Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Pro-Russia online operatives falsely claimed weeks into Moscow's war against Ukraine that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had committed suicide, as part of an aggressive effort to dent public morale and undermine the Ukrainian government, U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant said Thursday.
The false Zelenskyy suicide claim is just one of several information operations tracked by Mandiant from suspected Russian and Belarusian actors that were aimed at deceiving audiences in Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere in Europe -- or at least muddling the truth about the brutal war.
The influence campaigns, analysts say, underscore how the Kremlin is committed as ever to information warfare and efforts to shape perceptions of the conflict even as its soldiers suffer heavy losses on the battlefield.
In another case, Belarus-linked operatives falsely asserted that a Polish crime ring was harvesting the organs of Ukrainian refugees, with the complicity of Polish officials.
"The proliferation of Russia-aligned information operations, in both scale and tempo, suggests the importance that Russia places on shaping the information environment," Alden Wahlstrom, a senior analyst at Mandiant, told CNN. "We've observed known actors leverage longstanding campaign assets and infrastructure to target Ukraine during the invasion, using capabilities they've invested in developing over time."
Mandiant did not directly point the finger at the Russian government for the fake Zelenksyy suicide narrative but described the activity as a "suspected Russian influence campaign." For decades and dating back to Soviet times, disinformation and other so-called "active measures" have been a key part of Russia's foreign policy strategy, according to scholars.
Facebook and YouTube in March removed a widely disseminated "deepfake," or digitally altered, video purporting to show Zelenskyy asking Ukrainian troops to lay down their arms. The real Zelenskyy appeared in a video shortly afterward saying the defence of Ukraine continued.
At least some of the disinformation analyzed by Mandiant appeared to gain little online traction. And Ukrainian citizens and soldiers show no signs of letting up in their resistance to the Russian invasion.
Suspected Russian operatives, for example, planted false statements "on a very limited number" of websites and blogs that Zelenskyy had killed himself in a military bunker in Kyiv in March, according to Mandiant.
The Russian government has falsely portrayed its invasion of Ukraine as a "de-Nazification" campaign despite the fact that Zelenskyy is Jewish. The fake suicide story bears some resemblance to how Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler died in 1945, by suicide in a bunker as Soviet troops advanced.
CNN has requested comment from the Russian Embassy in Washington and the Belarusian Foreign Ministry on the Mandiant research.
With the eyes of the world on Ukraine, other world powers have moved to influence public opinion about the war or sow discord among their rivals.
One pro-Iran information operation impersonated a Russian journalist and published tweets claiming that Israeli intelligence supported Ukraine against Russia on the eve of the war, according to Mandiant. It was an apparent attempt to increase intensions between Russia and Israel. The Israeli and Iranian governments are bitter enemies.
The U.S. government has tried to shape public perceptions of the Ukraine war in its own ways, including by setting up a State Department account on Telegram, a messaging app popular with Russians.
____
Do you have any questions about the attack on Ukraine? Email dotcom@bellmedia.ca.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.