Russia to Counter West’s Growing Information Influence

The Russian Federation will step up its efforts accordingly to counteract the West’s collective growing information impact on institutions of civil society within the country, representatives of the federal executive and legislative authorities and experts said following the session ‘Protecting National Interests to Build and Develop Civil Society’, which was held during the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum (SPILF).

KEY CONCLUSIONS

Russian civil society is ready to combat external influences

“A strong civil society that works in harmony with the state has major potential in the development of various projects in education, culture, and charitable activities. Unfortunately, though, foreign states sometimes try to influence the important processes that are taking place in the country through civil society,” Kutafin Moscow State Law University Rector Viktor Blazheyev said.

“All states implement all kinds of protection measures due to certain specifics and capabilities because the sovereignty and security of its citizens is a particularly important and significant topic for any state,” Russian Deputy Minister of Justice Oleg Sviridenko said.

“We conducted studies as part of our focus groups. We have a very good society, very good voters. Asked whether they would be willing to live in such a state where someone manipulates your will, 100% of respondents say: ‘No, we are against any outside interference’,” Russian Central Elections Commission Member Igor Borisov said.

PROBLEMS

Pressure on Russia from the collective West is intensifying

“In June last year, following the start of the special military operation, we prepared a rather large extensive report in which we collected all the media resources that have an anti-Russian slant. To understand the scale of this disaster, this report contains 110 media resources, of which 50 were released after the start of the special military operation over the course of just a few months, from February to June,” Director of the Centre for the Study of New Communications Stanislav Apetyan said.

“An analysis of the data accumulated to date points to a rather simple, often formulaic approach to replicating fake news based on the presumption that the more horrific the reported information, the more likely the audience will believe in it. Over the entire period since the start of the special military operation, more than 166,000 fake materials as well as calls for anti-war rallies have been identified and blocked,” said Alexander Izhko, Deputy Director of the Department for Licensing, Control, and Supervision in Mass Communications of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media.

Risk of civil society institutions being used for illegal purposes

“Russia is currently facing unprecedented pressure from the collective West. In particular, this consists of the uncontrolled dissemination of destructive information that aims to undermine national security and, of course, destabilize the socio-political situation in the Russian Federation,” Sviridenko said.

“The form of incorporation of an NPO can be used and is being used for illegal, including criminal, purposes […] All the best world practices for controlling this sector show that it is essential to single out a group of high-risk NPOs and ensure enhanced supervision of this sector,” State Secretary and Deputy Director of the Federal Financial Monitoring Service German Negliad said.

SOLUTIONS

Improvements to legislation and reasonable control and support of civil society institutions

“The new law on foreign agents […] closed huge gaps in the current legislation on foreign agents, which had been fragmented and scattered over several legislative acts. [We need] support for our domestic NPOs that are pursuing a patriotic, pro-government policy and do not depend on foreign influence. Almost all of them are socially oriented non-commercial organizations. I must say that very serious efforts must be made here too,” Member of the Russian State Duma’s Committee on State Building and Legislation Dmitry Vyatkin said.

“We are building up practice now [...] There will be time to analyse what happened during this period and how representatives of, shall will say, unfriendly states acted,” said Andrey Lugovoy, Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s commission that investigates interference by foreign states in Russia’s internal affairs.

“Amidst aggressive pressure and the dictates of the countries of the collective West, our Russian legislation is a means for protecting national interests against external unfriendly influence. [...] Even a cursory comparative legal analysis of our legislation and the legislation of foreign countries shows that our laws are much softer and more liberal than in the United States and other countries. Our legislation on foreign agents does not infringe on anyone,” Sviridenko said.

For more, please see the Roscongress Foundation’s Information and Analytical System roscongress.org

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