Atlantic Council Report On Moscow's Anti-West Online Campaign 'Fake' - Russian Embassy

Atlantic Council Report on Moscow's Anti-West Online Campaign 'Fake' - Russian Embassy

A report by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) about an alleged Russian intelligence operation on the social media to sow divide in the West is an absolute fake, the Russian Embassy in Dublin told Sputnik on Monday, adding that by publishing the report's findings, The Irish Times newspaper was either consciously or unconsciously becoming a tool of information war against Moscow

LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th June, 2019) A report by the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) about an alleged Russian intelligence operation on the social media to sow divide in the West is an absolute fake, the Russian Embassy in Dublin told Sputnik on Monday, adding that by publishing the report's findings, The Irish Times newspaper was either consciously or unconsciously becoming a tool of information war against Moscow.

On Saturday, the US-based DFRLab issued a report claiming that an alleged Russian-based information campaign on social media is much wider than 16 suspected Russian accounts taken down by Facebook in May and is "possibly an intelligence operation." This operation, with the use of fake accounts and forged comments and documents, according to the research, aims to "inflame tensions between NATO allies" and "stoke racial, religious, or political hatred, especially in Northern Ireland." Based on the report on Monday, The Irish Times published an article: "Russians suspected of spreading fake news about Northern Ireland."

"We have already given a brief comment to the newspaper, stressing that the story concocted by an Atlantic Council unit is an absolute fake, having nothing to do with reality and not deserving a serious comment. The only thing obvious in this regard is that the publication once again shows that Western operatives, leading the information war against Russia, will do anything to defame our country and sow discord in its relations with foreign partners," the embassy's spokeswoman Victoria Loginova said.

She added that when the article in The Irish Times had been published, the embassy had sent it an additional short remark, expressing regret that the newspaper wittingly or unwittingly was becoming an instrument of a disinformation campaign against Russia, which runs counter to the interests of its readers.

It is noteworthy that the report in question says that the DFRLab has "no access to Facebook's backend data" and relies on "contextual and linguistic points ... to corroborate Facebook's attribution to a likely Russian source." The report also alleges that it was the Russian special operation on social media that used false claims that former UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said that the Real IRA paramilitary group had assisted in the attempted poisoning of Russian spy Sergei Skripal, among other things.