A proruse campaign diffuses on social networks false statements about the blackout in Spain and Portugal with messages in four languages that attribute the origin of the electricity to the European to Moscow and supplant the identity of international media.
Some of the accounts and the Internet portals that have reproduced these messages are part of prorruse disinformative networks known to have participated in previous manipulation operations, as the ANTIBOT4NAVALNY and EFE Verify group have detected.
ANTIBOT4NAVANY, a group of activists who investigates Russian misinformation campaigns and collaborates with international media, has discovered two messages that supplant the identity of the British newspaper The Independent and public television France 24.
“The mass blackouts in Spain, Portugal and France are a consequence of the sanctions against Russia, according to The Independent”, Indicates the first of these false statements.
This attempt of manipulation has also been denounced in X as false by the center to counteract the misinformation (CFORCD) of the Ukraine government.
Networks known to misinform
Efe Verifica has found fifty publications of this message in Spanish, Portuguese, English and Russian in Telegram, X, Facebook, Instagram and Disinforming Websites.
Some of these profiles and Internet sites are linked to the pro -Russian misinformation networks (in reference to the traditional Russian wrists that other smaller ones keep inside) and Pravda (“truth” in Russian).
From the activity of these manipulation networks have reported in recent years different verifiers and public institutions, such as the European Foreign Action Service (SEA) or the government of France.
Among the publications detected by EFE Verifica is one of the Tvargra tv Channel portal, sanctioned by the European Union for misinforming with the Kremlin support.
How does the campaign work?
The messages that cite the Independent spread an image of an alleged article on their website from which they do not contribute any link.
According to this false screenshot, the British newspaper attributes the blackout to the lack of maintenance of European electrical networks with Russian technical equipment and devices due to the sanctions imposed by the European Union.
The video that simulates being information from France 24 ensures in English that “France could become the next victim of this energy apocalypse.”
However, there is no trace that the aforementioned media have published those information.
As noted by the CFORCD of the Ukraine Government in reference to the messages that cite the Independent, “the screenshot is false, invented to promote a favorable narrative to Kremlin.”
He adds that “no European media for prestige has reported any link between sanctions and electricity cuts” and that “the objective of this misinformation is to create the impression that the sanctions against Russia are ineffective and only harm the EU countries, in order to weaken European support to Ukraine.”
The supplantation of the reference media to misinform is a manipulation technique used in proruse influence operations, such as the aforementioned Matrioska and Pravda or others such as Doppelgängger (“double” in German) or false facade, also discovered by verifier means and European public institutions.
On the other hand, a review of the publications evidences different patterns in the contents that disseminate the false publication of The Independent, such as the reproduction of identical messages: with the same words and in the same order, in Russian, Spanish, English and Portuguese.
In its propagation also highlights the majority use of Telegram channels in Russian.
