BSidesPhilly cs01 Your Facts Are Not Safe With Us Russian Information Operations As Social Engineeri

good morning everyone thanks for coming and we're gonna have Megan chyme speak today on Russian disinformation please give her your full attention and we're looking forward to an exciting talk here this morning thank you very much so quick question before I get started any Russian operatives in the audience anyone show hands all right well I was gonna do a sound check to see if they could hear me in Moscow but apparently nobody's gonna participate so it's all good all right let me tell you a little bit about myself before we dive in I'm a Russian language nerd and InfoSec analyst I spent a year studying abroad in Russia on a language immersion program and while I was there I

purposely avoided english-language news sources so that I could further my immersion experience and the unfortunate side effect of this decision is that I was exposed to a huge dose of propaganda without the counterbalancing influence of what mainstream Western media also while I was there Russia annexed the Ukrainian Peninsula of Crimea and began a military operations in eastern Ukraine at this time I witnessed a sharp intensification and information operations and all of this led to the lessons that I want to share with you today so first let me start with some of the fundamental characteristics of Russian information operations and why they're so effective Russian info ops often takes a grain of truth out of its

original context and creates a new false narrative around that truth for example the activities of far-right fringe Ukrainian groups have been used to paint all Ukrainians as fascists this creates a siege mentality for most Russians and greatly lessens the likelihood that they will question the Russian government's actions more often than not the overall intent of Russian information operations is to create expedient narratives and even new realities one of the most prominent of these narratives is were no worse than the West it was a theme I heard played out over and over again to the point where I became numb to it one particularly pertinent example of this tactic Russia pointed at u.s. support for separatists Kosovo which was part of

the former Yugoslavia until the late 1990s they used this as evidence of hypocrisy claiming that the US government should also support what Russia calls Crimean self-determination another common strategy used by Russian information operations is put using fringe groups to rebroadcast disinformation for example thousands of far-right you Russian nationalists have volunteered to fight in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine these volunteer fighters refer to militants in eastern Ukraine as separatists and brothers while they call their perceived enemies the Ukrainian government and army fascists this shows wholesale adoption and rebroadcast of the Russian states carefully crafted terminology in reality Russia stoked the flames of this conflict and has supported it through various forms of military and other

support finally Russian info ops uses blatant falsehoods to sow confusion and chaos for example in December 2014 a group of Russia controlled Twitter accounts started spreading rumors about an outbreak of Ebola in Atlanta this was a hoax of course but it played on real fears at the time following a few cases of the disease in the US so let's take a step back for a minute and understand what's really going on here Russian information operations can be thought of as large-scale social engineering traditional social engineers abuse behavioral and social norms for personal gain in the case of Russian information operations the attackers abuse societal arms for national game there are several different social engineering techniques

that are evident in Russian information operations first there's developing trust this is when attackers attempt to gain develop a rapport with their targets in the case of info ops benign stories are mixed in with disinformation to low audiences into a false sense of trust branding is another way to build trust the propaganda outlet Sputnik slogan is quote telling the untold this builds trust by sowing distrust of other outlets that are supposedly not telling the whole truth everyone makes decisions about the sources they rely upon and questioning those decisions causes a lot of cognitive dissonance people are generally trusting of the information they consume as a result another technique that's in the evident and Russian info Ops is strong effect or the

use of emotional triggers including charged words or images to weaken people's defenses the Ukrainian revolution of 2014 is always described in Russian info ops as a CIA plot this is meant to invoke strong fears of foreign intervention and consequently make the act of protest the subject of anxiety and scorn from russians you're less likely to engage in something you fear or don't view as legitimate after all then there is reverse social engineering this is when the attacker creates a problem and makes themselves available to fix it thereby gaining the trust of the target Russian info ops manufactures the problem of bias of Western media and makes itself available to fix the problem by offering alternative media reverse social

engineering makes use of the psychological trigger of reciprocation if someone portrays themselves as being willing to help is much less likely that their targets will question their motives or even or understand that the social engineer means them harm in this case outlets like RT claimed to be helping by providing information traditional media supposedly won't cover finally there is overloading this occurs when the target is forced to process too much information in a short span of time arguing from an unexpected perspective can trigger overloading this includes pointing out hypocrisy or using your own words or principles against you for example Russian info ops always stress that Yanukovych who was ousted in the 2014 revolution in Ukraine was

democratically elected and therefore his removal from office was illegal one could argue that he had already lost his legitimacy through his corruption and his refusal to engage in an association agreement with the EU but people who are forced to face with the original argument in the moment may not necessarily think of this counter-argument so how does all of this work in practice it's very important to keep in mind that Russian information operations do not refute rather they subvert and erode Western liberal values for example transparency as a value has been used as a vector for large-scale social engineering specifically transparency was subverted in the use of WikiLeaks as a dump to front as a front

to dump stolen information and push narratives expedient to the Russian government let's take a closer look at one of the key culprits Russia Today or RT as it calls itself is one of the biggest mouthpieces pieces of Russian information operations it's the international arm of Russia's propaganda apparatus and as tactics are a great illustration of large-scale social engineering at work RT abuses Western societies values of freedom of speech and freedom of press when it presents itself as a news source and claims to provide an alternative to the Western media establishment you can see this reflected in Artie's lovely slogan question more it may seem like it's encouraging critical thinking but all it's really doing is making people more

likely to accept conspiracy theories by pitching itself as a supposed alternative to mainstream media Russian info ops also undermines the credibility of reputable sources of m4 rushon info ops both exploit and feed into growing disagreement on what constitutes a credible source of information and whether or not objective fact is valuable at all I happen to think that objective fact is still valuable but it seems that some people disagree with me as is the case with the most effective social engineering campaigns Russian information operations are tailored to their targets based on reconnaissance gain the third about them generally speaking Russian information operate Russian society knows much more about American society than vice-versa and this makes us particularly

vulnerable the annexation of the Ukrainian Peninsula of Crimea perfectly illustrates Russian information operations at work the annexation of Crimea was one of the first and best examples of Russian information operations being completely integrated with Russian military operations the invasion started when Russian soldiers without insignias on their uniforms infiltrated Crimea and took control of key infrastructure including communications infrastructure military bases and government offices at the same time Russia's info ops pushed the claim that these quote little green men or quote polite people were militiamen and not the Russian military members that they were in fact Russian forces were deliberately referred to in this way to make the situation seem less threatening and less urgent it also made the

operation seem like support to local residents desire for self-determination as opposed to the invasion that it actually was this picture is a real photograph taken in Crimea at the time of the invasion and it perfectly illustrates the narrative of the non-threatening little green men you can see there a Russian soldier without insignia on his uniform is very helpfully handing a cat back to a small boy and I mean he's armed to the teeth but it's fine he's a polite person he's not gonna do anything to you right I personally experienced the insidious effects of Russian info ops through a steady diet of Russian state-controlled media the coverage on these state outlets described the annexation as a

quote historic reunion or a quote return to Russia this language was specifically crafted to appeal to Russians and capitalize on common culture and shared Soviet history Crimea was one of the most popular vacation destinations in the USSR and it was also home to a key Soviet Navy port I included this map to show you how close the invaded regions are to Russia both linguistically and geographically the key shows that the dark red regions are made up of 75% or more native Russian speakers and one of those regions is the peninsula in the South Crimea and the other is Donetsk which is one of the eastern Ukrainian regions that where Russian military operations began later in the year and

I'll talk more about that later after the infiltration was complete state propaganda outlets both arty and domestic ones trumpeted the overwhelming and falsified results of the Russian organized referendum in Crimea the results showed that over 75% over excuse me over 95 percent of voters supported reunification with Russia this was a direct subversion of Western values as people who value the freedom to determine the nature of one's own government we were primed to think that we should support these people's right to self-determination I myself was inclined to believe that Russia's claim to Crimea was legitimate through this thought trap in reality the referendum was a rigged justification for a foregone conclusion the entire purpose of the vote was to

legitimize the seizure of territory despite egregious falsifications like turnout figures as high as a hundred and twenty three percent in some areas so again this photo you can see is a real photo taken at the time of the referendum in Crimea and the translation of the billboard is on March 16th we choose you can see that the choice is very dark either you choose fascism or you choose Russia so it was a very very biased pre vote environment so how did I dig myself out of this thought trap it's all about different ways of thinking when you're immersed in a culture for long enough you adopt a lot of habits including mental ones for me returning

to my home perspective was key and this happened when I learned about the Budapest memorandum in a respected Western newspaper the Budapest memorandum is a 1994 treaty signed by Ukraine Russia the US and the UK under this treaty Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear arsenal that it had inherited from the USSR and in return Russia agreed to respect Ukraine's sovereignty independence and territorial integrity once I learned this I realized that the information operations much like a successful social engineer would do on a smaller scale had tricked me into not questioning its narratives by abusing the value I signed to democratic rights this led to my initial failure to recognize the false narrative as an

effort to undermine the international community's response and to provide cover for breaking international law the frame of reference of international law triggered a mental return to my home culture causing more critical thinking to kick in and allowing me to understand what had actually happened the next time major information operations started I was much better prepared and didn't fall for it following my realization about the annexation of Crimea pro-russian groups started protests in the eastern Ukrainian provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk these protests and escalated into an armed conflict when insurgents started seizing government buildings in April 2014 later that month the Ukrainian government launched formal military operations to try to reclaim the seized territory militants in

Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence on May 11th following referendums on autonomy at the same time there was a buildup of Russian troops on the Ukrainian border triggering fears of another annexation Russia began providing direct military support to the rebels in the form of tanks artillery air defense systems and troops while the conflict escalated so did Russia's information operations this time Russian info ops relied heavily on the tactic of pushing blatant falsehoods to sow confusion and disoriented targets one example is the stunt that Russia pulled involving a so-called humanitarian convoy following a ceasefire Russia sent trucks streaming into the contested border areas without approval from Ukraine they claimed that the trucks were part of a humanitarian

convoy bringing supplies to the war-torn eastern region Ukraine characterized this move as an invasion alleging that the trucks were carrying military supplies for rebels and that they were driven by Russian military personnel Western leaders labeled the convoy a provocation and the Pentagon called for the removal of all trucks in personnel Russia also claimed that these trucks were sent in coordination with the American Red Cross but the organization told reporters that they did not know what was in the convoy however this fact was somewhat buried and reporting on the issue with so many statements and competing versions of the story it's difficult to blame ordinary people they did not know what actually happened and were inclined to believe Russia is lying

about humanitarian aid Russia has sent at least 63 more so-called humanitarian convoys into Ukraine into eastern Ukraine since then perhaps the best known example one of the best known examples of Russia's pushing false information about the situation in eastern Ukraine is the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 everyone aboard the plane a total of 298 people were killed when the passenger airplane was shot down by a surface-to-air missile over rebel held held territory however Russia pushed the line that a Ukrainian fighter jet shot down the airplane the fighter jet in question the su-25 would have had to defy physics to make this happen the su-25 maximum altitude is ten thousand feet below that of the cruising

altitude of the passenger airline later Russia changed its story days before the release of an official report investigating details of the crash Russia released satellite data claiming to show that the surface-to-air missile that downed the plane had actually been fired from Ukrainian territory a leading rebel commander even took credit for shooting down the plane on social media but the post was later removed moreover independent international investigators concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight 17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile brought in from Russia and fired from a village under the control of pro-russian militants in addition to conspiracy theories Russian info Ops has featured the concept of Russian world or ischaemia to justify its intervention in

eastern Ukraine this is the Russian government's argument that it has the moral authority and responsibility to protect russian-speaking people around the world to use this argument Russia pushed disinformation that inflated the danger to Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine for example Russian domestic state media featured an interview with a woman who claimed to witness the crucifixion of a small boy over the crimes of his mother at the hands of the Ukrainian army according to the witness the soldiers then took the mother tied her to a tank and dragged her around the square three times an independent Moscow newspaper sent a reporter to search for more witnesses and verify the story however the reporter could not find

anyone who had heard of the incident this gruesome episode was meant to rien to play on Russians oceans and reinforce the idea that their russian-speaking brethren in eastern Ukraine needs saving

I've hinted at them already but let's take a closer look at some of the targets of Russia's social engineering the first set of targets our foreign policy makers specifically those leading western states in the case of Crimea Russia obfuscated its real goal of keeping Ukraine from leaving its sphere of influence through the seizure of territory Russia accomplished this in part by pushing the little green men narrative that made it much more difficult for policymakers to respond to the situation quickly and effectively you can't counter what you can't identify after all had Western leaders immediately understood this to be an invasion aimed at destabilizing Ukraine a much stronger and swifter response would have been more likely social

engineering worked on policy makers in the early days of the crisis enough doubt was introduced to prevent meaningful action until after the fact this allowed for the creation of a new reality on the ground that has proven impossible to rollback the invasion has been accepted as de facto reality with few consequences to Russia besides economic sanctions of course but the will to maintain those sanctions excuse me has waxed and waned the

Budapest memorandum calls for seeking UN Security Council assistance in the event of a violation of the memorandum Russia violated it without meaningful intervention from the international community despite the fact that Russian parliament authorized Putin to use force in Ukraine on March 1st 2014 the UN Security Council only attempted attempted to pass a resolution on Crimea the day before the referendum was held on March 16th it's important to keep in mind that any society can be targeted by social engineering in this manner russia's info ops have been aimed at citizens of russia and other countries in order to support military operations and policy goals in the case of the invasion of Crimea Russian information operations shaped Russian public opinion to be

overwhelmingly in support of the annexation my host mom along with the vast majority of Russians bought into narratives designed specifically for domestic consumption she said things like Russians and Ukrainians are one people or Crimean has Crimea has always been Russian while these phrases can seem like benevolent calls for unity the implication is that Ukraine is somehow not a legitimate sovereign state state-run coverage of Crimea was also highly emotionally charged so it used the technique of strong effect and social engineering speak most prominent among these strong effect techniques was the line that Ukrainians are fascists Russia's visceral memory of World War two means the stoke strong fears a siege mentality and invoked a moral cause to

save russian-speaking brethren from non-existent victimization this and other narratives also vowed also abused the Russians value of collectivism we are together has been a slogan at that many rallies in Russia supporting the annexation these types of emotionally charged appeals played a key role in convincing Russian citizens to support something that was actually not in their best interests the annexation led to astronomical federal spending at a time when the economy and the federal federal budget we're both in sharp decline this tactic of targeting mass groups of citizens can also make it more difficult for political leaders in the West to generate or maintain popular support for policies to counter Russia

targeting large groups of citizens can also help the Kremlin maintain control within Crimea propaganda whipped up overwhelming support for the Russian government's actions it made most residents of Crimea more docile and forgiving of the subsequent problems in delivering public servant public services Crimea has suffered repeated disruptions in electric power and remains vulnerable to disruptions in water supplies in November 2015 unidentified individuals blew up electricity pylons that supply Crimea resulting in weeks-long power outages even after building its energy bridge - Crimea Russia was forced to enforce temporary blackouts and on the peninsula in August 2017 in order to avoid overloading local power infrastructure following annexation Ukraine constructed a dam that cut off a canal that had previously supplied over

85% of the peninsula's water Russian and Crimean officials neither Russia nor Crimean officials have been able to come up with a sustainable solution to this problem despite all this the only visible local protests have been relatively small gatherings of Crimean Tatars who have been the victims of repression both historically and in the present in this case Russian propaganda relies upon Russia and cultures emphasis on belt tightening in the face of shortages Russians are much more patient and willing to do with less than Americans are especially if the means are seen to justify the ends in Soviet times for example supposedly short term deprivation was justified by the coming bright future of socialism in the case

of the invasion of Crimea the propagandas emphasis is on restoring Crimea to glory through its reunion with the great power that is Russia

it's important to keep in mind that these tactics are not new many of them are evident in Soviet disinformation for example constructing a new narrative around a small grain of truth for years Soviet disinformation attempted to discredit the u.s. by linking it to Frances brutal colonial war in Algeria these efforts were only somewhat successful until four French generals based in Algeria organized a pooch against President Charles de Gaulle one of the four generals had served in NATO headquarters and was unusually pro-american for a French officer this fact was used as the foundation for the lie that the conspirators conspirators were supported by the CIA and this is a favorite trope of Russian info ops to

this day this piece of disinformation was first printed in at Rome daily newspaper and was subsequently picked up by three Soviet media outlets the next day instead of running the lie and the Soviet media first wrote be more likely to be called out as a fabrication the story was planted in a Western newspaper lending it more credibility this is the same reason why RT hides its Russian backing behind its branding and insist that RT America is an independent alternative media outlet while this is not a new phenomenon there are certain factors in today's environment that make the problem worse the culture and ease of information sharing on social media encourages people to read headlines not

articles and this fuel is the problem it's also fairly easy to set up fake online personas that are credible to the casual observer and this means that bots and paid trolls can put out so much disinformation that they can sway conversation trends certain characteristics of traditional media also feed into the problem specifically the 24-hour news cycle and the push to drive traffic to websites for advertising revenue D emphasizes quality and fact-checking and emphasizes putting out large quantities of up-to-the-minute content that is likely to get a lot of clicks there are societal and institutional factors at play that tend not to receive as much attention we are living in an increasingly post fact society where opinions and feelings are starting to

matter more than fact and this makes us more susceptible to disinformation of all kinds increasing political polarization and erosion of trust and politicians in the media also increases susceptibility to alternative narratives as people lose faith in institutions they are more likely to sink seek out and believe simple and compelling explanations for what ails them even if those explanations are misleading or false let's take a look at how Russia uses technology to augment its information operations many of you have probably heard of the internet research agency but it's worth covering in some depth the Internet research agency is a Russian troll farm that spreads misinformation online on September 11th 2014 some residents of a small Louisiana town receive text

messages warning of a toxic fumes hazard in the area including instructions to take shelter the text message pointed residents to a website Columbia chemical comm hundreds of Twitter accounts at the same time we're posting about a disaster at the chemical plant an explosion that was documented with pictures and videos journalists media outlets and politicians from Louisiana to New York were flooded with messages about the disaster one Twitter account posted a screenshot of cnn.com showing that the story had already made national headlines a YouTube video was posted in which a man watched Isis fighters deliver a speech next to looping footage of an explosion a woman even tweeted at Karl Rove quote Karl is this really Isis who is

responsible for Colombian chemicals tell Obama that we should bomb Iraq end quote all of the evidence of this Isis attack the supposed Isis attack on a chemical plant was faked the screen shot the videos the pictures the chemical plant was first to put out a statement that the reports of the explosion were false this was a highly coordinated disinformation campaign involving dozens of accounts sending hundreds of tweets for hours a group of prominent figures were even targeted to maximize the impact those at the internet research agency who were behind the campaign not only faked a screenshot from CNN they also created fully functional copies of the websites of Louisiana TV and the newspapers state newspapers I'm sure I

don't have to tell you twice how dangerous this type of disinformation can be it plays on real public anxieties and can even lead to panic campaigns like this are conducted mainly on Twitter which takes advantage of people's tendency to share things without first verifying them the point of such campaigns is to create chaos and keep the us focused on itself giving Russia more of a free hand to pursue its own goals another tactic employed by the troll farm is sprinkling propaganda in with benign content to build trust for example a former internet research agency employee told the New York Times that she played the role of a fortune teller named canted hora online she ran

a blog for the character who wrote about weight loss relationships Feng Shui and occasionally geopolitics she predicted glory for Putin and defeat for Obama and poroshenko the new Ukrainian president

another factor that has made the problem worse is the foreign agents Registration Act and its application to RT the foreign agents Registration Act or Farah requires agents representing the interests of foreign powers to register as foreign agents and publicly disclose that relationship Farah was enacted in 1938 in the run-up to World War two due to concerns in Congress about the large number of active propaganda Nazi and communist propagandists in the US the idea behind Farah is to ensure that US citizens are informed of the source of information and propaganda so that they understand the identity of people trying to influence US politics policy and law following months of back-and-forth with the Justice Department over whether or

not Farah applied to it RT agreed to register as a foreign agent on November 9th it may seem at first glance that RT is a perfect candidate for registration as a foreign agent while RT fits the definition this initiative by the Justice Department has handed RT and Russia a propaganda victory the channel and the Russian government have decried the move as a violation of international norms of press freedom RT also claimed that they were forced to register or they could have faced staff arrests and had their US bank accounts frozen this is technically true under the law but such harsh enforcement is rare the Kremlin also delivered on its threat to retaliate against US media outlets with

reporters in Russia on November 25th Putin signed a foreign agents media law that allows the Russian government to name any media outlet operating in Russia as a foreign agent should outlets fail to meet the new requirements under the law they could face suspension of their activities in Russia Voice of America Radio Free europe/radio Liberty and the BBC have all been names as potential targets it's important to keep in mind that this law is not without precedent in Russia since 2014 Russia has enforced a foreign agents law targeting nonprofit organizations the law has resulted in harsh crackdowns on civil society and the closure of dozens of right groups in other words the negative consequences of forcing RT to register as a foreign

agent are likely to outweigh the benefits now that we have an understanding of the problem I want to talk a little bit about some of the mitigation strategies that have traditionally been used to counter Russian disinformation first there's an over-reliance on debunking or fact-checking but that's not going to solve the problem it exposes more people to the false narrative people are also extremely reluctant to question their own beliefs and a fact check is unlikely to persuade this is especially true in an environment where there's a lack of general consensus on shared sources of truth the Russian government isn't even playing on this level they're not playing on the level of right versus wrong correct versus incorrect they want

to convince you that none of it matters and induce apathy apathetic people don't really question what they're hearing after all another common strategy to fight this information pushing out counter narratives can risk becoming nowhere no better than your adversary and to the point where you end up creating propaganda yourself and this feeds into the dynamic of apathy adding another narrative doesn't necessarily cancel out the original one in fact it can muddy the waters and make people less likely to question what they're hearing people have a finite amount of mental resources which can be quickly exhausted when they're overloaded with information in a short time span there is no one easy silver bullet solution to this problem it is massive and very

complicated safeguarding the public against the spread of Russian disinformation needs to be a multi-faceted community driven effort since the problem can be understand as large-scale social engineering this calls for drawing upon the InfoSec community's practices and safeguarding against social engineering public awareness campaigns on Russian information operations can go a long way toward alleviating the problem such campaigns should highlight Russia's motivations for targeting American society with this information the aim is to sow discord division and chaos the hope is that by exploiting and exacerbating divisions the US will be too occupied with internal fights to counter Russia's power plays it's particularly important that efforts to raise public awareness reach members of the media media outlets should consider

creating new policies outlining better ways to deal with sources with adversarial motives and leaked information outlets publishing such information should prop to practice data provenance consider who leaked the information why they leaked it and whether or not it's ethical to publish a key question journalists should ask themselves is are we furthering a nefarious narrative such considerations would make it much less likely that attackers could abuse transparency as a value to further their own agenda based on personal experience exposure to other cultures and perspectives helps you break out of echo chambers and makes you less vulnerable this information worked on me because I had isolated myself from my own perspective for long enough and I did not yet understand enough about the

Russian government's perspectives and motive those who understand a range of motives and worldviews are better protected different people have different perspectives and understanding those perspectives increases the likelihood of safeguarding against social engineering spasibo za nemanja thanks for listening [Applause] really quickly before we jump into questions a small caveat I'm not here to discuss political issues of a partisan nature so if you have questions love that type I'd ask that you please save them for the end and come see me afterwards so we can discuss then thank you anybody have questions yeah no this is highly coordinated I mean this is these types of campaigns come directly from the top of the highest levels of the Kremlin and are dictated to the

media outlets that are under control of the Kremlin so this is not you know like I don't write write no this is completely directed by the the Kremlin so I mean yeah this is not as if the these outlets just happen to have these views and they happen to match up with the Kremlin's views or narratives or goals it's really is just Direction coming down from the top so yeah that's a good question so she asked if I had become aware of this while I was still in Russia and if so what kinds of quite what kinds of conversations was I having with my host family so yes this realization that I had been tricked

what happened while I was still in Russia because so I was there for a full academic year and the annexation happened and it was I believe if memory serves me right February of 2014 nope sorry March March of 2014 and then I between the information operations that happened surrounding the annexation of Crimea and the ones surrounding the situation in eastern Ukraine that was when between those two times that was when I had the realization and was you know understood that I had been tricked and that I had to be much more careful about the information I was consuming and being critical about it so in terms of the conversations that I had with my host mom

they were very difficult conversations to be honest it was I mean so she was an avid Putin fan so we always had like difficult political discussions regardless but she she said sometimes she said borderline racist things about Ukrainians and it was really hard for me to sit there and take that and and like come up with ways of like getting her to question those beliefs but also not offending her because I mean you know I was a guest in her home and I didn't want to create an environment where we couldn't talk to each other because I mean that was part of the whole point of having a host family was you know being able to lead these conversations and

have these tough talks about politics and everything else under the Sun so yeah I had to walk a really delicate balance between saying like well hey why are you saying that Ukrainians are hot-blooded for example you know there's no reason for that I mean you have Ukrainian relatives you have Ukrainian friends yet why why are you know why are you painting them in this light and she usually didn't have a very good answer so I hope that I at least got her to sort of think about it twice and maybe reevaluate some of her you know beliefs a little bit I'm not sure how successful I was but that's what I tried to do anyway you got a mic care guys four

questions is there any evidence that any of the mitigation strategies that you mentioned that might work are actually happening like the public information campaigns or news media in the West be more critical of Russian motivations before they report on stories so you're asking if any of the mitigation strategies that I've talked about are happening right now right that's a good question so I think one of the most recent things is the like I talked about in my in my presentation is the application of the foreign agents Registration Act to RT I think that's a that's definitely while I personally think it's a misguided effort for the reasons that I talked about already I think that is that has been one of the

efforts to try to educate the public about what RT actually is and they're they're actually investigating Sputnik as well so Sputnik might be named a foreign agent soon as well in terms of some of the other mitigation strategies I mean there's kind of a gray line because some people say that the outlets like Voice of America and Radio Free europe/radio Liberty are basically our equivalent of propaganda I disagree with that take on it personally I mean so that both of so Voice of America definitely was founded with the intention of countering Soviet disinformation and it's still to a certain extent serves that purpose today but I think that the main reason the main way that it goes about that is

objective reporting so to me it's not it doesn't necessarily qualify as a propaganda outlet even though it's operated by the government I mean you know again it's kind of a gray line you can make arguments either way I think with fact-checking in terms of so there are various outlets not outlets but there's various like think tanks and and organization dependent organizations around the world that are trying to do fact checking that one of them is stopfake which is a Ukrainian outlet I mean again it's it's one of those kind of double-edged swords because it's good that it's that people are understanding that these like for example the some of the information that I got about what

happened with the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 some of that came from stopfake they were the ones who were like well okay this Ukrainian jet would have had to literally defy physics to make this happen so you know that reality check is valuable in some ways but then again it also like I said exposes more people to that false narrative so sometimes I mean some some people are just not going to accept that the fact checker is an objective arbiter of the truth so therefore is just not going to be effective I hope that answered your question thank you it sounds like a really hard problem yes indeed we have time for one more

okay so one of the things you had said was that Russia is pushing a lot of social engineering in other countries in order to sow discontent and confusion so that in itself seems like a means to an end and given your experience in your time in Russia what do you think that Russia's goals are in the region okay I'm sorry I had a hard time hearing you um so you were asking if so they're there trying to sow confusion in other countries right so while they're doing that while the other countries are distracted what do you think that Russia's intents are in the region intents are in the region like in the Russian region region around itself

right oh that's a good question um so the spending all this time and all this money and effort yes spreading disinformation right right right for purpose right absolutely okay yes well in the case of Ukraine the whole idea is to undermine the democratic movement that's going on in Ukraine right now that I mean again you can make different arguments about what happened in the revolution it was not a clean and it was a very messy revolution so but now Ukraine is moving forward and and is becoming much more democratic than it ever was and the whole idea behind well both Russia's invasion and its information operation well I guess you could call it invasions because of

Crimea and also the eastern Ukraine both of those are aimed at keeping Ukraine from leaving its sphere of influence so I mean historically speaking Ukraine was always very close to Russia I mean again because of the shared Soviet history and there are so many people who I mean there's so many Ukrainians who have ended up in Russia and vice versa so it's like it's almost as if well in the past it was like Ukraine was treated as a region not and again not a legitimate sovereign state so Russia wanted to preserve that status quo and I think I mean you can see this also with this played out in other countries like in Georgia for example

there's there's a frozen conflict there in the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia so a similar thing happened where Russia invaded although this time it was much less disguised through information operations it was a outright you know very clear invasion so I mean the the goal was the same I mean Georgia was moving toward the west becoming more democratic all of those things and Russia wanted to keep its influence over that that over Georgia and keep it from leaving to become more part of the the Western liberal order basically so