The Russian government is supporting operations that impersonate international media outlets as part of its disinformation campaigns, which have become more sophisticated and active since its invasion of Ukraine, according to a European Union study.
Print and TV media are the most frequent targets of Moscow’s impersonation, with magazines seeing their entire style copied by Russian actors to give legitimacy to the content, in particular when targeting Ukraine, said a report on foreign information manipulation published Tuesday by the E.U.’s External Action Service.
The study cited four incidents where fake cover pages imitating the visual style of European satirical magazines were created to attack Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Two videos imitated Al Jazeera and Euronews, claiming that Ukrainian football fans were detained in Doha because of Nazi behavior during the World Cup, and that a German auction house was going to destroy Russian artworks. The content was rapidly picked up and amplified by channels attributed to Russian state-linked outlets, the report said.
