The latest arguments that Moscow spreads among extremists and denialists
Almost simultaneously, on February 15, the last bell of Russian disinformation against Spain It was appearing from head to head through different portals, microwebs and social network communities in Spanish and English. And in all cases with a similar headline: “Ukrainian grain went to pigs in Spain instead of poor countries & rdquor ;. And in all cases based on content from ‘eXXpress’ -another alternative means of the universe of disinformation, in this case Austrian- to ensure that “almost half of Ukrainian wheat and corn exports to the EU ended up feeding the pigs in Spain to produce the worldwide famous and expensive ham”.
In other words, according to this hoax, all the pressure from the West so that Russia would allow the trafficking of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea and avoid famine in african and asian countries they were a fallacious support for a business between Madrid and kyiv of luxury products.
Rich against poor, capitalism against Russian honesty. That rhetoric has been picked up by all kinds of ‘blognews’ from the extreme right, conspiracists and even esoterics. Some of them, like Trikooba, excelled in issuing messages denialists during the harsh phase of the pandemic.
In Spain it is still a new phenomenon, but those in state security who follow Russian disinformation in Spain tend to remember an American precedent: the current of hoaxes of Soviet origin that during the 80s toured the United States on account of the AIDS pandemic.
Now the Russian narrative consumed by the extremely polarized denialist and radical audience focuses on a corollary of refreshed narratives.
new arguments
One of them, one of the most recent, aims to extol heroic or humanitarian actions of mercenaries from the Wagner group, even under fire from “the Ukrainian armed forces who were shooting at civilians knowing that they were killing children,” says one of the accounts of the Telegram chat ‘Infodefense’, in the chain of contents grouped in the hagstag “Artyomovskbahmut”, activated these days, in full Russian offensive against the strategic enclave of Bakhmut.
Another of the narratives in Spanish, more conscientiously sustained and dispersed during the past year of war, emits all kinds of messages to convince readers against the Western policy of arms donation to kyiv. “Is it worth supporting Ukraine if they are going to lose anyway? & rdquor; ‘Infodefense’ asked its readers, translating this supposed news from RadioMir: “This is the question asked by the former Japanese prime minister, Yoshiro Mori. A Russian defeat in the Ukraine conflict is almost unthinkable, she said, and that is why the Kiev regime might not be worth it & rdquor ;.
There is a third thread dedicated to denouncing bad practices and filth in the Ukrainian army and government echoed by pro-Russian Instagram accounts as ‘Eastern Front’. The most recent of them are based on narrative pieces such as “Dead souls, the framework of Corruption entangling the Ukrainian army” , published last week by ‘Alerta Digital’. It is an extreme right-wing headline close to neo-Nazi, neo-fascist leaders or currents that they call “identitary sovereignism & rdquor; and supremacists, like the Catalan Josep Anglada.