There has been a significant increase in the appearance of conspiracy theories in Russia over the past seven years. A new study shows that references in Russian media to a select group of popular conspiracy theories are on average six to nine times more frequent now than they were in 2011. Disinformation is among the factors experts name as the reason for this increase, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

The top 10 conspiracy theories

The study was carried out by the independent Russian daily Vedomosti together with the Russian media monitoring company Medialogia, and looked at data from 43,000 different Russian media outlets, including TV, radio, online and print media, in the period from 2011 until 2017. The survey gave the different conspiracy theories a rating on the basis of a methodology whereby more points were given to cases when the conspiracy theories were picked up by media with big audiences, such as the national TV channels, and less points were given to cases where they appeared in smaller media with more limited outreach. At the same time, the study counted the total number of mentions of each of the conspiracy theories.

The article in Vedomosti presents a top 10 list of the conspiracy theories in Russian media with the highest rating. As examples from our reporting show, even theories whose origin is not tied to Russia or the Kremlin’s policies can be integrated in the flow of politically motivated disinformation.

1. A network of historians conspire against Russia 

The notion that Russia is the target of a coordinated attack from a network of historians, who allegedly falsify and distort the country’s history, is by far the most popular among the conspiracy theories in Russian media. With a total of 15,730 mentions in the study’s data, this conspiracy theory’s rating is 3.7 times more popular than the second most popular theory. Its frequency rose 9.3 times from the first quarter of 2011 (619 mentions) and the fourth quarter of 2017 (5,808 mentions). Vedomosti sees the success of this conspiracy theory as a result of numerous leading Russian politicians and opinion formers giving voice to this conspiracy it, including the President and the Culture Minister, who supported these claims in a book he published in 2012. The study also shows that a peak in the theory’s popularity coincided with the attacks on the film Mathilda about Russia’s last Tsar, and other heated debates around the 100^thanniversary of the 1917 Revolution and the killing of Russia’s last imperial family.

2. There is a secret world government

The claim that mankind is in fact controlled by a world government is also known as the New World Order conspiracy theory. It is a part of a cluster of similar theories, including the one targeting George Soros and the conspiracy theory about the Rothschild family, whose mentioning in a prime time Russian state TV news broadcast we have described in an earlier article. The secret world government theory was mentioned a total of 4,249 times in the study’s material, and six times more often in Q4 2017 (1,365 mentions) than in Q1 2011 (224 mentions).

3. HIV/AIDS is a hoax, and this is kept as a secret

The spread of the HIV/AIDS conspiracy theory should be seen against the sad background of HIV being a serious problem in Russia. The theory holds the second place in relative growth among the cases analysed in the study, having become 36 times more frequent when comparing Q1 2011 (75 mentions) to Q4 2017 (2,700 mentions). HIV/AIDS was a central part of a disinformation campaign during the Cold War when the Soviet Union try to spread a rumour that HIV/AIDS was the result of US experiments.

4. Genetically modified food is dangerous, and this is kept as a secret

We have seen this conspiracy used in pro-Kremlin, politically motivated disinformation when it was claimed on Russian state TV that the US is buying Ukrainian land to sow genetically modified crops, and that this will cause famine in Ukraine. The GMO conspiracy theory was mentioned 9.7 times more often in Q4 2017 (1,351 mentions) than in Q1 2011 (139 mentions).

5. The world is controlled by reptilians or aliens, and this is kept as a secret

The mildly speaking controversial claim the world is governed by reptilians or visitors from outer space popped up 18,102 times in the surveyed data, with 8.6 times increase from Q1 2011 (263 mentions) to Q4 2017 (2,270 mentions). As we described in an earlier article about conspiracy theories in Russia, a candidate in Moscow’s 2013 mayoral election gained some publicity when she argued that reptiles from a fictional planet reside a mountain region in southern Russia, where they have wiped out an ancient Slavic civilization.

6. The US moon landing was a hoax

This conspiracy theory is by no means homegrown in Russia; nevertheless, reference to it was detected 6,608 times in the study’s data with a drastic 11.2 times increase between Q1 2011 (85 mentions) and Q4 2017 (956 mentions). Fully in line with the overall systematic targeting of the US in the Kremlin’s international propaganda outlets, Sputnik has peddled the idea that the Americans perhaps never made it to the moon.

7. Vaccinations are extremely dangerous, and this is kept as a secret

While scepticism towards vaccination is a well-known global phenomenon, it becomes a conspiracy theory when it is claimed that the alleged knowledge about negative effects is being kept in secret from the public eye, or when it is e.g. said that a vaccination program is in fact a hidden biological attack. Vaccination conspiracy theories appeared in Russian media 6.2 times more often in the fourth quarter of 2017 than in the first quarter of 2011. Pushing narratives about the concealment of secret underlying agendas and agreements is a central element of pro-Kremlin propaganda and thereby a case of where we see a strong degree of overlap between conspiracy theory and the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign.

8. A gay lobby destroys Russia’s moral foundations

With a law banning “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships”, Russia is not known as a friendly environment for the LGBTI community. The conspiracy theory purporting the existence of a lobby of gays who – not unlike the network of historians mentioned above – allegedly wish to destabilise Russian society, takes the alienation of gay people to a new level. The claim appeared 12.9 times more often in Q4 2017 than in Q1 2011. Claims about the gay lobby have been voiced in the official Kremlin propaganda outlet, Sputnik, and on the nationwide television channel REN TV.

9. The world is flat

The idea that the world is flat and not round is not too crazy to become integrated into the flow of pro-Kremlin disinformation. For example, the winner of the 2017 Russian national television award for “best educational programme” is also the author of a TV programme in which it is claimed that the world is flat. This conspiracy theory is the fastest growing among the top 10 conspiracy theories in the study with 44.6 times increase between the first quarter of 2011 and the fourth quarter of 2017.

10. The world is controlled by Freemasons

The conspiracy theory about freemasons is also old and international; however, it has had a revival in Russia with 5.9 times rise between Q1 2011 and Q4 2017. REN TV, a Russian TV channel known for its dense mix of disinformation and conspiracy theories, is among the Russian media outlets that have given voice to this claim.

Disinformation as a driver of conspiracy theories and vice versa

As we see in the examples above, conspiracy theories can easily become integrated into disinformation; especially in a media environment where there is a high degree of multi-level state control. The incorrect claims brought forward in the conspiracy theories become instrumental in a politically motivated campaign which focuses on confusing and distracting audiences.

But conspiracy theories are not just useful as material for disinformation campaigns. Audiences that are often confronted with disinformation can perceive conspiracy theories as less problematic than other audiences. Commenting to Vedomosti on the study’s findings, Dmitry Leontiev, a psychologist at Russia’s National Research University Higher School of Economics, sees the dramatic increase in the popularity of conspiracy theories as a result of a societal order in which “the distinction between real and unreal ceases to be relevant”. In Leontiev’s words, “conspiracy theories are supported by the information policy in [Russian] media where the truth only plays a secondary role, and where messaging, even from sources with authority, mixes correct information with claims that are in no way verified”.

Deliberately covering up doping. The West’s secret plan to dismantle Russia. And finally: The West excluding the Russian candidate from the Eurovision song contest to humiliate Russia.

Accusations of concealment and whitewashing are one of the core techniques of the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu. What makes it a convenient method is the possibility to influence the public debate and channel criticism toward the opponent – but not have the responsibility to show the evidence to back up the claims.

This week, we saw two disinformation tools combined: hacking and accusations that Western authorities are hiding problems. Hackers from Fancy Bears published documents of the Swedish Sports Confederation (RF) and claimed the Swedish sports functionaries had been hiding positive doping tests.

The story was quickly picked up by Russian state-funded Sputnik, Russia Today and dozens of Russian-language websites.

The Swedish Sports Confederation stated that, in fact, nothing suggests that the athletes had been involved in doping, reported the hack to the police and appealed to the media and the publicnot to help spread the sensitive personal details of the athletes.

The activities of Fancy Bears feed into Russia’s year-long campaign to discredit international anti-doping organisations after systemic manipulation of anti-doping rules in Russia during the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi was revealed.

In the incident when they attacked the World Anti-Doping Agency WADA, the documents hackers published included fake data. Western governments and security experts link Fancy Bear, also known as APT28, to a Russian intelligence agency for the attack on the Democratic National Committee ahead of the 2016 U.S. elections.

Disinformation can sometimes be fun – especially when the more awkward attempts to spread it are unmasked. We do our best to illustrate this point with a weekly fun story on the EUvsDisinfo website, euvsdisinfo.eu.

But some go further than highlighting embarrassing moments. One genre that has gained particular popularity is that of the parody accounts, which communicate political satire on social media. Our favourite is “Darth Putin” on Twitter.

The Darth Putin tweet used as illustration above has so far gained an impressive almost 2,500 retweets, and that success is well-deserved; in fact, Darth Putin manages in just one tweet to highlight a number of  key points about the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign, which we have tried to describe in a whole series of feature articles in the course of the past year:

“If it looks like a duck,”

RT (Russia Today) does little to hide its true nature: chief editor Margarita Simonyan is on the record as saying that RT is needed “for about the same reason as why the country needs a Defense Ministry”, and that RT is capable of “conducting information war against the whole Western world,” using “the information weapon”.

“quacks like a duck,”

Pro-Kremlin media systematically repeat the political lines they receive from the Kremlin in the form of weekly instructions.

“denies it’s a duck,”

Even when evidence is piling up, the Kremlin’s media and communicators will continue to deny responsibility, as we have e.g. seen in the case of the downing of Malaysian Airways Flight MH17 and in the Salisbury poisoning incident.

“demands you prove it’s a duck,”

As easy it is to spread a lie, as difficult it can be to prove that the lie is a lie. Read about how a persistent BBC reporter on the ground in eastern Ukraine successfully unmasked a particularly morbid piece of pro-Kremlin disinformation.

“accuses you of being a duck, says your dog is a duck, that your friend’s cat is a duck”

One of the most frequently used defensive lines in pro-Kremlin disinformation is to turn tables and claim that everybody else is guilty of what the pro-Kremlin side is criticised for doing. The trick is known as “whataboutism”.

“and that all 3 aforementioned ‘ducks’ are Russophobic ducks,”

When the international community expresses concerns over the Kremlin’s policies and actions, pro-Kremlin media and communicators will usually say that the criticism is simply a result of “Russophobia”.

“it’s a Kremlin duck 🦆”

Quack-quack! Last autumn the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign was obsessed with the idea that yellow plastic ducks could become a weapon in the hands of the opposition.

Who is behind the popular Darth Putin parody account remains a well-kept secret; but we hope (s)he will continue to provide entertaining  insight into how the disinformation machinery works.

A falsified news report accuses a pro-European Moldovan politician of offering to lease Chisinau to the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi for 50 years, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

The disinformation story appeared on stiripespuse.com, a Romanian-language news website created in February 2018 — three months before the upcoming local election for Chisinau’s mayor on May 20.

The targeted politician, Dignity and Truth Platform Party (PPDA) leader Andrei Nastase, is a candidate in the election.

An accompanying fake video was posted on the website’s Facebook account. The story was debunked by Moldova’s Stopfals.

According to Stiri pe Spuse, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, has already accepted to rent the Moldovan capital for half a century with the task of modernising it, in return of which Nastase allegedly pledged to “build several mosques and create a neighbourhood for Arabs” in Chisinau.

To promote the bogus claim, Stiripespuse.com – which is registered in the U.S. town of Beaverton and doesn’t list the names of any of its editors or journalists – doctored a news programme by Al Jazeera.

The original programme in Arabic doesn’t make any mention of Moldova. An unrelated news report focusing on Chisinau’s heating system and featuring a Moldovan flag was pasted into the Al Jazeera programme. Fake subtitles outlining the alleged plans to lease Chisinau to the United Arab Emirates were then added to the images.

The video has been viewed about 327,000 times and shared 7,300 times on Facebook.

It has also gone viral on Odnoklassniki, a Russian social networking site popular in Moldova, where it currently has more than 407,500 views.

Moldova has a population of 3.5 million.

Russian media reports say pilots – seven of them to be accurate — are “massively” quitting Germany’s armed forces because they refuse to take part in a “NATO military campaign against Russia”, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

Their source? An obscure website based in the Philippines.

Popular Russian media outlets such as Moskovsky Komsomolets and Vzglyad ran the disinformation story, citing a report by Contra Magazin.

The German-language Contra Magazin, whose Twitter account has about 2,070 followers, offers a selection of articles focusing on themes such as Europe’s migration crisis, “Russophobia,” and alleged Western military aggression.

On its website, Contra Magazin – whose editors are based in the Philippine city of Davao and whose publisher is based in the Seychelles – says its goal is to convey “different points of view” largely absent from German mainstream media.

The magazine says it also tries to give its news reports “a personal touch.”

Seven pilots have indeed resigned from Germany’s Bundeswehr, an incident that was widely reported in German media outlets including Deutsche Welle, Bild, ZDF, Die Zeit, and Handelsblatt.

None of these outlets, however, made any mention of alleged NATO plans against Russia. Instead, they explained that the German army had not given any motive for the resignations.

The Contra Magazin article actually acknowledged that no official reason had been provided for the pilots’ departure.

“It is conceivable,” the author ventured, “that they are simply no longer up for war and the ongoing preparations for a NATO armed conflict against Russia, in which the Germans would be sent to the front.”

This type of speculation may be what Contra Magazin describes as its “personal” approach to news – a detail that Moskovsky Komsomolets and Vzglyad conveniently chose to omit.

Last week, five Swedish publishers started a common fact-checking initiative, with the aim to reveal the spread of constructed and invented news, in order to contribute to an open, inclusive and fact-based public debate, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu. The site is called faktiskt.se. But even before the site was launched, a very similar site, with the same name and almost the same visual identity appeared, as pointed out by Swedish journalist Patrik Oksanen.

The copycat site states it is a reaction the original fact checking site, calling the cooperation between the established publishers a ‘Ministry of Truth’- a term often used in the disinformation sphere to discredit fact checkers and actors working against disinformation. But that is not the only tell-tale sign of something fishy going on. The copycat site claims to be a cooperation between “Swedish media” and “experts” without any further information about who those experts or media might be. The site was started by NewsVoice, a site known for spreading pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives as well as conspiracy theories about vaccines, and Nya Dagbladet, a site claiming to be a news site which runs a campaign for “ethnic rights” of Nordic people.

It is no surprise then, that the first “fact checks” made by the copycat concern the Skripal case, judging the claim that Russia is behind the poisoning as ‘likely false’- blaming “all major Western media” as source for the ‘rumour’. And whereas the original faktiskt.se clearly adheres to the rules for Swedish media as well as the guidelines set up by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), the copycat states that it “broadly” follows the IFCN’s code of principles.

This is not the first time Sweden has seen a fake fact checker, although it is the first case of a copycat version of a real fact checker, with the obvious aim to confuse the audience and discredit fact checking. We have seen the copycat approach previously, for example when well-known pro-Kremlin mouthpiece Johan Bäckman started a copycat website targeting the Hybrid Centre of Excellence in Helsinki. The aim, again, was to confuse the audience and discredit the actors working against the spread of disinformation.

Bäckman is reportedly joining another new initiative by Eurasian National Front, which is a faction of All-Russia People’s Front, an organization led by president Vladimir Putin. The new movement is called “Against fake news” and there is not much known about its activities yet, but the description of its work is far from checking facts. It announces it will expose fake news that are used in “provocations against the stability” in the whole world, “against Russia’s relations with other countries”, “against Russia, European countries, US and others”. One of its founders is Dmitry Yermolayev, who the Latvian security services identified as an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) and who worked at the Russian embassy in Latvia under diplomatic immunity.

Tellingly, the report about the new initiative came from Ria Fan, a project of the St. Petersburg troll factory.

The last couple of weeks, we have seen two major campaigns unfold within the pro-Kremlin disinformation machinery: the disinformation surrounding the poisoning of the Skripals, where the number of narratives spread about it from pro-Kremlin sources is now 31 (!); and the massive campaign targeting the latest chemical attack in Syria, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

The disinformation campaign focused on the Skripal case has many similarities with the disinformation rolled out immediately following the downing of the civilian flight MH17, whereas the campaign targeting Syria is a predictable repetition of previous campaigns discrediting the suffering of civilians in the country.

We have already written about the actors behind and the narratives and tactics used in these virtual tsunamis of disinformation.

Lately these two campaigns, targeting separated events, have started to merge into one another within the pro-Kremlin disinformation space. For an untrained eye, that might seem surprising. But as the book about modern Russia and the TV landscape by Peter Pomerantsev suggests, when nothing is true, everything is possible.

Whereas previously, the White Helmets have been blamed for staging the chemical attacks in Syria among other things, this week we see that the UK is being accused of instructing them to do so. Russian state TV also claimed that Syria’s chemical weapons were actually created by the Brits, although another state TV program claimed that there are in fact no chemical weapons in Syria.

And, prior to the arrival of the independent investigators from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to Douma, Kremlin representatives and pro-Kremlin outlets have discredited their work in the Skripal-case.

And once more “news shows” on Russian state TV showed how they are very different from news programs that adhere to journalistic standards. In order to “prove” that the White Helmets had staged the chemical attack in Douma, they aired footage from a film set showing just that. But the problem is that the imagery is easily detectable as coming from the (pro-Syrian regime) movie ‘Revolution Man’. Bellingcat has the full story.

This is not the first time that Russian state TV uses images from productions and claim it is reality – we have seen this happen before with images from computer games being presented as ’irrefutable proof’.

So, even though at a first glance the poisoning of an ex-spy in London and another chemical weapons attack killing civilians in Syria don’t have so much in common, you just need to follow the disinformation trail to find how it all plays a part in the pro-Kremlin disinformation machinery. And how that machinery is used as a non-military means to reach political goals, as described in several great studies included in our Reading list for example here, here, and here.

A Russian television correspondent sneaks into the Salisbury hospital where Sergei Skripal is being treated from his poisoning. As he approaches the door that allegedly leads to Mr Skripal’s ward, the correspondent addresses his audience in Russian: “It’s securely closed. And here’s a sign: ‘No entry – keep your distance’. It’s the only protection from this lethal substance England is saying is Novichok”, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

The problem is, however, that the English sign in fact says: “Danger: Slippery Floor Surface!”

The habit of lying

When you work for a disinformation-oriented outlet like the TV channel in question, the Russian nationwide REN TV, spreading factually wrong information can become so habitual that you don’t care about the risks. It does not matter to you anymore that large portions of your audience speak English well enough to immediately be able to debunk your lie. What matters is to make claims that support your story.

REN TV is one of Russia’s largest TV stations and well known for spreading disinformation. One example of REN TV’s work we have covered is the story where Ren TV claimed that being gay is a mental disease; that same-sex marriage is not much different from someone marrying your dog; that gay politicians in Europe force children to change sex and that all this is organised by a business lobby and the world’s billionaires in order to rule the world via corporations. To an outlet that disseminates such stories about European societies, changing the meaning of a sign on a door is perhaps not a big deal.

Mistranslation as a disinformation tool

The method of mistranslation is not a new tool in pro-Kremlin disinformation. As we have earlier described, comments by EU’s High Representative Federica Mogherini have been mistranslated by the state news agency TASS; French interviewees have been mistranslated by Russian state-TV Rossiya 1 and comments about Vladimir Putin by former US President George W. Bush have been completely distorted in a story by the Russian daily MK.

Click below to watch the clip from REN TV with the mistranslated sign on the hospital door, provided and subtitled in English by The Daily Mirror.

A trove of hacked emails sent by Kremlin-linked figures appears to show that Moscow planned to fund a dirty-tricks campaign aimed at sowing division and spreading disinformation in Ukraine, just months after Russia invaded the country, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

As reported by The Times, the emails were allegedly found in accounts linked to Inal Ardzinba, a Kremlin figure close to President Vladimir Putin, and to a Ukrainian Communist Party leader.

One set of correspondence from October 2014 contained proposals to fund a cybercampaign to “troll” opponents of Moscow, “demotivate enemies” on social media, and collect personal data of opponents in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, for a fee of $130,500.

The emails, allegedly sent by an unnamed Russian politician to Ardzinba, also outlined an offer to hack email accounts for between $100 and $300.

Another proposal included the organisation of one month of pro-Russia rallies in Kharkiv for the sum of $19,200. The fee included the transport of protesters, bribes to local media to cover the demonstrations, and bribes to police. It is unclear whether the rallies actually took place.

The emails are part of the so-called “Surkov leaks,” named after Vladislav Surkov, an influential personal adviser to Putin who is believed to have sent emails exposed in two previous leaks.

Moscow insists that the leaks are fake, although the authors of emails in the first two leaks have confirmed their authenticity.

British MP Bob Seely, an expert on Russian warfare, described the latest set of emails as a “shopping list of subversion” and warned there was “overwhelming evidence” that the same tactics are being used against the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States.

EU countries are a favourite subject on Russian state TV

Every evening, the ‘gospel’ is watched for hours on end by millions in Russia, but also by Russian-speaking people in Eastern Europe, the Baltic countries, Scandinavia and the Caucasus, like reported by euvsdisinfo.eu.

For three and a half years, NGO Ukraine Crisis Media Centre (UCMC) monitored the most popular daily news bulletins and talk shows on Channel One, NTV and Russia-1.  Monitored content was converted into text in real time and automatically filtered by keywords. The filtered data was then ordered by algorithms into categories on a positive-neutral-negative scale.

The result (a total of 22,711 negative mentions) revealed a set of recurring narratives depicting Europe as a decaying, insecure place plagued with protests, terrorism and refugees. You can find the UCMC study for the Estonian Centre for Eastern Partnership here.

An unflattering portrait, drawn in a multitude of shades

While most of the time Europe as a whole is the overarching theme, several countries enjoy most of the attention. With 17% of all negative coverage, France takes the first prize as the most talked about, followed closely by Germany and the UK (coincidentally the three most populated EU member states).

Repetitio est mater studiorum

Russian TV show hosts and panellists tirelessly focus on a number of very specific recurrent themes. Almost half of the Euro-bashing time is spent detailing the ‘horrors of life’ and the ‘moral decay’ that the continent is allegedly ridden with. When they do change the subject, the choice is limited to just a handful of other issues: protests, terrorism, refugees and sanctions.

Regarding the coverage on Russian TV about the Nordic countries, the NATO StraCom COE has similar findings: The most common narratives in relation to the Nordic countries were that refugees and migrants are a destabilising factor.

Unbiased reporting?

Admittedly, some of the most favoured topics according to UCMC are inspired by realities Europe has been confronted with in the last few years. However, it is the angle that matters. Reporting and analysis seem to be most often fact-free. Instead, viewers are served large portions of ready-made interpretation. On average, nearly nine times out of ten, the theme is hijacked and presented with a negative spin.

Fine-tuning the colour palette

While the six ‘super-narratives’ are consistent across the board, not all countries are treated equally. When France is in their sight, Russian TV hosts are inclined to portray it as constantly shaken by terrorist attacks, massive protests or simply as a dangerous, unstable place to live. For the Caucasus countries, as well as Moldova and Belarus, two extra colours are added to the palette – looming military conflicts and Russia as the ‘protecting elder brother‘. In the same shows, Nazism is purportedly making a comeback in the Baltic countries, Baltic Russian-speaking populations have limited access to basic rights and Soviet history is subject to revision. Norway and Finland apparently steal Russian children, and moral values in Sweden are eroded by gender equality.