As the Israel-Hamas war rages, sources claim Russians stoking an already tense situation – a strategy used by the country’s security services against the West since the Cold War
By DAVID I. KLEIN, TOI Today, 1:13 am5
JTA — When Stars of David began appearing on Jewish homes and institutions in Paris’ 10th arrondissement late last month, as well as on a Jewish woman’s home in Berlin, many were quick to bring up comparisons to the Nazi era.
But French authorities pointed to a surprising culprit: Russia.
According to French authorities, the pictures of the Stars of David first began to spread via a Russian-run news site called Recent Reliable News (RRN) before being found by others online. Shortly after the incident went viral, VIGINUM, France’s intelligence unit devoted to tracking foreign digital interference, recorded more than 1,000 bots making over 2,500 posts related to the incident on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
RRN, seemingly a news aggregator, was revealed in June to be part of a network of web domains used by Russian hackers for a disinformation operation targeted at Western Europe known as “Doppelganger.” RRN and sites like it were used to mimic major news outlets and even government sites, sharing information with a clearly pro-Russia slant.
“VIGINUM has a high degree of confidence that these bots are affiliated to the RRN network, given that one of their main activities consists in redirecting people to RRN websites,” France’s foreign ministry said in a press release earlier this month. “France strongly condemns the involvement of the Russian network Recent Reliable News (RRN/Doppelgänger) in the artificial spreading and initial distribution on social media of photos of graffiti representing Stars of David in the 10th arrondissement of Paris.”
As antisemitism has spiked in Europe in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, multiple investigations have pointed to Russian involvement in stoking an already tense situation. While motives remain unclear, experts have noted that fomenting already brewing divisions and chaos in the West has been a tradition of Russia’s security services since the Cold War.
French investigators noted that their probe is ongoing, and they still have yet to confirm if the vandalism was the work of Russian state-backed actors. But they revealed that two suspects arrested in connection with the graffiti were Moldovan nationals who allegedly painted the stars on the orders of an unknown individual whom they communicated with by phone in Russian. (While Moldova’s national language is Romanian, like many other former Soviet republics, Russian has remained a first language for many of its citizens.)
As more details about the vandalism emerged, more questions were raised. For one, not all of the stars were sprayed on Jewish buildings. Second, the style of the stars — from an elegant stencil, in a deep blue color reminiscent of the Israeli flag — seemed out of place for an antisemitic incident.
While the details remain murky, Nina Jankowicz, the US vice president of the Centre for Information Resilience and an expert on disinformation, said the episode tracks with Russia’s modus operandi.
“This definitely seems like it could fit the bill of the types of provocation that Russia has been known to be behind in the past,” Jankowicz told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Russia uses these pre-existing fissures in society to drive further polarization or drive issues that are hot button issues in society, generally, without regard for the context.”
Such moves have been part and parcel of Russia’s foreign policy for decades and a key feature of its so-called “hybrid war” since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“Driving polarization in Western societies is really an easy way to have wins for Russia,” Jankowicz said.
That hasn’t been restricted to amplifying divisive topics in the digital sphere. During the 2016 US elections, dueling protests unfolded on the streets of Houston, Texas, both for and against a local Islamic center. What neither side fully knew at the time was that both protests were spawned by Facebook groups made by operatives in Moscow.
“I think we’d like to think that at this point, Russia is just doing stuff on the internet and then poisoning dissidents every so often. But these sorts of on-the-ground operations — which sometimes aren’t carried out in the most perfect way — are 100 percent the sort of thing that they’ve done in the past, and that they continue to do even after the US election in 2016,” Jankowicz said.
Jankowicz noted that Russia is an equal opportunity inciter, switching from causes on the right to left at will, and the country is no stranger to using antisemitism as a weapon. In fact, it’s a trick cribbed straight from the Soviet Union playbook.
“During the Soviet period, especially in places like Germany, Russia would very deliberately deface memorials and use antisemitic attacks, as late as the ’80s, in order to stoke the specter of antisemitism,” she said.
In the late 1980s, before German reunification, Rainer Sonntag, the leader of West Germany’s most influential Neo-Nazi group, was doing double duty as a spy for both the East German Stasi and Soviet KGB. During the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, the Stasi forged hundreds of letters of support from “veterans of the Waffen-SS” in an attempt to embarrass West Germany.
“They have been on both sides of issues like civil and human rights issues related to the Black population in the United States, LGBT rights, and all sorts of things. So it’s not beyond them to play both sides,” Jankowicz said.
Russia has leveled the same charges at the West, most commonly at Ukraine and the United States. Last month, Moscow claimed US-backed forces instigated the mob that stormed Makhachkala airport looking for Jews in Dagestan, Russia.
“The events in Makhachkala last night were inspired also through social networks, not least from the territory of Ukraine, by the hands of agents of Western special services,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the time.
“This is something we’ve noted previously in a variety of online influence campaigns — more of a ‘muddying of the waters’ than a clear ‘trying to do X’ type operation,” said Justin Crow, a researcher at the University of Sussex who focuses on Russia and open source intelligence. “Almost always around highly sensitive contemporaneous cultural issues — i.e. exploiting circumstantial events to sow discord, without that discord needing to be specifically targeted at one group or another.”
Russia isn’t the only country deploying the strategy and involving Jewish institutions. Two weeks ago, a fire was set outside of a synagogue in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. The building was only lightly damaged, but Armenian authorities were quick to open an investigation, claiming that the arson was committed by a foreign national who was only in the country for a few hours.
Like the situation in France, news of the attack was most widely spread by media connected to an opposing nation: Azerbaijan, which has been at war with Armenia over the disputed region known as Nagorno-Karabakh to Azeris and Artsakh to Armenians.
Azerbaijani media has reported that the attack, as well as vandalism of the same synagogue in early October had been claimed by ASALA, an Armenian Marxist-Leninist group that had fought with Turkey in the 1970s and ’80s but has largely been considered inactive since 1991. (That incident took place just before the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, when 3,000 terrorists burst through the Gaza border and massacred 1,200 people in southern Israel, most of them civilians, and abducted 240.)
“We didn’t know what had happened yet, and Azerbaijani channels were already circulating photos of the building,” said Rima Varzhapetyan, the head of Armenia’s Jewish community, according to The Times of Israel. “Obviously, there are some forces that work not against us Jews, but against Armenia. This is outrageous.”
Hi, Sebastien
Indeed — or even with the original Hilda. Both are common mistakes.
@Michael I must have you confused with some other Hilda Warbingizer Piffle.
Sebastien,
I said no such thing. I didn’t mention the Holocaust, nor Jews. You must have me confused with someone else.
@Michael First you said the Holocaust wasn’t mainly about Jews. Now, you’re saying antisemitism isn’t mainly about Jews. What’s next. Talk about cultural appropriation on a Jewish news and opinion site.
Sebastien, are you able to speak in complete sentences?
@Michael Antisemitism without Jews, eh?
@Adam Well, the story I read said they were requesting that hostages with Russian citizenship be released, 8, I believe. Hamas did release 2 Russian-Israelis in a separate side deal.
In fact, I posted it here not long ago, I forget in which thread.
Tis is related:
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/30/1215898523/meta-warns-china-online-social-media-influence-operations-facebook-elections
It’s the usual suspects: China, Russia, Iran — and you could add N. Korea, Venezuela and others. What is happening is “unrestricted warfare” (qv) against the US and allies.
BTW Adam,
I don’t entirely disagree with your “antisemitic” thesis, but I don’t think it’s meaningful nowadays. The term “antisemitic” is used almost entirely as an unspecified slur against people, meaning, roughly, “You have cooties” (to quote John Zmierak). While this smear is used by every side in political discussions, I don’t see it as a true cause of action. Russia, China and Iran are geographically, historically and economically connected with each other and against Western Europe (and, by extension, the US and Israel). That’s the main consideration.
Many monitors of Russian news mwdia have noticed that many Russian newscasters and commenyators have made Anti=Israel comments with anti-semitic overtones. Anti=semitic content has been harsher and more explicit on blog sites on “alternative media” platforms, most notably Telegram. Russian news coverage of the Israel=Hamas war has been pro-Hamas and anti-Israel. It is alleged by some Israeli news media that Russia ‘hosted:” a meeting between Iranian. Hezbollah and Hamas representatives, The Russian media did publicly announce a meeting between these three parties in Russia (St. Petersberg, I think) in March of 2023.
I can’t think why Russia thinks that it s alliance with Iran, or much the less affiliated terrorist groups, is in Russia’s interests. A firm alliance with Israel would be much more in Russia’s interest. The only reason I can think for why Russia is allied with Iran and its terrorist affiliates is traditional Russian anti-Jewish bias, which can be traced all the way back to the tsarist era. Antisemitism in Russia has been mainly on the right wing of Russia;s political spectrum, and Putin’s government leans to the right.
“France’s Macron urges Israel to stop bombing Gaza
Reuters
November 11, 20237:21 AM ESTUpdated 21 days ago”
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/frances-macron-urges-israel-stop-bombing-gaza-2023-11-10/
Ukraine’s backing of 90% of UN anti-Israel votes could hurt support – Israeli envoy
Michael Brodsky notes ‘abnormal situation,’ given that Kyiv ‘often turns to Israel with various requests’
By LAZAR BERMAN
9 July 2023, 7:06 pm 7
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukraines-backing-of-90-of-un-anti-israel-votes-could-hurt-support-israeli-envoy/
Iran Using Armenia As Conduit Against Israel – Alma Institute
Thursday, 09/14/2023
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202309143596
The Russians? That is Hillary Clinton’s official excuse for losing to Trump and that was her stupid excuse for running a dumb campaign and for being a Communist sleaze bag.
France – No, it is their Queer President of 45 who married a 70 year old woman, fooling no one. He is a WEF Socialist who hates Israel and Jews just like the rest of the Left in Europe. Muslims? He loves them.
Well! Isn’t that a fine “How d’ya do”? It looks as though these “Antisemitic” attacks are actually directed at the French and Armenians, respectively, as Rima Varzhapetyan says: The Russians and their (snd Turkey’s) Azerbaijani allies are USING the Jews, to further their own agandas.
In both cases, the targets of the false flag operations are friends of the Ukraine (France and Armenia)