Disinformation Campaigns
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The Russia You Never Met
The Russia You Never Met MATT BIVENS AND JONAS BERNSTEIN fter staggering to reelection in summer 1996, President Boris Yeltsin A announced what had long been obvious: that he had a bad heart and needed surgery. Then he disappeared from view, leaving his prime minister, Viktor Cher- nomyrdin, and his chief of staff, Anatoly Chubais, to mind the Kremlin. For the next few months, Russians would tune in the morning news to learn if the presi- dent was still alive. Evenings they would tune in Chubais and Chernomyrdin to hear about a national emergency—no one was paying their taxes. Summer turned to autumn, but as Yeltsin’s by-pass operation approached, strange things began to happen. Chubais and Chernomyrdin suddenly announced the creation of a new body, the Cheka, to help the government collect taxes. In Lenin’s day, the Cheka was the secret police force—the forerunner of the KGB— that, among other things, forcibly wrested food and money from the peasantry and drove some of them into collective farms or concentration camps. Chubais made no apologies, saying that he had chosen such a historically weighted name to communicate the seriousness of the tax emergency.1 Western governments nod- ded their collective heads in solemn agreement. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank both confirmed that Russia was experiencing a tax collec- tion emergency and insisted that serious steps be taken.2 Never mind that the Russian government had been granting enormous tax breaks to the politically connected, including billions to Chernomyrdin’s favorite, Gazprom, the natural gas monopoly,3 and around $1 billion to Chubais’s favorite, Uneximbank,4 never mind the horrendous corruption that had been bleeding the treasury dry for years, or the nihilistic and pointless (and expensive) destruction of Chechnya. -
Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J
STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVES 11 Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference by Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb Center for Strategic Research Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University Institute for National Strategic Studies National Defense University The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes the Center for Strategic Research, Center for Complex Operations, Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, Center for Transatlantic Security Studies, and Conflict Records Research Center. The military and civilian analysts and staff who comprise INSS and its subcomponents execute their mission by conducting research and analysis, publishing, and participating in conferences, policy support, and outreach. The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the Secretary of Defense, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Unified Combatant Commands in support of the academic programs at NDU and to perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and the broader national security community. Cover: Kathleen Bailey presents evidence of forgeries to the press corps. Credit: The Washington Times Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference Deception, Disinformation, and Strategic Communications: How One Interagency Group Made a Major Difference By Fletcher Schoen and Christopher J. Lamb Institute for National Strategic Studies Strategic Perspectives, No. 11 Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow National Defense University Press Washington, D.C. June 2012 Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal Government. -
Host By: Queen's University Belfast 29-31 May Lanyon Building
Anti-Communism in the Twentieth Century: An International Historical Perspective Host by: Queen’s University Belfast 29-31 May Lanyon Building University Rd, Belfast BT7 1NN Welcome to Anticomm2019! We are pleased and honoured for your attendance to Anti-Communism in the Twentieth Century: An International Perspective (@Anticomm2019). This conference is an unpreceded opportunity for academics to share their research on a topic that is still ill-defined and controversial - namely anti- communism’s impact on shaping contemporary history. From the Russian Revolution until the fall of the Berlin Wall, anti- communism was a global phenomenon that loomed heavy over the events in the last century. The legacy of this ideology, and the political practices employed by those promoting it’s cause, is an enduring one. For good and ill, the fight against Marxism forged our modern world. It is a winding tale that is worthy of revisiting and expanding. Through Anticomm2019 we hope that you join us on taking steps forward in contextualizing the efforts by an array of historical actors, governments, and organisations combating a mutual enemy. Though their methods, motivations, and measures often differed radically, they all sought to fight communism. More often than not, these individuals and institutions imagined themselves as the noble Roman manning the ramparts against the invading Goths. In essence, this event seeks, with your help, to understand why and how a substantial segment of the global population reacted as they did when the proverbial ‘Red Goths’ were at the city gates. Finally we like to thank everyone who helped turn Anticomm2019 into a reality. -
Supreme Soviet Investigation of the 1991 Coup the Suppressed Transcripts
Supreme Soviet Investigation of the 1991 Coup The Suppressed Transcripts: Part 3 Hearings "About the Illegal Financia) Activity of the CPSU" Editor 's Introduction At the birth of the independent Russian Federation, the country's most pro-Western reformers looked to the West to help fund economic reforms and social safety nets for those most vulnerable to the change. However, unlike the nomenklatura and party bureaucrats who remained positioned to administer huge aid infusions, these reformers were skeptical about multibillion-dollar Western loans and credits. Instead, they wanted the West to help them with a different source of money: the gold, platinum, diamonds, and billions of dollars in hard currency the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and KGB intelligence service laundered abroad in the last years of perestroika. Paradoxically, Western governments generously supplied the loans and credits, but did next to nothing to support the small band of reformers who sought the return of fortunes-estimated in the tens of billions of dollars- stolen by the Soviet leadership. Meanwhile, as some in the West have chronicled, the nomenklatura and other functionaries who remained in positions of power used the massive infusion of Western aid to enrich themselves-and impoverish the nation-further. In late 1995, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development concluded that Russian officials had stolen $45 billion in Western aid and deposited the money abroad. Radical reformers in the Russian Federation Supreme Soviet, the parliament that served until its building was destroyed on President Boris Yeltsin's orders in October 1993, were aware of this mass theft from the beginning and conducted their own investigation as part of the only public probe into the causes and circumstances of the 1991 coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. -
Title of Thesis: ABSTRACT CLASSIFYING BIAS
ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis Directed By: Dr. David Zajic, Ph.D. Our project extends previous algorithmic approaches to finding bias in large text corpora. We used multilingual topic modeling to examine language-specific bias in the English, Spanish, and Russian versions of Wikipedia. In particular, we placed Spanish articles discussing the Cold War on a Russian-English viewpoint spectrum based on similarity in topic distribution. We then crowdsourced human annotations of Spanish Wikipedia articles for comparison to the topic model. Our hypothesis was that human annotators and topic modeling algorithms would provide correlated results for bias. However, that was not the case. Our annotators indicated that humans were more perceptive of sentiment in article text than topic distribution, which suggests that our classifier provides a different perspective on a text’s bias. CLASSIFYING BIAS IN LARGE MULTILINGUAL CORPORA VIA CROWDSOURCING AND TOPIC MODELING by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Gemstone Honors Program, University of Maryland, 2018 Advisory Committee: Dr. David Zajic, Chair Dr. Brian Butler Dr. Marine Carpuat Dr. Melanie Kill Dr. Philip Resnik Mr. Ed Summers © Copyright by Team BIASES: Brianna Caljean, Katherine Calvert, Ashley Chang, Elliot Frank, Rosana Garay Jáuregui, Geoffrey Palo, Ryan Rinker, Gareth Weakly, Nicolette Wolfrey, William Zhang 2018 Acknowledgements We would like to express our sincerest gratitude to our mentor, Dr. -
Russian-Estonian Relations After 2007: Cur- Rent Status and Development Prospects
International Studies, 2011, Vol. 13, No. 1, 11-21, DOI: 10.2478/v10223-011-0005-1 RUSSIAN-ESTONIAN RELATIONS AFTER 2007: CUR- RENT STATUS AND DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS Agata Włodarska ABSTRACT The article highlights the major points that have influenced relations between Russia and Estonia after 2007. These relations were rather poor during the post-Soviet period. The number of Russian people who lived in Estonia after gaining independence in 1991 exceeded 30%, which resulted in the very keen interest of Russia in Estonian politics. April 2007 created a new reality for rela- tions between the countries. The decision to move the statues of Second World War Soviet soldiers from main squares to cemeteries provoked negative reac- tions from Russians living in Estonia, but also infuriated leaders of the Russian government. As a consequence there were harsh verbal attacks from Moscow, the Estonian ambassador to Moscow was harassed, cyberspace attacks took place and traffic over the bridge in Narva, which is a key highway from Rus- sia, was blocked. The Estonian authorities know there is no point in maintain- ing conflict with Russia. The President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, has stressed that Estonia’s relationship with its biggest neighbour, Russia, can only get better. Russia plays an incredibly important role in the Estonian economy and tourist industry, according to Andrus Ansip, the Prime Minister of Estonia. KEY WORDS: Russian – Estonian relations, Bronze Soldier Night, cyber attacks in Estonia, The Estonian State Integration Programme, Russians in Estonia stonia is a country, which is strongly divided taking into consideration the is- Esue of ethnicity. -
Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past: a Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region
CBEES State of the Region Report 2020 Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region Published with support from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjstiftelsen) Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region December 2020 Publisher Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES, Sdertrn University © CBEES, Sdertrn University and the authors Editor Ninna Mrner Editorial Board Joakim Ekman, Florence Frhlig, David Gaunt, Tora Lane, Per Anders Rudling, Irina Sandomirskaja Layout Lena Fredriksson, Serpentin Media Proofreading Bridget Schaefer, Semantix Print Elanders Sverige AB ISBN 978-91-85139-12-5 4 Contents 7 Preface. A New Annual CBEES Publication, Ulla Manns and Joakim Ekman 9 Introduction. Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past, David Gaunt and Tora Lane 15 Background. Eastern and Central Europe as a Region of Memory. Some Common Traits, Barbara Trnquist-Plewa ESSAYS 23 Victimhood and Building Identities on Past Suffering, Florence Frhlig 29 Image, Afterimage, Counter-Image: Communist Visuality without Communism, Irina Sandomirskaja 37 The Toxic Memory Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, Thomas de Waal 45 The Flag Revolution. Understanding the Political Symbols of Belarus, Andrej Kotljarchuk 55 Institutes of Trauma Re-production in a Borderland: Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, Per Anders Rudling COUNTRY BY COUNTRY 69 Germany. The Multi-Level Governance of Memory as a Policy Field, Jenny Wstenberg 80 Lithuania. Fractured and Contested Memory Regimes, Violeta Davoliūtė 87 Belarus. The Politics of Memory in Belarus: Narratives and Institutions, Aliaksei Lastouski 94 Ukraine. Memory Nodes Loaded with Potential to Mobilize People, Yuliya Yurchuk 106 Czech Republic. -
Der Regulierungsrahmen Für Audiovisuelle Mediendienste in Russland
Der Regulierungsrahmen für audiovisuelle Mediendienste in Russland Russland ist der mit Abstand größte europäische Fernsehmarkt Schlagworte zum Inhalt: außerhalb des Geltungsbereichs der EU-Gesetzgebung. Mit einem Anteil von rund 17% der gesamten europäischen Bevölkerung ■ Die nationale Medienpolitik liegen im russischen Fernsehmarkt beachtliche wirtschaftliche ■ Schlüsselbegriffe für Regulierung und deren Auslegung Potentiale. Vor diesem Hintergrund ist es um so bemerkenswerter, ■ Lizenzerfordernisse wie wenig über die juristischen Grundlagen und Bedingungen dieses Fernsehmarktes außerhalb Russlands veröffentlicht worden ist. ■ Die Rolle staatlichen Rundfunks im Gegensatz zu öffentlich-rechtlichem Rundfunk Die vorliegende Publikation „Der Regulierungsrahmen für audio- visuelle Mediendienste in Russland” aus der Reihe IRIS Spezial ■ Medieneigentum und -konzentration schließt die Lücke. Detailliert werden die Grundlagen und der ■ Selbst- und Koregulierung Regulierungsrahmen für Rundfunk in Russland erörtert. Auf ■ Werbung: Regulierung und Kontrolle dieser Basis wird die Anpassung des Rechtsrahmens an neue audiovisuelle Mediendienste diskutiert. Dabei werden die ■ Produktplatzierung großen Unterschiede zwischen der EU und Russland deutlich: ■ Recht auf Gegendarstellung Sie gehen auf die noch schwache Entwicklung digitaler Medien- ■ Recht auf Kurzberichterstattung dienste in Russland zurück. ■ Schutz der guten Sitten und Minderjähriger Die Publikation vermittelt ein umfassendes und präzises Bild der ■ Rechte nationaler Minderheiten Rundfunkregulierung -
Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence
Russia • Military / Security Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, No. 5 PRINGLE At its peak, the KGB (Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti) was the largest HISTORICAL secret police and espionage organization in the world. It became so influential DICTIONARY OF in Soviet politics that several of its directors moved on to become premiers of the Soviet Union. In fact, Russian president Vladimir V. Putin is a former head of the KGB. The GRU (Glavnoe Razvedvitelnoe Upravleniye) is the principal intelligence unit of the Russian armed forces, having been established in 1920 by Leon Trotsky during the Russian civil war. It was the first subordinate to the KGB, and although the KGB broke up with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the GRU remains intact, cohesive, highly efficient, and with far greater resources than its civilian counterparts. & The KGB and GRU are just two of the many Russian and Soviet intelli- gence agencies covered in Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Intelligence. Through a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology, an introductory HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-referenced dictionary entries, a clear picture of this subject is presented. Entries also cover Russian and Soviet leaders, leading intelligence and security officers, the Lenin and Stalin purges, the gulag, and noted espionage cases. INTELLIGENCE Robert W. Pringle is a former foreign service officer and intelligence analyst RUSSIAN with a lifelong interest in Russian security. He has served as a diplomat and intelligence professional in Africa, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe. For orders and information please contact the publisher && SOVIET Scarecrow Press, Inc. -
Organization of the Soviet Intelligence and Security Structure Source
Figure 1- Organization of the Soviet Intelligence and Security Structure General Chairman First Deputy Chairman Chief, GRU Deputy Chairman Space Intelligence Operational/ Technical Administrative/ Directorate for Foreign First Deputy Chief Chief of Information Personnel Directorate Political Department Financial Department Eighth Department Archives Department (KGB) Directorate Directorate Technical Directorate Relations First Chief Directorate First Directorate: Seventh Directorate: (Foreign) Europe and Morocco NATO Second Directorate: North and South Second Chief Eighth Directorate: America, Australia, Directorate (Internal) Individual Countries New Zealand, United Kingdom Fifth Chief Directorate Ninth Directorate: Third Directorate: Asia (Dissidents) Military Technology Eighth Chief Fourth Directorate: Tenth Directorate: Directorate Africa Military Economics (Communications) Fifth Directorate: Chief Border Troops Eleventh Directorate: Operational Directorates Doctrine, Weapons Intelligence Sixth Directorate: Third (Armed Forces) Twelfth Directorate: Radio, Radio-Technical Directorate Unknown Intelligence Seventh (Surveillance) First Direction: Institute of Directorate Moscow Information Ninth (Guards) Second Direction: East Information Command Directorate and West Berlin Post Third: National Technical Operations Liberation Directorate Movements, Terrorism Administration Fourth: Operations Directorate from Cuba Personnel Directorate Special Investigations Collation of Operational Experience State Communications Physical Security Registry and Archives Finance Source: (Richelson 22, 27) Figure 2- Organization of the United States Intelligence Community President National Security Advisor National Security DNI State DOD DOJ DHS DOE Treasury Commerce Council Nuclear CIO INR USDI FBI Intelligence Foreign $$ Flow Attachés Weapons Plans DIA NSA NGA NRO Military Services NSB Coast Guard Collection MSIC NGIC (Army) MRSIC (Air Analysis AFMic Force) NCTC J-2's ONI (Navy) CIA Main DIA INSCOM (Army) NCDC MIA (Marine) MIT Source: (Martin-McCormick) . -
01036456.Pdf
C/64-10b News Broadcasting on Soviet Radio and Television F. Gayle Durham Research Program on Problems of Communication and International SecU-itv Center for International Studies Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts June, 1965 Preface The present paper is one result of several months' research on radio and television broadcasting in the Soviet Union. It is viewed by the author as a preliminary survey of the subject, which will be expanded and developed in the coming months. In addition to a general updating of material on policy and mechanical actualities, more atten- tion will be given to the proportion of different types of news which are broadcast, and to the personnel who handle news. Of extreme importance is the position which news broadcasting occupies in the process of informing the individual Soviet citizen. This aspect will be considered as part of a general study on information-gathering in Soviet society. The research for this paper was sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense (ARPA) under contract #920F-9717 and monitored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) under contract AF 49(638)-1237. Table of Contents Page I. Introduction:The Soviet Conception of the Functional Role of Broadcasting Media and II. Radio News Broadcasting................................7 A. Mechanics of News Broadcasts.........................7 3. The Newsgathering Apparatus .................... .22 4. Party Influence.................,.. .26 B. Content of Broadcasts....................,*....*.. .. 29 l. Characteristics...................,..........,........29 2. Forms.... ....... .... * e .......... 32 3. Types of News. .................................. 3 III. Television News Broadcasting.......... .............. 0 .39 IV. Summary and Conclusion............................. V. Footnotes ...... .. ... ... .... ... ... .4 VI. Appendices One: Monitor Summaries of News Broadcasts (1963)........51 Two:Chart:Broadcasts on Moscow Radio with News Content. -
ABSTRACT Memory Wars and Metanarratives: the Historical
ABSTRACT Memory Wars and Metanarratives: the Historical Context of Linguistic Discrimination in Estonia Chanse E. Sonsalla Director: Adrienne Harris, Ph.D. In the 20th century, the country of Estonia was decimated, terrorized, and subjugated by the USSR. Estonians continue to redefine their national identity, but the process is complicated by the continued presence of ethnic Russians in Estonia. When 30% of a country's population speaks differently, thinks differently, and was once an enemy that instigated an era of terror, how does it rebuild? Language has been a polarizing issue between the ethnic Estonian and ethnic Russian populations as long as both have been present in Estonia. By investigating trends in language policy, this thesis explores the roots of tension between the two groups. The ultimate goal of the thesis is to provide insight into the pitfalls of post-conflict reintegration and the potential of language policy as a discriminatory instrument. APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS: ____________________________________________ Dr. Adrienne Harris, Department of Modern Languages and Cultures APPROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM: ____________________________________ Dr. Elizabeth Corey, Director DATE: _______________________ MEMORY WARS AND METANARRATIVES: THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF LINGUISTIC DISCRIMINATION IN ESTONIA A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Baylor University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Program By Chanse E. Sonsalla Waco, Texas May 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................