Russian Propa­ganda Lever­aging Social Media and Corona­virus in Georgia Ahead of Elections

Im Rahmen unseres Pro­jek­tes „Öst­li­che Part­ner­schaft 2.0“ ver­öf­fent­li­chen wir eine dritte Arti­kel­reihe über die drei EU-Asso­­­zi­ie­­rungs­­­­­staa­­ten. Die Autoren aus der Region (Mikheil Benidze, Volodymyr Yermo­lenko, Victor Gotisan) ana­ly­sie­ren die Auswirkung der Russi­schen Soft power (fake news, Medien­pro­pa­ganda und Infor­ma­ti­ons­krieg) in der Ukraine, Georgien und Moldau aus zivil­ge­sell­schaft­li­cher Perspektive.

Over recent years, Russian inter­fe­rence in the elections and political processes of other countries has become a major topic of discussion and concern in the West. In Russia’s immediate neigh­bourhood, however, this pheno­menon is nothing new. Evidence of the Russian Federation’s hostile attitudes towards its sovereign neigh­bours no longer comes as a surprise to anyone, given the Kremlin’s record of military aggression, starting with its 2008 invasion of Georgia and occupation of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali region followed by the 2014 annexation of Crimea and occupation of the Donbass region in Ukraine. However, along with direct military action, the Kremlin has been engaging in a conti­nuous campaign of infor­mation warfare aimed at under­mining democracy and desta­bi­lising the political situation in these countries. Georgia has been a primary target of Russian influence opera­tions, the Kremlin’s objec­tives there are detering the process of European and NATO integration, thus derailing Georgian foreign policy, and to increase political polari­sation domestically.

As is the case elsewhere, the Russian propa­ganda campaign in Georgia seeks to exploit existing vulnerabi­lities in society. Tradi­tional values, religion and terri­torial conflicts are some of the issues that provide fertile ground for the manipu­lation of public senti­ments in Georgia. To advance its interests, the Russian government supports various pro-Kremlin actors, such as political parties, media outlets, NGOs, and radical extremist groups, which often act as vehicles for spreading anti-Western narra­tives. The country’s most influ­ential insti­tution – the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC), is also subject to signi­ficant Russian influence, and orthodox clergy often serve as sources or ampli­fiers of pro-Russian and anti-Western narra­tives. Not all of these actors have direct and open links with Russia though, and some may act as natural ampli­fiers or “useful idiots”, contri­buting to the overall pro-Kremlin ecosystem of soft power and propa­ganda that thrives on conspiracy theories and divisive narratives.

A Media Develo­pment Foundation (MDF) study of anti-Western propa­ganda observed that anti-Western narra­tives take a three-tiered approach: sowing fear, instilling despair, and offering alter­native solutions. According to the MDF’s report, anti-Western propa­ganda uses the danger of antago­nising Russia, the risk of war and of the loss of terri­tories, as well as threat of a loss of identity to promote fears in Georgian society. The main messages used to instil despair focus on scepticism about the willingness on the part of the EU and NATO to support Georgia and portrayals of liberal decline in the West, as well as aiming to fuel mistrust towards insti­tu­tions and under­mining belief in Georgian sovereignty. Against this backdrop, direct dialogue with Russia and political and military neutrality are offered as a solution for terri­torial problems and a pro-Russian orien­tation presented as a way to protect Georgian identity and ensure economic stability.

In its propa­ganda ecosystem, Russia has relied heavily on Facebook – the most popular social network in Georgia. Pro-Kremlin actors have been inten­sively setting up and using social media infra­structure to spread disin­for­mation and false news. In the context of its social media monitoring, the Inter­na­tional Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) – a Georgian election and democracy watchdog –uncovered organised networks on Facebook that operated in a coordi­nated manner to artifi­cially amplify and disse­minate content from the pro-Russian outlets News-Front and Sputnik.

News-Front, an overt and aggressive vehicle of Russian disin­for­mation, was estab­lished in occupied Crimea in 2014 and launched in the Georgian language in October 2019, becoming engaged in infor­mation opera­tions on Facebook shortly there­after. Speci­fi­cally, the ISFED’s inves­ti­gation found that “News-Front attempted to instigate antagonism and aggression among Georgian Facebook users, dividing the society, creating political polarization [...] and employing a range of tactics to spread anti-Western, pro-Russian messages.” As part of its operation, News-Front used fake accounts that shared News-Front content in a covert, organised and targeted manner to at least 31 open Facebook groups with a combined audience of over half a million. Apart from promoting anti-Western and pro-Russian content, this network targeted both pro-government and pro-opposition Facebook groups “with tailored provo­cative messages which may have served the purpose of dividing the society into two camps and triggering confrontation”.

It is probably no coinci­dence that News-Front’s Georgian service was launched one year ahead of Georgia’s October 2020 parlia­mentary elections. It is highly likely that inauthentic Facebook network was being set up to influence pre-election discourse and further fuel polari­sation in Georgia, where political debate is already very charged. However, the start of the corona­virus pandemic and subse­quent global health crisis provided an opportune moment for News-Front to launch an infor­mation offensive in Georgia. News-Front and its Facebook network were quickly mobilised to spread disin­for­mation, conspi­racies and anti-Western messages in Georgia. COVID-related Russian disin­for­mation in Georgia attempted to distort reality and promote the view that Georgia should distance itself from the West and covertly attacked state insti­tu­tions and measures taken to contain the virus. Once again, Russian disin­for­mation attempted to discredit the US-supported Richard Lugar Centre for Public Health Research (Lugar Lab) of Georgia’s National Center for Disease Control, accusing it of invol­vement in the spread of the virus and under­mining trust itsef­forts to combat the corona­virus outbreak. Kremlin has long fuelled conspiracy theories relating to Lugar Lab, even accusing it of producing biolo­gical weapons. News-Front also exploited the GOC’s reluc­tance to limit church services and desire to continue the use of a shared spoon in its communion ritual despite public fears about the spread of the virus, portraying the COVID-related restric­tions as an attack on the Orthodox Church and Eucharist practice and urged believers to attend church services to receive communion with a shared spoon.

The ISFED also found that, like News-Front, another Russian media outlet, Sputnik, also used fake Facebook accounts to artifi­cially amplify content in Georgia. In this case, however, the content being shared was not political but related to a wide range of general-interest topics such as tabloid news, fashion, cuisine, tourism, horoscopes, gardening, agriculture, emigrant commu­nities, etc. Combined reach of the 11 pages and 41 groups Sputnik used to spread such content was nearly 2 million Facebook users These covert opera­tions may have been aimed at estab­li­shing Sputnik as a reliable source of infor­mation on various general issues, driving up traffic to its website, and, poten­tially, collecting the personal data of users by asking website visitors permission to allow notifi­ca­tions from Sputnik.

Facebook removed global News-Front infra­structure from its platform in April 2020, banning the organi­sation from re-estab­li­shing itself on the network. Fake accounts associated with Sputnik found by ISFED were also removed at around the same time. This may have limited some of the capabi­lities of the Russian disin­for­mation infra­structure on Facebook ahead of Georgia’s parlia­mentary elections, however these inves­ti­ga­tions demons­trate that Russia is and will be exploiting capabi­lities of social media to influence public discourse and elections in Georgia. It appears that indivi­duals related to News-Front are already attempting to establish an alter­native presence on Facebook. However, alongside the outlets that are officially affiliated with the Kremlin, there are numerous other “influence assets” on Facebook that are spreading divisive narra­tives on value-based issues similar to those that Russian propa­ganda has exploited elsewhere in Europe.

During the 2018 presi­dential elections in Georgia, the ISFED’s monitoring found 52 Facebook pages that spread natio­na­listic, xenophobic, anti-liberal, homophobic, Islamo­phobic and anti-Western narra­tives. By 2020, some of those pages had also started operating with complex inauthentic networks – a self-proclaimed “alter­native news source”, Alt-Info, is pushing anti-Western propa­ganda, including the ideas of Kremlin ideologist Alexandr Dugin, through a coordi­nated network of Facebook pages and groups. The pro-Russian party Alliance of Patriots also seems to be running a coordi­nated network on Facebook.

Georgia’s 2020 elections represent a key milestone for the country’s democratic develo­pment and are likely to determine how ambitious Georgia will be in pursuing its declared path of democratic trans­for­mation and Western integration moving forward. There is no doubt that the Kremlin will use all of its soft power and propa­ganda infra­structure to influence these elections and public discourse. Given the ongoing pandemic, the already polarised political landscape and signi­ficant domestic disin­for­mation and discrediting campaigns that government proxies and some opposition actors are conducting against one another, the infor­mation environment will be the key challenge of these elections. Handling this challenge will be a major test for Georgia’s government.

Mikheil Benidze is current Senior Advisor and former Executive Director at the Inter­na­tional Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED). ISFED is a major election observer and democracy watchdog in Georgia that has operated since 1995.