DISINFO: NATO is waging cognitive warfare by banning Russian media
SUMMARY
In the West, censorship has become an old-fashioned method of governing. NATO is waging cognitive warfare: it does not fight ideas and reasoning, but acts to compromise people's ability to take into account the mindset of other cultures. This war first led to the banning of Russian media, RT, Sputnik, RIA-Novosti, Voice of Europe, as well as the dailies Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives about restrictions to Russian disinformation as a matter of ‘freedom of speech’ as well as disinformation narratives against NATO which are a recurring feature of pro-Kremlin outlets.
Cognitive Warfare focuses on attacking and degrading rationality, which can lead to exploitation of vulnerabilities and systemic weakening. However, this becomes increasingly complex as non-military targets are involved. Russian social media and public information operations targeted much of the international community in an attempt to label Ukraine as being at fault. Through a combination of communication technologies, fake news stories, and perceptions manipulation, Russia aims to influence public opinion, as well as decay public trust towards open information sources. These narratives have extensive reach, and often involve both offensive and defensive posturing.
Accusations of censorship and attacks against freedom of expression are a recurring pro-Kremlin technique to defend the illicit actions of Russia’s state-sponsored disinformation outlets.
These latest accusations were made by the Kremlin after Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, announced September 16 that it will block the accounts of RT, Rossiya Segodnya and “other Russian information channels” on its platforms for foreign interference activities.
The US imposed sanctions on Russian state outlet RT on 13 September 2024 under charges that this TV channel was closely linked to Russia’s intelligence and destabilization actions abroad, including procuring military aid to the Russian army in Ukraine, cyber operations, organisation of destabilising protests and other malign efforts in places such as Argentina, France and Moldova. These activities are not compatible with those of a real media organization.
In the previous days, the US Department of Justice had also sanctioned several RT-related individuals and entities that were part of a massive scheme to interfere in the 2024 election in the US in support of one of the candidates perceived as more favourable to the Kremlin’s interests. The affidavit included evidence, such as the arguments and bullet points to be promoted via social media and other channels such as US influencers recruited as agents of influence, attacking the current US administration and promoting its rival party.
Russia Today is not a information outlet. It was the same chief editor of RT (Russia Today), Margarita Simonyan, who talked openly about the nature of the outlet whose output she manages on behalf of the Russian government. In her own words, RT is needed “for about the same reason as why the country needs a Defence Ministry.” RT is capable of “conducting information war against the whole Western world,” using “the information weapon,” Simonyan has explained. According to Simonyan, RT’s strategic aim is to “conquer” and to “grow an audience” in order to make use of access to this audience in “critical moments”.
Read similar cases claiming that the US and the Collective West have launched a terrorist attack against Russia’s information channels, that RT is targeted because it exposed Ukraine conflict as Western proxy war, that sanctions on Russian media show the US is allergic to freedom of expression and that Russian media have been subjected to a terrorist information attack from the US.