NEIL BARNETT: Russia’s lie industry is undermining Western democracies at an unprecedented scale

Have you heard of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s yachts? Apparently there are at least two, and they both cost billions . . . all paid for with Western aid.

Of course, that story is nonsense, a complete fabrication. But it is circulating quickly on social media. Many different sources are cited and countless people will swear that it must be true, because they heard it from someone they trust.

The real source, of course, is the Russian intelligence operation, which is spreading disinformation on an unimaginable scale. The lie about Zelensky’s yachts was particularly successful, fueling resentment about the cost of supporting Ukraine. But the lies are spread about much more than just the war.

This sophisticated disinformation machine is currently running at full speed in the UK in a bid to disrupt Thursday’s general election. Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned last weekend that this lie industry poses a real threat to our democracy.

That story is of course nonsense, a complete fabrication. But it is circulating rapidly on social media. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin

He was responding to reports from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Russian propagandists were covertly exerting their influence through a series of Facebook pages to boost support for Nigel Farage’s Reform party. The pages collectively have 190,000 followers.

Dowden called this “deeply worrying” and blamed “malign foreign actors”.

Five pages on Facebook are just the tip of the iceberg. Russia employs thousands of computer operators who flood our social media networks with distortions, falsified reports and outrageous fabrications.

Much of this disinformation may seem plausible. There is so much that it is impossible to fact-check everything because the “fake news” spreads and mutates so quickly. Even if it is later discredited, the damage has already been done.

For example, in a marginal seat where the Reform candidate has the chance to overthrow a Tory majority, a bogus narrative might circulate about how immigrants are monopolizing local NHS dental services, forcing established residents to move to the private sector.

Some people don’t need proof. They will accept the claim without question and probably repeat it. Others will be skeptical at first. But when the lie is repeated endlessly, it begins to seem true, just because it has been said so often.

The surest way to spread this simple lie is to tell a few people who will surely spread it. This is called ‘micro-targeting’ and requires access to data collected by online giants such as X (formerly Twitter), Google and Meta, which owns Facebook.

All companies emphasize that they have safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the detailed information about their users. But Russian intelligence networks have decades of experience spreading disinformation and devising solutions to access the data.

During the Cold War, spreading propaganda was slow. One method of the KGB was to steal documents from a Western state, reproduce them with a few lies and leak them to newspapers.

Another involved bribing or blackmailing British journalists and politicians to spread false news stories. The 1960s Labor minister John Stonehouse was suspected of this after he was lured into a honey trap by a Czech agent.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden warned last weekend that this industry of lies poses a real threat to our democracy

He was responding to reports from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Russian propagandists were secretly exerting their influence through a series of Facebook pages to gain support for Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.

But today, Russian agents don’t even need to know the identities of their “useful idiots.” They target social media users by location and use algorithms to highlight highly active posters and their interests.

They also focus on small communities of like-minded individuals, who have something in common – be it sports, hobbies or work. This creates an atmosphere of trust, which makes people more likely to believe what they read.

To increase the credibility of these lies, false reports and news stories are planted elsewhere, a method known as “surfacing.” One piece of disinformation crosses with another until the sources are so confused that no one can tell where the lie came from.

Russia is not running a conventional PR campaign. Its aim is not to win admirers but to sow division. Forty years ago, Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov described it as a campaign to demoralize the West: “A demoralized person is unable to evaluate true information. The facts tell him nothing.”

This long, slow process is proving increasingly toxic to democracy.

Neil Barnett is co-author of Russia’s Hybrid War Against The UK: Time To Fight Back Against The Kremlin, published by the Russia and Eurasia Studies Centre.