Kremlin’s desinformation war and why Lavrov should repent his lies.
Spoiler: Biden has revealed the Kremlin’s plans to invade Ukraine. Kremlin has also planned many false-flag operations which have been spoilt by US intelligence.
The Kremlin is led by a psychopath, with an army of parrots lying through their teeth. Since they are hypocritical bastards, they accuse everyone else of lying. The number one target, besides Ukraine, is of course USA. Especially now since Biden has exposed Putin’s plans to invade Ukraine.
Hard facts confirm what we already know. The Russian government lies to its own people. The Russian government lies to people in other countries. Russian political parties lie to their own people. Russian political parties lie to people in other countries. Other countries’ governments seldom lie.
Flipping the coin shows that the Russian government is seldom the target of other countries’ disinformation. The Latvian, the Ukrainian and the US governments are often targets of other countries’ disinformation, i.e., the Kremlin.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has also been a war against the truth. As I showed in this post, Ukraine is the main target, c.f. Figure 1.
Figure 1. Russian dissemination of false information abroad and Ukrainian receiving false information from abroad 2000-2019.
Source: V-Dem https://www.v-dem.net/en/ Note: Foreign governments’ dissemination of false information; The indicator measures how routinely foreign governments and their agents use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or false information to influence domestic politics in other countries. Range 0 to 4 where 0 indicates extremely often and 4 never or almost never. Government dissemination of false information abroad; the indicator measures how often the government and its agents use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or false information to influence other countries’ populations. Range 0 to 4 where 0 indicates extremely often and 4 never or almost never.
Many of the lies by Kremlin and its puppets seem to be fabricated by idiots. Especially those made by the morons in the occupied part of Donbas. The announcement of mass evacuation which was supposedly urgent, turned out to have been made two days in advance of the “urgency”.
And as I write this, I read on Twitter that the Kremlin is fabricating false-flag operations by the minute.
Considering that it is often very easy to debunk the bullshit coming out of the Kremlin, one might think that they should refrain from accusing others of lying. But no. Russia has a, to put it mildly, bizarre foreign minister. He’s rude and lies constantly. He does it because he’s a corrupt coward who doesn’t dare to stand up against the psychopath in charge.
Satire is dead.
Source: /status/1495157097511718915?t=MUuIJYQ5xmHmxfA7oGIYGg&s=03
I’m not sure who the “Western” partners are but I’m guessing that he means the USA and countries that are members in either the EU or NATO or both. In any case, by the means of data from Varieties of Democracy, it is possible to compare governments in different countries with regards to lying or disseminating disinformation to domestic and foreign audiences. As shown in Figure 1 above, it is, for a country A, possible to see both how the government in country A lie about other countries and how governments in other countries lie about country A.
Let us begin to see whether there is any substance in Lavrov’s claim that “Western” countries lie about Russia. Varieties of Democracy’sindicator “Foreign Governments Dissemination of False Information” ranges from 0 to 4. A value of 0 indicates that the country in question is exposed extremely often to false information from foreign governments on all key political questions and a value of 4 that it never occurs. If there were any truth in Lavrov’s claim that ”Western” parties are waging an information war against Russia, the indicator should show a value of close to zero or at least below one for Russia. Instead, the indicator shows that Latvia and the USA are the countries that are most exposed from lying foreign countries. Russia? A value above three demonstrates that governments in other countries very rarely spread lies about Russia, c.f. Figure 2.
Figure 2. Foreign governments’ dissemination of false information in 2020.
Source: V-Dem https://www.v-dem.net/en/ Note: Foreign governments’ dissemination of false information; The indicator measures how routinely foreign governments and their agents use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or false information to influence domestic politics in other countries. Range 0 to 4 where 0 indicates extremely often and 4 never or almost never. Note: 2020 is the latest year for which there are observations.
Having established that governments in other countries rarely lie about Russia, let’s flip the coin. Varieties of Democracy’sindicator “Government Dissemination of False Information Abroad” ranges from 0 to 4. A value of 0 indicates that country’s government spreads false information about other countries extremely often on all key political issues. A value of 4 never or almost never.
Surprise, surprise. The Kremlin is superior in this respect. A value of the indicator just below 1 indicates that it the Kremlin very frequently spreads disinformation about key political issues in other countries, c.f. Figure 3.
Figure 3. Government dissemination of false information abroad in 2020.
Source: V-Dem https://www.v-dem.net/en/ Note: Government dissemination of false information abroad; the indicator measures how often the government and its agents use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or false information to influence other countries’ populations. Range 0 to 4 where 0 indicates extremely often and 4 never or almost never. Note: 2020 is the latest year for which there are observations.
Varieties of Democracy’s database can also be used to show how the Kremlin lies to its own citizens. As I showed in this post, the Kremlin uses its affiliated political parties, mostly United Russia, to spread lies to both domestic and foreign audiences, c.f. Figure 4.
Figure 4. Party Dissemination of False Information Abroad.
Source: V-Dem https://www.v-dem.net/en/ Note: Party dissemination of false information abroad; the indicator measures how often major political parties and candidates for office use social media to disseminate misleading viewpoints or false information to influence other countries’ populations. Range 0 to 4 where 0 indicates extremely often and 4 never or almost never. Note: 2020 is the latest year for which there are observations.
Conclusion Lavrov is a hypocrite who should repent his lies.