The specter of Russian manipulation now pops up all the time in Western democratic life. "We're in a very important election year, particularly in the US. This is why the question of Russian interference has become a subject of debate, and has been elevated to a real security issue," explained Maxime Audinet, a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research at the Military School (IRSEM), to Le Monde. Together with Colin Gérard, a researcher with a PhD in geopolitics, he is the co-author of an in-depth study entitled Sous les Radars ("Under the Radar"), devoted to changes in Russia's informational influence ecosystem since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Published on October 7 in the journal Réseaux ("Networks"), the 40-page article scrutinizes and maps out a constantly changing system that is endowed with growing resources.
Pro-Moscow informational influence operatives, faced with the measures taken, since 2022, to block Russian media outlets whose content was targeted toward Europe and the US (such as RT, formerly Russia Today, and Sputnik), have been "resorting to stealthier, more clandestine practices to disseminate their narratives to Western audiences," explained the article. More often than not, these campaigns have been "subcontracted by public authorities to firms specializing in public relations and digital marketing." These companies try to bribe Western influencers to spread pro-Kremlin rhetoric to the widest possible audience. Their message is thereby "laundered," since its Russian origin and propagandistic intent are concealed from the public.
Another manipulative tactic identified in the article consists of usurping the identity of reputable Western media websites by "typosquatting," i.e. using an almost identical domain name. This operation, dubbed "Doppelgänger," has been attributed to three Russian influence operation entrepreneurs (Vladimir Tabak, Ilya Gambachidze and Alexey Goreslavsky), all paid by "Center S," the Russian presidential administration's informational influence unit. Operating through private individuals allows the Russian state to "gain flexibility" and "deny any responsibility," noted the authors.
The article was illustrated by an organizational chart of the Russian informational influence system, which allows readers to understand the close connections between state and private structures involved at a glance. Although the authors stressed that the entire system was dominated by the Russian state, the chart makes it clear that a third of the network's players were operating in the domain of private entrepreneurs. This sphere was long dominated by Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, who enjoyed a personal connection with Vladimir Putin, until he fell from grace and was eliminated in August 2023.
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