"Russia's Support for Ukraine Wavers as Far-Right Politicians Conduct Influence Operations in France"

WP "Kremlin Orders Political Discord Through French Politics and Social Media"

On the 30th (local time), the US daily The Washington Post (WP) reported that Kremlin documents and the results of an investigation by the French parliament confirmed that Russia is recruiting far-right politicians in France to conduct influence operations aimed at weakening support for Ukraine.

According to materials obtained by European security authorities, Sergey Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration, instructed Kremlin political strategists to create political discord in France through French political figures, opinion leaders, activists, and social media. The goal of these directives was to generate public opinion opposing support for Ukraine and advocating dialogue with Russia. To this end, they promoted claims that sanctions against Russia would instead harm the French economy and that support for Ukraine would jeopardize French security.

Sergey Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office of Russia Photo by TASS Yonhap News

A memo drafted in June also included instructions to create "200-character comments written by middle-aged French people" as social media content, claiming that support for Ukraine was causing inflation and a decline in living standards. Dmitry Peskov, Kremlin spokesperson, denied the authenticity of such documents, calling them "complete fakes and rubbish," and questioned the necessity of promoting such narratives when "all of Europe is suffering from sanctions against Russia."

However, during large-scale protests in late June in France triggered by the death of an Algerian-descended teenage boy shot by police, analysis by security firm Alto Intelligence revealed that pro-Russian social media accounts, which made up only 1.2% of the total, produced 30.6% of protest-related posts. Following the war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas, an incident in late October in Paris involved hundreds of Stars of David, a symbol of Judaism, being painted. Online, about 1,000 bots systematically spread related posts.

France’s digital surveillance authority VIGINUM described this as "a new Russian digital interference operation targeting France," and strongly affirmed that these activities are linked to Russia’s information warfare operation known as 'Doppelg?nger.' The French parliament, after a six-month investigation into foreign interference in domestic affairs, stated in its report that "Russia is conducting long-term disinformation campaigns to advance its own interests and polarize our society."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.