Title: How Russia's Disinformation Campaigns are Succeeding in Europe | Global Security Review
Headings: How Russia’s Disinformation Campaigns are Succeeding in Europe
How Russia’s Disinformation Campaigns are Succeeding in Europe
Russian disinformation campaigns continue to increase, and increasingly seems to be part of a coordinated campaign to overwhelm democracies.
France: The Yellow Vests
Georgia: Disinformation as the Status Quo
Europe Needs to Fight Back

Content: Over the last year, the E.U. East StratCom Task Force reported 993 reports of disinformation cases, 152 of which targeted the E.U. and originated from Russia. Furthermore, eighty-three percent of Europeans believe “fake news” is a danger to democracy. Disinformation is on the rise, and there is ample evidence that Russian disinformation is part of an orchestrated campaign to overwhelm democracies and free media outlets. Coined by Russian expert Mark Galeotti, the “Gerasimov doctrine” is a colloquial term that refers to the employment of non-kinetic or non-military methods to achieve political ends—to destabilize the E.U. and NATO from within through the exploitation of existing social, ethnic, and religious divisions. The so-called “Gerasimov doctrine” merely describes an operational concept and isn’t a reference to a Russian military doctrine. For decades, the trans-Atlantic alliance has remained stable, but history is no guarantee of stability in perpetuity. Despite mostly positive support for NATO amongst the citizens of its member states, Russia seizes upon existing dissatisfaction felt by a minority of citizens and pushes messaging that employs terms like “occupying power” to describe the alliance. The same goes for the European Union. Member states regularly disagree over issues such as refugee resettlement, Russian sanctions, and the resurgence of nationalism across the continent. Such subjects are prime targets for Russian disinformation campaigns, which are disseminated by Kremlin-controlled media outlets like RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik, as well as on fringe websites and social media accounts to amplify the message further.