On Tuesday, the UK imposed penalties on Russian media and intellectual institutions while its foreign minister cautioned Western countries to step up their efforts to counter information warfare from “malign foreign states.”
The Institute for the Assistance and Defense of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad, which Estonian intelligence has identified as a front for Russia’s GRU spy agency, the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, a research organization headed by far-right Russian author Aleksandr Dugin, and the microblogging Telegram channel Rybar are all subject to sanctions, according to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Concerns, according to her, include physical assaults like sabotage as well as disinformation efforts “flooding social media with generative AI and manipulated videos” meant to weaken Western backing for Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In an attempt to weaken support for Ukraine, British officials cited phony websites, political advertisements from the recent Moldovan election, and fake news websites that featured movies with untrue statements about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his spouse.
Cooper gave her address to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Locarno Treaties, a series of accords between European countries that strengthened post-World War I European peace.
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