purposefully created in American laboratories in order to use it to achieve superiority in economic confrontation with China. At the same time, Russian TV channels working in the European information space claimed that washing hands and wearing protective masks did not protect against infection.
In early April, Russian TV channels Russia Today and Sputnik began to actively promote the idea that the “creator” of coronavirus allegedly was the American chemist Charles Lieber. It was Russian resources that started to spread information about Lieber’s involvement in the virus creation. To spread the information as widely as possible, the Russians used bot farms of fake accounts on various social networks.
Later, the resources controlled by Russia published an absolutely crazy fake that under the guise of creating a vaccine against coronavirus and mass immunization of people, total population chipping was planned. In particular, Russian media actively disseminated information that governments of a number of countries were planning to implant special devices in order to control the behavior undercover it as a vaccine. Russian propagandists named Bill Gates as the main “person responsible for implementation of this program”.
By spreading misinformation, Russia sows panic and fear, undermining the trust of citizens of democratic countries in what their governments and media state to shake people’s confidence in the ability of their authorities to solve problems. But along with spreading of disinformation there are other means of information influence. In addition to the spread of fakes and conspiracy theories, the Russian leadership is organizing PR campaigns to provide “humanitarian” assistance to countries most affected by the pandemic. And, at the same time, it does not forget to remind them of the need to show reciprocal loyalty.
One of such hybrid “humanitarian” operations of Russia was sending to Italy a group of Russian military and equipment for street disinfection. Later, the Italian government acknowledged that Russian aid was not effective. But Russia made it clear that in return it was counting on Italy’s help to lift the anti-Russian sanctions imposed in 2014. The scandal broke out when the press received letters from State Duma member Leonid Slutsky to Vito Petrocelli, a representative of the Italian Five Star Movement, a coalition member of the Italian parliament, the president of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, asking for pressure on Brussels to lift the sanctions. At the same time, it became known that Russians living in Italy are offering the Italians for 200 euros to star in a video of some “Russian media” and to thank Russia and Putin for humanitarian assistance.
The no less promoted Russian “humanitarian” aid to the U.S. eventually turned out to be an ordinary commercial medical equipment deal.
As for Russia itself, and the effectiveness of its fight against the сoronavirus pandemic, the situation there has become increasingly disastrous. While the Russian leadership is ostentatiously sending planes with medical equipment to other countries, medical institutions in most Russian regions are without basic protective equipment – masks and protective suits. Doctors and nurses are forced either to buy them for their own money, or to make miracles of ingenuity from materials to hand. For fair criticism of the management of institutions or local authorities, the healthworkers are fired and brought to administrative responsibility. In fact, Russian medics who are on the front line of the fight against the deadly virus have been completely unprotected. This situation provokes mass dismissals of qualified staff. The shortage of personnel is compensated by involving medical students of various specialties without qualification and experience in work with patients, and without providing them with the necessary protective equipment. This practice is of coercive nature and in case of refusal, students are threatened with expulsion from educational institutions.
At the same time, the cover up of the real picture of the virus spread by the Russian leadership, the lack of informing the population about the ways of infection and means of protection, the delay with the introduction of quarantine measures, the lack of necessary equipment, means of protection and disinfection in medical institutions have led to a rapid increase in morbidity and mortality in Russia. Day by day, Russia ranks higher and higher among countries most affected by the pandemic.
But, instead of fighting against the spread of the virus and helping its citizens, the Kremlin is using the pandemic for its own purposes – to solve geopolitical problems. That is, in the near future we can expect the emergence of new fakes, provoked by Russian media and special services. Something similar has already happened during epidemics of the Ebola and Zika virus. But at that time the scale of hybrid activity of Russia was much more modest, now the crisis affects the whole world, creating more opportunities and potential objects of influence respectively.
