Wars are fought simultaneously on different battlefields. The fight in the media and social networks is hotter than ever. The Kremlin found some unlikely allies in the global disinformation fight to support his invasion of Ukraine and has the backing of powerful groups of the extreme Trumpist right in the United States, as well as nationalists of all species globally. Also Hollywood actors, an Italian princess and the grandson of General De Gaulle.
The messages disseminated by these groups and characters range from the widely denied that The United States maintains biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine even those who present the Russian president, Vladimir Putinas an ally in supporting traditional values, religion and family in the fight against ideas “woke” (progressives). And to spread them they use alternative social networks such as Parler, Rumble, Gab and Odysee. Two reports published last month by the study centers of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the Atlantic Council show this coexistence of interests between the Trumpist extreme right, nationalist groups of different skins, Latin American pseudo-progressives and nostalgic communists.
Other campaigns focused on the high economic cost of the war for the United States are carried out directly by the Freedom Caucus of the House of Representatives in Washington. It is the far-right bench that emerged from the followers of Donald Trump and that includes representatives such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Scott Perry and paul gosar. They are the ones who have already presented several projects to stop the military aid that the Democratic administration of Joe Biden is providing to the Kiev government to defend itself against Russian aggression.
These retrograde forces are also represented in the media. They are led by the presenter of foxnews, Tucker Carlsonand former Trump adviser turned influential podcaster, Steve Bannon. The former has a daily prime-time program in which he has defended the Kremlin’s position since the start of the war. Just a few days ago, on the first anniversary of the invasion of Moscow, Carlson falsely claimed that Biden’s target had become “overthrow Putin and put American tanks in Red Square”. And he added ironically: “because, of course, we could manage Russia once the dictator is overthrown.” Bannon, on his podcast War Room conduct interviews like the one he did to Erik Princethe wealthy American founder of Blackwater, the company to which the former vice president was related, Dick Cheneyand former Secretary of Defense, donald rumsfeld, which took most of the Pentagon contracts in Iraq. Prince and Bannon publicly expressed their sympathy for the Russian aggression, said they had finally I was going to “wake up a few” (referring to saying that “Biden is a sleeper”) and praised Putin’s attitude against sexual minorities.
According Jessica BrandtDirector of Public Policy at Brookings Institutionin an interview with Guardian of London, it is a coincidence of factors that leads to the union between the two sectors that seemed incompatible. “So there is often a kind of harmony: Both Kremlin couriers and key media figures, each for their own reasons, have an interest in criticizing the Biden administration for its handling of the Ukraine crisis, in amplifying distrust of authoritative media or in playing with skepticism about the origins of Covid ”, Brandt explained.
For example, the conspiracy theory That the Pentagon was developing biological weapons in clandestine labs set up in Ukrainian war zones was widely reported on Bannon’s podcast shows or other shows watched by Trumpist far-right militants as well as global libertarians in the US. Charlie Kirk Show.
According to the analysis of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) there is an organized handling of the messages spread by all the conspiracy and Russophile groups. “Everything would indicate that they are dictated from the Kremlin’s disinformation plants,” they say. In the first six months of the war the accounts of Twitter linked to Russia mentioned the term “Nazi” referring to Ukraine in more than 5,800 tweets. That trend slowed markedly over the next six months, and “pro-Russian” messages began to focus on “the high cost” to Washington of its support for Ukraine. “Tweets from sectors close to the Kremlin mentioning both ‘gas for Europe’ and ‘supply cut’ increased by 267%, while tweets mentioning ‘rising cost of living’ increased by 66%” compared with the first six months of the war”, they explain. These messages, in turn, found other alternative means for their dissemination. The accounts and channels affiliated with the Russian state media Russia Today (RT)which was completely banned in Youtubewent viral through alternative social media and video sharing platforms such as Rumble and Odysee that have less restrictive content moderation policies and that allow RT to operate without labels or restrictions.
This translated into a growing wave of discontent in the US Congress from the most conservative sectors of the Republican Party, grouped in the Trumpist movement of WIZARD (for Trump’s slogan: Make America Great Again – Make America Great again) for US support for kyiv. The Joe Biden government has already handed over to the Ukrainian government more than 100,000 million dollars in military and financial aid. Those voices are especially strong in the Freedom Caucus, which wields increasing influence over the Speaker of the House, kevin mccarthywho repeats that he will not support a “blank check” for Ukraine and this week he declined the invitation of Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky to visit kyiv.
At the start of the war, Donald Trump referred to Putin as “a genius” and said it had been “very clever”. During his presidency, he had an excellent relationship with the Russian leader despite the evidence that Kremlin hackers influenced the elections to harm Hillary Clinton and do everything possible for the New York billionaire to reach the White House. Trump has stopped talking about the war in recent weeks, but his son, Donald Jr., uses social media to relentlessly mocking Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky. “One of the most flagrant mistakes of American far-right propagandists is to see Vladimir Putin as some kind of defender of Christianity, of family values and as a protector of the white race”, he explained Ariel Cohenresearcher of Eurasian Centerin his analysis of the report of the Atlantic Council. “They repeat the Kremlin’s arguments and rave about Russia’s law banning ‘gay propaganda’.”
Meanwhile, other unexpected allies of the Kremlin continue to work globally as well. This past week they met in a glass-enclosed room in the Pushkin State Museum from Moscow delegates from all over the world of the so-called International Movement of Russophiles. Among those present were the controversial American actor Steven Seagala grandson of Charles de Gaulle and an Italian princess and scholar known for her translations of the books of JRR Tolkien, the author of “The Lord of the rings”.
“I am here to promote peace and friendship, and I believe that this conflict has been provoked and caused by Anglo-Saxon interests… I think it’s putting the world in grave danger, and I’m here to fight this,” he said. Pierre deGaulle, grandson of the French general and speaker at the conference. The young de Gaulle had already been creating controversy about it. Last month he told the French newspaper, le parisienthat the West had “unhappily allowed Zelensky, his oligarchs and neo-Nazi military groups to lock themselves into a senseless spiral of war…Russia reclaims its rightful lands”. Yves de Gaulle, Pierre’s older brother, clarified that what his brother was saying was “on a personal level” and that “it does not represent in any way the position of the family” and “much less does it represent the legacy of our grandfather”.
Along with Pierre De Gaulle, another 90 delegates arrived in Moscow, many of them conspiracy theorists, ready to parrot the Moscow line. Nikolai Malinova former member of the Bulgarian Parliament, opened the event by saying that the time had come for “The forces of light defeat the forces of darkness”. On stage, dressed in black, he was Steven Seagalappointed by Putin as “special representative for cultural ties between Russia and the United States.” “I am 100% Russophile and 1 million% Russian”, Seagal stated at a subsequent press conference. The princess was there too. Vittoria Alliata di Villafranca, a woman in her 70s with bright red hair, best known in Italy for being the first Italian translator of Tolkien. According to her, in recent years she has fought against Opus Dei and the Sicilian mafia to reclaim his family palace from Bagheriawhere, according to her, “film producers are shooting a modern remake of the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, “The Leopard”.
In a speech, the Italian princess said that “Russophobia” was created to reinforce “new colonization formulas” and he related it to the American landing in Sicily during World War II, which he described as a pretext for the expansion of Washington’s influence. Alliata di Villafranca He said he was coming to the conference on behalf of the Deutsch-Arabaische Gesellschaft (German Arab Association), of which she is president, and stated that she defended a “message of peace”. By the way, she said, she was visiting the Russian royal family. “I am a cousin of the Romanovs”he explained, referring to the descendants of the last royal family of the Russian empire. “I know them very well, I came to the wedding… So it’s a tsarist connection”.
The colorful congress in Moscow and the American alternative networks show that the Russian invasion of Ukraine maintains support that is as global as it is unorthodox. A brotherhood that has its epicenter in the variants of the extreme right but that reaches out to those who self-perceive as progressive in Latin America and the illustrious outsiders of politics.
Keep reading:
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Source-www.infobae.com