Those dastardly Russians, they’re at it again, using a global pandemic to spread disinformation, conduct espionage and generally be all-round bad eggs. Except that the evidence of nefarious conspiracy is rather less compelling, and actually seems to run counter to how the Russian government is trying to use the crisis. Could it be that the Kremlin is not the villain, this time?
The claims are familiar ones, just put in the present context. The European Union’s counter-disinformation task force claims that it has identified a coordinated plan “to aggravate the public health crisis in western countries, specifically by undermining public trust in national healthcare systems.”
Likewise, Lea Gabrielle, the former Fox News correspondent who now heads the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Centre, spoke of a “widespread disinformation campaign that the Kremlin launched in late January” that is “endangering global health by undermining the efforts of governments; of health agencies and organizations that are in charge of disseminating accurate information about the virus, such as the World Health Organisation.”
The charm offensive
OK, let us set aside the WHO’s rather peculiar recent passion for bending over backwards to endorse Chinese statistics despite the numerous suggestions that they too represent a rather pernicious and dangerous act of disinformation. Let us also set aside the possibility that the most dangerous font of virus-related disinformation may well be the White House press room.
Even so, it seems strange that the Kremlin itself would launch and push a disinformation campaign at the very time it is clearly launching a soft-power charm offensive on the back of the pandemic.
The sight of military trucks emblazoned ‘From Russia With Love’ heading to virus-stricken Bergamo in Italy do not just play well on Russian TV, but also represented a powerful symbol of traditional Russo-Italian friendship (whether or not the aid and medical team is, as some claim, “80% useless” in the circumstances).
Likewise, a leviathan An-124 transport aircraft landing in New York with aid represents not just a delicious “gotcha” moment for Moscow, it will be used as evidence that humanitarian concerns trump geopolitical rivalry (whether or not the aid was actually aid, or paid for).
After all, the message that this is a time for all nations to work together is one the Kremlin appears to hope to use to undermine attempts to maintain the isolation of Russia in general, the sanctions regime in particular.
At the virtual summit of G20 leaders last month, Putin pointedly called for a “joint moratorium” on all sanctions, as a “purely humanitarian issue… free of any politics.” Of course, letting Italian parmesan and Australian beef back in hardly balances free access to Western finance and technology.
