Alternative War: Unabridged Read online

  In 2016, the Prague-based organisation compared Czech President Miloš Zeman to a “Russian Trojan horse” actively engaged in an information war. A spokesperson at European Values, Jakub Janda, made the statement15 as part of a presentation setting out the results of a study which identified Czech websites serving disinformation purposes. “In the Czech space, Miloš Zeman plays the role of a Russian Trojan horse, systematically embracing and repeating Kremlin’s position on various issues,” Janda said. And, while the president’s spokesman, Jiří Ovčáček, dismissed the allegations as “nonsensical” saying they were “part of an ongoing campaign against the head of state,” there is some fire behind the smoke. In May 2017, during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in China, Zeman took aim at the media and was caught on a recording16. Shortly before a joint press briefing with Putin, he said there were too many journalists present, adding they should be “liquidated.” The reaction was, understandably, furious. The Czech Foreign Minister, Lubomír Zaorálek, condemned the President’s comment as having been “in extremely bad taste,” while Marián Jurečka, deputy chair of the Christian Democrats, declared that such a statement in the presence of the Russian leader, “in whose country journalists die mysterious deaths,” was unforgivable. Pavel Telička, a Czech MEP also weighed in, suggesting Zeman was “no longer fit for office and should not be running for a second term.”

  Zeman’s call for the “liquidation” of journalists came in the wake of a Czech scandal surrounding his Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, exposed in secret recordings attempting to influence media coverage. The outcry centred around the daily newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes, which Babiš formerly owned and involved requests to print coverage against political rivals. Journalists went on to raise significant concerns about press freedoms and interference in the media, leading to a situation in which the European Parliament was set to intervene, such was the gravity of the situation. “This tendency has been present here for quite some time, as it is in Poland and Hungary, not to speak about Russia. So it is high time the European Parliament started paying attention to it,” said Jan Urban, a prominent Czech journalist.

  The last European Values summit drew a great deal of attention and significant responses from attendees, including General Petr Pavel, Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, who said afterwards: “The 2016 StratCom Summit in Prague was organised at a crucial time when Russian disinformation [was] increasingly targeting Western audiences, trying to sow confusion, distrust and division. I came away from the Summit encouraged by the level of awareness and expertise across Europe, its governments and organisations, who are all actively engaged in countering Russia’s disinformation operations.”

  A primary activity which builds towards the annual convention comes under the title Kremlin Watch, a strategic program run by European Values which aims, it says: “To expose and confront instruments of Russian influence and linked disinformation operations focused on working to destabilise the Western democratic system.” The introduction to their annual report, the premise for the 2017 gathering, made clear the threats faced across the West, in particular in Europe, are only too real. “Demand is growing for a coordinated international response to Russian aggression, with many EU heads of state, other European politicians, and security experts voicing alarm about the threat. As of May 2017, several Western countries have experienced Russian interference in their elections, while the number of cyberattacks across Europe continues to rise,” the publication said.

  The organisation’s comprehensive strategic assessment for 201717 made for a sobering read, covering the twenty-eight EU countries in detail including, for now, the United Kingdom. The report immediately identifies two countries as being collaborators with Russia: Greece and Cyprus, who have shown – across a number of assessed factors – “no resistance to Russian influence.” According to the analysis, the Cypriot government considers Russia an ally in supporting the integrity of the country, although there are doubts about Russia’s actual interests amongst some journalists. It also states the Cypriot media have been speculating about Russia’s hypothetical ulterior motives for “meddling in Cyprus’ internal affairs with an agenda different than publicly claimed,” though the country’s political representation has not acknowledged these speculations in any way, explain the authors.

  Cyprus, the assessment concludes, belongs to the group of countries within the EU which do not perceive or recognise any threat coming from Russia, instead maintaining a close relationship with the Federation. Historically, Russia supported the “integrity of the island,” a legacy of the Soviet era, which makes “Moscow a key foreign partner of Nicosia.” Cyprus is also Russia’s primary offshore banking haven – a well-established matter of fact – and provides a home away from home for around forty thousand Russians. It is also a popular destination for tourists from Russia. The Cypriot government additionally stands opposed to sanctions or other similar measures against Russia, apparently on the basis of the two countries’ economic ties, even despite the physical evidence of economic impact of the sanctions remaining limited. At the same time, the analysts state there is “considerable Russian intelligence activity in the country and Cyprus fears Moscow is using social and mass media, as well as its ties to fringe nationalist parties and the Greek Orthodox Church, to undermine the settlement talks.” Bilateral relations with Russia remain consistent, even despite events in Ukraine, and the report concludes, on the topic of policy to combat Russian influence, that “either no official activities exist or they are not publicly admitted for domestic political reasons.”

  It is worth observing that Cyprus is not a NATO member and the cooperation between NATO and the EU is not seen as a particularly high political priority. “On the contrary,” the report adds, “Cyprus often tries to decrease it. No shift has been noticeable even in the recent years. Cypriot officials are some of the most steadfast supporters of the idea that Russia is Cyprus’ true and honest ally and would not partake in any international activities targeted against it, unless absolutely unavoidable.”

  Several media outlets in Cyprus have begun speculating about their concerns Russia might actually want to block the settlement agreement on the island, a view opposed to official claims of the Federation. These concerns arose following “suspicious activities” of the Ambassador of Moscow in Cyprus, Stanislav Osadchiy, who engaged in talks in a manner considered to have interfered in Turkish and Cypriot negotiations. Makarios Drousiotis, a Greek-Cypriot researcher told the New York Times18 that events in the United States and Europe were “shaking his compatriots’ view Moscow had only their best interests at heart.”

  “What they have been doing in America and Europe they have been doing for 50 years in Cyprus,” Drousiotis added.

  In 2014, he published a book entitled The Cyprus Crisis and the Cold War19, which “demolished the myth” the West was responsible for Turkey’s 1974 invasion of the island and the decades of division which ensued. In the book, Drousiotis denounced Russia’s diplomatic efforts in Nicosia as politically unacceptable and painted Russia as a “duplicitous partner that had for decades used disinformation, front organisations and other tools of subterfuge to woo support among Greek-Cypriots while working behind the scenes to stoke tensions.” He alleged the activity was designed to ensure Cyprus never aligned with the West and chose to steer clear of NATO membership. However, the concerns raised have not been reflected in the actions of Cypriot authorities, with no measures to counter subversive influence having been taken and no known intelligence activities in Cyprus attempting to counter Russian influence operations. The assessment by European Values specifically cites the absence of an identified threat in any strategy documents and highlights the lack of initiatives concerning cybersecurity.

  Greece appears slightly more insidious.

  According to the Kremlin Watch assessment, Greece has historically been one of Russia’s Trojan Horses within the EU, advocating in Brussels on behalf of
Kremlin interests. The current Greek government, the report says, maintains “exceptionally close ties” with Putin’s Kremlin and other prominent Russian figures and, at the same time, does not acknowledge any threat pertaining to disinformation or subversive influence stemming from Russia.

  Greece, surprisingly, is one of the oldest NATO member states and was the first Balkan state to join the EU, though its difficult history with Turkey has “urged it to look to Russia for support.” As a consequence, it is believed Greece has purposefully avoided any expressed opposition to EU measures which could act to alienate the Federation. The Greek government, caught in a severe economic and financial crisis, has sought to woo Russia, reportedly in hopes of receiving aid which Brussels is perceived to have failed to provide, thereby also gaining negotiation leverage on the union. In 2016, Greece also signed a military partnership with Russia20 on the basis it was “necessary to maintain the Greek defence industry during the economic crisis.” Subsequently, the report describes Greece as one of the EU’s “three Kremlin friendlies, together with Italy and Cyprus.” Despite this, Greece remains committed to the EU and NATO, despite apparently extensive efforts to simultaneously maintain warm, bilateral relations with Russia. (According to the latest Eurobarometer, 66% of Greeks had a positive view of the former USSR.)

  In Greece, the report says: “There is no political acknowledgement whatsoever of any hostile Russian activity. On the contrary, the government is very sympathetic to Russian interests and worldview, according to which the West is the aggressor and Russia is merely on the defensive.” Greek officials do, instead, take the approach of blaming Western propaganda for fuelling the Ukrainian conflict. In 2014, the report highlights, Defence Minister Panos Kammenos stated, “Western NGOs sponsored by Germany or foundations like the Clinton Institute provoked the crisis in Ukraine where a coup d’état overthrew the legal government.” This rhetoric has over-spilled and become commonplace in the alt-right narratives deployed in the US, UK, and elsewhere in the EU.

  Greece’s radical left-wing Syriza party has never supported EU sanctions on Russia and has very close contacts with Vladimir Putin, Russian nationalist Aleksander Dugin, and Russian oligarchs. In May 2016, Putin travelled to Greece21 hoping to secure agreements on trade, investment, energy and transportation. The Russian President was joined by foreign minister Sergey Lavrov and a number of oil and gas executives, giving some indication of the importance of the visit. Russia went on to express interest in the purchase of Greek railway company Trainose, as well as Greece’s second-largest port, Thessaloniki. Further ties are evident in cooperation on weapons projects with Greece and Moscow negotiating purchase and maintenance deals for S-300 air defence systems.

  The authors of the Kremlin Watch report continued in their assessment, identifying a group of eight additional EU states who largely continue to ignore or deny the existence of Russian disinformation and hostile influence operations – Hungary, Austria, Croatia, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia – and three states who only half-acknowledge existence of the threat. They deduce the latter hesitation is attributable either to geographic distance and historical neutrality (in the case of Ireland) or to the presence of pro-Kremlin forces in the political domain which suppress any efforts to place the threat on the agenda (in Italy and Bulgaria). One of the eight, Hungary, has recently been put on notice of proceedings by the European Commission in relation to its asylum laws and is viewed as a major concern to the EU. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in power in the country since 2010, has vocally attacked the EU on a number of occasions and stands accused in Brussels of willingly accepting EU funds while “rejecting EU values or a share of refugees.”

  A common theme begins to emerge among the other states assessed by European Values.

  Belgium “recognises the threat of Russian disinformation abroad, particularly in the Eastern neighbourhood, but does not consider this to be a problem for its internal security, and therefore does not consider it a national priority,” the report says, adding: “Its security institutions predominantly focus on the threat of Islamist terrorism.” Spain and France, the assessment continues, consider “Islamist propaganda to be the more serious issue and mostly attribute disinformation campaigns to terrorist recruitment. In France, incoming President Macron seems poised to make a shift in this position, but it remains an open question given France’s historically sympathetic attitude to Russia.” Denmark, the Netherlands, Romania, Finland, Czech Republic, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland are recognised as cognizant of the risks but their counter-measure strategies are identified as being in infancy and having “weak spots”, rendering all of them vulnerable.

  The report states, more generally, “for many of the EU28, a wide gap remains between mere acknowledgement of the threat and the development of concrete and viable counter-measures. The implementation of an effective strategy at the state level requires at least partial political consensus, civic support, and strong democratic institutions.”

  “Strong rhetoric and condemnation of Russian interference comes at virtually no political cost, but developing a pan-government approach necessitates the dedication of all major political parties and government bodies, as well as their active resistance against local obstacles and Kremlin-linked counter-pressures,” it adds.

  Having investigated the same issues from an independent standpoint, reading the Kremlin Watch report did little more than support the discoveries I’d made and, while it is a deeply disturbing document, there was very little I could do but sigh and agree with it.

  The four states showing the highest levels of “activity, resilience, and readiness to respond” to the Russia threat, given their historical experiences, are Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, according to the report. This assessment in the case of Sweden I know to be accurate following my own investigations in the country – which, in fact, led me to discover the depth of operations deployed by Russia in this Alternative War.

  The Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, the report says: “Stand at the forefront of the fight against hostile Russian influence, in large part due to their geographic proximity to Russia, historical experience, and sizeable Russian minorities.” The report rightly points out these countries have “adopted strong countermeasures against Russian influence, often restricting Russian pseudo-media,” adding “they also actively engage their Russian-speaking minorities, to greater or lesser success. The Baltic experience with Kremlin-linked subversion tactics is the most developed within the EU28 and serves for major lessons learnt.” Estonia has been at the forefront of hybrid threat countermeasures since the Capstone experiment in Tallinn.

  While there is a clear, natural link to journalism and its position in countering disinformation, it's often more of an implied notion, even though there are clear examples of journalists taking a leading role in challenging Russian subversion operations. The Kremlin Watch report, however, was the first time I had seen the importance of the role of the media is set out expressly. The report is explicit on the need for a free and independent press to form part of any successful counter-measures, saying: “There is a strong negative correlation between the degree of Russian subversive influence on the one hand and the state of media literacy and press freedom on the other.”

  “In countries with deteriorating press freedom, for instance, due to measures that limit serious investigative journalism, submission to Russian influence has increased in recent months (e.g., Hungary and Croatia),” the report adds. But the assessment of the EU nations serves as a stark warning that press freedom alone, while vital in stemming the success of the current hybrid conflict, is not enough. According to the report, the “traditionally powerful European states only begin to display interest in countering Russian disinformation during, immediately before, or even after major domestic elections, when they have experienced or anticipate Russian interference.” Sadly, this is true. In particular, in the United Kingdom.

  The Kremlin Wa
tch assessment also correctly identifies that France widely ignored the scale of the threat until the recent presidential elections, even though newly elected President Emmanuel Macron experienced flagrant Russian meddling during his campaign against Russian supported, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen of the Front National. Macron’s official foreign policy adviser stated: “We will have a doctrine of retaliation when it comes to Russian cyber-attacks or any other kind of attacks.” But in France, as yet, no such action has materialised – at least not visibly and this may well be, in part, due to the complicated and outdated rules of warfare. In another example of unpreparedness, the government of the Netherlands barely reacted when Russian disinformation was circulated during the 2016 referendum on the Association Agreement with Ukraine. It must have, however, learned from the jolt because, during the 2017 parliamentary elections, the country decided not to use electronic voting in order to avoid possible Russian interference. Though no hacks of voting machines have yet been confirmed anywhere in the world, interior minister Ronald Plasterk wrote to his Parliament22, saying: “I cannot rule out that state actors may try to benefit from influencing political decisions and public opinion in the Netherlands,” and confirmed all ballots would be counted by hand. The Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has since concluded that Russia tried to influence the 2017 elections23 by spreading fake news24.