Ahead of European elections, France has uncovered a vast Russian disinformation campaign, targeting mainly Poland, France and Germany based on a network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”
unfortunately paywalled.
But having the full list could be beneficial, mods could blacklist these websites on /r/europe.
Don’t need to go far, just read some comments by the russian trolls frequenting this sub!
Yeah just browse this sub. Rage-bait everywhere.
But why male models?
Honestly they can’t be this blind that it’s taken them this long.
Since the article is paywalled, and OP hasn’t provided it…
▼▼▼ full text ▼▼▼
> “Portal Kombat” also targets Germany and Poland
>
> RUSSIA HAS been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea. According to French authorities, the Kremlin is at it again. On February 12th Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries, tied in part to the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the elections to the European Parliament in June.
>
> Viginum said it had uncovered a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”. Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. Over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022. Current traffic to these sites, which exist in various languages including French, German, Polish and English, is low. But French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a “massive” wave of Russian disinformation.
>
> Viginum says it watched the sites between September and December 2023. It concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread “deceptive or false” content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media. The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe. According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation.
>
> It was no coincidence that the French made the announcement on the day that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, hosted Donald Tusk, the new Polish prime minister, in Paris. The pair met ahead of a get-together later that day of the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland, a grouping nicknamed the “Weimar triangle”. These are also the main countries that the Russian campaign is designed to target. “We are in a moment of vulnerability” ahead of the European elections, said Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister.
>
> The election last October of Mr Tusk, a centre-right pro-European, has raised hopes of reviving this three-way relationship within the European Union, which withered under his populist predecessor. The relaunch of the Weimar format “marks the return of Poland to the centre of EU affairs”, said Gabriel Attal, France’s new prime minister, on a trip to Berlin last week. It could also help unblock the troubled relationship between France and Germany.
>
> For France, the detection of this latest Russian destabilisation effort comes after a series of campaigns that it has attributed to Moscow. Last November the French foreign ministry denounced a “Russian digital interference operation” that spread photos of Stars of David stencilled on walls in a neighbourhood of Paris, in order to stir intercommunal tension in France shortly after the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Viginum then detected a network of 1,095 bots on X (formerly Twitter), which published 2,589 posts. It linked this to a Russian internet complex called Recent Reliable News, known for cloning the websites of Western media outlets in order to spread fake news; the EU has dubbed that complex “Doppelgänger”.
>
> France held the same network responsible in June 2023 for the cloning of various French media websites, as well as that of the French foreign ministry. On the cloned ministry website, hackers posted a statement suggesting, falsely, that France was to introduce a 1.5% “security tax” to finance military aid to Ukraine.
>
> As the campaign for the European Parliament elections draws near, France is thought to be a particular target for Moscow. According to an article in the Washington Post in December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France’s polarised politics.
uh wow, did they… just figure that out? grats.
how much money did they spend to notice that?
Imagine my shock
The US would never
I open the news and uncover it… the trolls and bots are everywhere. Useful idiots are proudly showing their ignorance every day.
Shocking news!
Russian bots saying “people just say anything they disagree with is Russian propaganda” in 3, 2, 1…
Wait till you uncover the Chinese networks
Wow… really… keep doing nothing about it…
And we do nothing, we just allow Russia to tear our societies from within in the name of “free speech”.
I wrote my college dissertation on Russian disinformation in Europe and the US. AMA?
Are they lovers 😀
Did they tune in to RT?
Naturally. It’s a cheap way to attack, and you can co-opt local citizens who are fooled to fight for you and amplify the message.
Why aren’t EU and US striking back with the same weapon, but with hundred times more volume and force? Defense doesn’t work against deliberate misinformation. Proving false claim to actually be false takes far more effort than creating one.
Fight with volume, go on offensive and force western media in Russia by any means necessary, perpetually. Take Kremlin’s control of their nation away from them with information warfare.
Nothing new.
Consider me flabbergasted and in a total stage of utter shock. /s
Meddling in elections should be cassus belli.
No. It cannot possibly be. *Continues to sip tea*
Russians are the bad guys for sure, as Saddam was in 2003 …
This campaign’s been running since 2014, and not just in France, but you happened to just “uncover” it now???
I thought it was quite obvious where all the online “nationalism” was coming from.
Didn’t germany find out about a similar thing only 1-2 weeks ago (tens of thousands of fake twitter accounts posting in german to prop up the more extreme parts of our political spectrum)
suddenly the number of ruzzian shills has taken a hit untill the next troll farm is ready to go
28 comments
Ahead of European elections, France has uncovered a vast Russian disinformation campaign, targeting mainly Poland, France and Germany based on a network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”
unfortunately paywalled.
But having the full list could be beneficial, mods could blacklist these websites on /r/europe.
Don’t need to go far, just read some comments by the russian trolls frequenting this sub!
Yeah just browse this sub. Rage-bait everywhere.
But why male models?
Honestly they can’t be this blind that it’s taken them this long.
Since the article is paywalled, and OP hasn’t provided it…
▼▼▼ full text ▼▼▼
> “Portal Kombat” also targets Germany and Poland
>
> RUSSIA HAS been at the forefront of internet disinformation techniques at least since 2014, when it pioneered the use of bot farms to spread fake news about its invasion of Crimea. According to French authorities, the Kremlin is at it again. On February 12th Viginum, the French foreign-disinformation watchdog, announced it had detected preparations for a large disinformation campaign in France, Germany, Poland and other European countries, tied in part to the second anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and the elections to the European Parliament in June.
>
> Viginum said it had uncovered a Russian network of 193 websites which it codenames “Portal Kombat”. Most of these sites, such as topnews.uz.ua, were created years ago and many were left dormant. Over 50 of them, such as news-odessa.ru and pravda-en.com, have been created since 2022. Current traffic to these sites, which exist in various languages including French, German, Polish and English, is low. But French authorities think they are ready to be activated aggressively as part of what one official calls a “massive” wave of Russian disinformation.
>
> Viginum says it watched the sites between September and December 2023. It concluded that they do not themselves generate news stories, but are designed to spread “deceptive or false” content about the war in Ukraine, both on websites and via social media. The underlying objective is to undermine support for Ukraine in Europe. According to the French authorities, the network is controlled by a single Russian organisation.
>
> It was no coincidence that the French made the announcement on the day that Emmanuel Macron, the French president, hosted Donald Tusk, the new Polish prime minister, in Paris. The pair met ahead of a get-together later that day of the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Poland, a grouping nicknamed the “Weimar triangle”. These are also the main countries that the Russian campaign is designed to target. “We are in a moment of vulnerability” ahead of the European elections, said Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister.
>
> The election last October of Mr Tusk, a centre-right pro-European, has raised hopes of reviving this three-way relationship within the European Union, which withered under his populist predecessor. The relaunch of the Weimar format “marks the return of Poland to the centre of EU affairs”, said Gabriel Attal, France’s new prime minister, on a trip to Berlin last week. It could also help unblock the troubled relationship between France and Germany.
>
> For France, the detection of this latest Russian destabilisation effort comes after a series of campaigns that it has attributed to Moscow. Last November the French foreign ministry denounced a “Russian digital interference operation” that spread photos of Stars of David stencilled on walls in a neighbourhood of Paris, in order to stir intercommunal tension in France shortly after the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Viginum then detected a network of 1,095 bots on X (formerly Twitter), which published 2,589 posts. It linked this to a Russian internet complex called Recent Reliable News, known for cloning the websites of Western media outlets in order to spread fake news; the EU has dubbed that complex “Doppelgänger”.
>
> France held the same network responsible in June 2023 for the cloning of various French media websites, as well as that of the French foreign ministry. On the cloned ministry website, hackers posted a statement suggesting, falsely, that France was to introduce a 1.5% “security tax” to finance military aid to Ukraine.
>
> As the campaign for the European Parliament elections draws near, France is thought to be a particular target for Moscow. According to an article in the Washington Post in December, Kremlin documents show that Russia has been intensifying its effort to undermine French backing for Ukraine. It also has a clear interest in promoting division in France, at a time when Marine Le Pen is riding high in the polls for the next presidential election in 2027. The hard-right leader, who financed previous campaigns with a Russian bank loan, stands to benefit the most from France’s polarised politics.
uh wow, did they… just figure that out? grats.
how much money did they spend to notice that?
Imagine my shock
The US would never
I open the news and uncover it… the trolls and bots are everywhere. Useful idiots are proudly showing their ignorance every day.
Shocking news!
Russian bots saying “people just say anything they disagree with is Russian propaganda” in 3, 2, 1…
Wait till you uncover the Chinese networks
Wow… really… keep doing nothing about it…
And we do nothing, we just allow Russia to tear our societies from within in the name of “free speech”.
I wrote my college dissertation on Russian disinformation in Europe and the US. AMA?
Are they lovers 😀
Did they tune in to RT?
Naturally. It’s a cheap way to attack, and you can co-opt local citizens who are fooled to fight for you and amplify the message.
Why aren’t EU and US striking back with the same weapon, but with hundred times more volume and force? Defense doesn’t work against deliberate misinformation. Proving false claim to actually be false takes far more effort than creating one.
Fight with volume, go on offensive and force western media in Russia by any means necessary, perpetually. Take Kremlin’s control of their nation away from them with information warfare.
Nothing new.
Consider me flabbergasted and in a total stage of utter shock. /s
Meddling in elections should be cassus belli.
No. It cannot possibly be. *Continues to sip tea*
Russians are the bad guys for sure, as Saddam was in 2003 …
[https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/211018092015-36-colin-powell-gallery-restricted.jpg?q=w_2500,h_3335,x_0,y_0,c_fill](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/211018092015-36-colin-powell-gallery-restricted.jpg?q=w_2500,h_3335,x_0,y_0,c_fill)
Oooh, good morning!…
This campaign’s been running since 2014, and not just in France, but you happened to just “uncover” it now???
I thought it was quite obvious where all the online “nationalism” was coming from.
Didn’t germany find out about a similar thing only 1-2 weeks ago (tens of thousands of fake twitter accounts posting in german to prop up the more extreme parts of our political spectrum)
suddenly the number of ruzzian shills has taken a hit untill the next troll farm is ready to go
They are to uncover the sky is blue soon.