DISINFO: The West ran a campaign to discredit the State Duma election
SUMMARY
The number of negative publications and fakes about the [Duma] elections increased on a daily basis as the elections approached. The largest number came from the USA, Great Britain, France, Czechia. More than two-thirds of such messages belong to accounts that directly or indirectly express their preference to the opposition. Manuals and money for creating fakes were, apparently, were also included. Some authors had enough for a home movie studio with props.
Europe, represented by the ODIHR, refused to send a delegation to Russia with the excuse that quotas of 50 observers are not enough for them, which means there will be zero. At the same time, the same OSCE sent only forty people to the American elections, where there are two times more voters. We see a campaign with attempts to discredit the [Duma] elections as a whole. They say, they took place in territories that are not recognised by the international community, or that not everyone who could participate in them did participate. It was a purposeful campaign carried out for several months, and maybe even years, which is nothing but meddling in Russian elections.
RESPONSE
This disinformation message contains false statements and forged videos, which the pro-Kremlin media outlet baselessly attributes to the opposition, backed by the West.
See previously debunked narrative: "associates of Navalny were caught filming fake videos about the elections". BBC found two actors featured in the disinformation report, who were said to be hired by "Navalny's aide" in order to discredit the election.
No messages about any official investigation on filming fabrications, which would be a criminal offence, have appeared on the website of the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate so far.
Pro-Kremlin media also repeated a fabricated video on ODIHR and Golos association. The Golos movement did indeed conduct lectures for observers in St. Petersburg, but they were public and "organising provocations" was not on the agenda. An anonymous Telegram channel, quoted by mainstream State Russian media, said that a volunteer of the ex-head of Navalny's headquarters in St. Petersburg Irina Fatyanova participated in the "training". Fatyanova, however, pointed out that she has never seen this volunteer at her headquarters.
Finally, the OSCE's ODIHR election observation mission did not deploy only 40 observers for the US 2020 presidential election. The international election observation mission for the general elections in the United States totalled 102 observers from 39 countries, made up of 50 ODIHR-deployed experts and observers, and 52 parliamentarians and staff from the OSCE PA.
Russian authorities cited the sanitary-epidemiological situation in the Russian Federation as the reason for the limitations. However, the OSCE said that no pandemic-related entry restrictions or rules about operating and moving within the country would seem to prevent the deployment of a full election observation mission in line with ODIHR’s initial assessment.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the OSCE/ODIHR has been able to successfully deploy several Election Observation Missions to other countries in a manner that respected the need to prevent the spread of the virus, protecting the observers’ and host countries’ public health.
Based on reliable reports on serious violations in Russian elections, the EU expressed its concerns over the electoral process. The EU does not recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol by the Russian Federation, and therefore does not recognise the so-called elections there.
The Russian Federation‘s decision to involve residents of the non-government controlled territories of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in Ukraine in the State Duma was also condemned by the EU.