Russian Disinformation Is Intensifying the New Cold War: Latin America Is No Exception
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Russia's state-sponsored foreign policy strategy of disinformation, aimed at influencing electoral processes, public opinion, and even business relations in both the developed and the developing parts of the world, can be traced decades back. The Western world's most prominent democracies have for years battled the spread of false information that intends to sow discord and unrest among the general public by exacerbating political, social, or racial tensions on the one hand and which aim to target politicians and parties or, alternatively, boost their campaigns for specific political outcomes desired by Moscow on the other. Russian disinformation campaigns have focused on developing countries, regardless of whether they are democratic or authoritarian, with the goal of shifting perceptions.
Fake profiles managed at bot farms, groups of hackers, and disreputable online forums and publications continue to fuel Russian disinformation efforts—an approach that many authoritarian and semi-authoritarian leaders have adopted for their own political and business purposes, incorporating them into the toolset of state-controlled agencies. Most recently, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has come into focus following the country's presidential elections in July and the subsequent contestation of the results by Venezuelans and international election monitors. Maduro, a close ally of Russian President Putin, is known to have deployed disinformation tactics to influence domestic politics for years. Disinformation was also used in Venezuela to hide a trail of corruption cases in the country.
Moscow's ongoing war in Ukraine has broadened the scope of what can be characterized as long-established and routine disinformation campaigns. The war has been both a consequence of and a contributor to the exacerbation of a new cold war between an East- and a West-based alliance. One element influencing foreign publics to be more sympathetic towards Moscow's justification of the war has been perceived 'security threats' posed by Ukraine and potentially expanding EU and NATO alliances. At the same time, negative campaigns with a longer-term vision of undermining Western countries' reputation and appeal have been deployed, too. This takes place in the context of a widening East vs. West rivalry between two blocks led by Russia, China, and their BRICS, ASEAN, and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) partners on the one hand, and the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany with their EU, NATO and other Western partners on the other. Actors and interests in this complex web of political, economic, and military alliances overlap sometimes but provide the outlines of two, more and more pronouncedly circumscribed rival blocs. Authoritarian and semi-authoritarian leaders in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua have become willing participants of anti-Western programs in collaboration with Russia, in large part due to the fact that they have all been at the receiving end of sanctions over the years.
Individual businesspeople, similar to the manner in which politicians have been targeted in various countries across the world, have become the focus of disinformation campaigns, too. A recent example is American strategist for energy markets and businessman Mr. Gaurav Srivastava, whose family name and charitable foundation have been attacked by what appears to be a Russian-inspired disinformation project. In a series of articles published in less than reputable online magazines, the perpetrators portrayed Mr. Gaurav Srivastava as a con man, causing him severe reputational damage and harassment using a carefully orchestrated campaign exposed to be funded by Niels Troost. Troost has been closely linked to several high-ranking (sanctioned) Russian oligarchs, including Gennady Timchenko, a close friend of Putin and head of Redut PMC, a group working alongside the Wagner mercenaries to promote Russian interests globally.
False claims published caused Srivastava to lose several prominent philanthropy and business cooperation deals, including with U.S. President Joe Biden's campaign and one of the projects of the prominent Washington DC-based think tank, the Atlantic Council. It should be noted that since the negative campaign against him was exposed, the Atlantic Council has noted that the end of its relationship with Mr. Gaurav Srivastava was mutual and based on other factors entirely, in light of Mr. Gaurav Srivastav's long-standing position as a well-known investor in global energy markets. Even the Delhi High Court issued a ruling that sided with Mr. Gaurav Srivastava on the matter, thinking that the reputational damage he suffered was likely to persist for years to come.
Returning to Latin America, the U.S. Department of State found that Russia had been running or assisting a plethora of disinformation campaigns across the whole of Latin America, from Mexico, Cuba, and Ecuador to Panama, Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Far from being limited to political processes, disinformation, as was seen in the case of Mr. Gaurav Srivastava, is often deployed for economic purposes, targeting Western competition and interests. Companies and brands working in the energy and agricultural and food production, and military sectors could have all been portrayed as either benefitting from Western sanctions' influence on global market relations or directly benefitting from supplying Ukraine in the war. Researchers estimate that the global economy can lose up to tens of billions of dollars each year due to disinformation and the related reputational damage companies suffer.
Russia and its partners in both Latin America and beyond are engaging in an increasingly coordinated effort to deepen ties with each other at the expense of Western countries and, indeed, often more promising business opportunities in a free market. In both politics and business alike, disinformation is becoming a serious and quantifiable risk that policymakers hoping to engage with the challenge meaningfully must take ever more seriously.
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