which is not trustworthy.
4. Raise public awareness of Russian trolls’ activities.
“Forewarned is forearmed.” At the high school and college levels, an emphasis should be made on analyzing how propaganda works.
5. Analyze the facts.
Russian propaganda includes misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is false information, which is intended to deceive. Disinformation is a mixture of true and false facts designed to mislead the public. Debunking lies, half-truths, and half-lies is important. Progress has been made by the EU External Action Service that publishes weekly disinformation bulletins. In Ukraine, a private initiative entitled StopFake.org debunks myths since 2014. Quality papers and studies accessible by broader audiences are an effective weapon against fake news.
6. Do not be too tolerant.
RT has direct access to homes of tens of millions of Europeans and Americans, while the Western media in Russia have limited possibilities in this respect. The West could ask for reciprocity as a condition for the Russian media presence in the West. Western governments should issue a series of legislations preventing RT from diffusing explicitly biased information. In the United Kingdom, there exists a media watchdog, Ofcom (Office of Communications) which ensures impartial news coverage. Several times it has found RT in breach with the British regulations, imposing punitive measures on RT. Media watchdogs in Western countries should more closely coordinate their efforts.
7. Forbid foreign financing of political parties.
Foreign financing of political parties and political advertisements should be strictly forbidden.
8. Protect the electoral process.
There should be designed a set of measures that would prevent outsiders from interfering in the electoral process. Voting online should therefore be discouraged and the use of voting machines restricted. Old-fashioned paper votes should be kept or reintroduced.32
Conclusion
In February 2020, the Svobodnaia Pressa (Free Press) published an article by Yurii Piskulov, an expert on trade with Finland, with the intriguing title “The Information War: Why We Lose to the West?”33 In his article, Piskulov complained that, instead of winning the information war (as many in the West concede), Russia was losing this war. He quoted the head of RT, Margarita Simonian, who came to the same conclusion eight years ago, blaming insufficient budget allocations to RT. Although Piskulov admitted that since that date much more money had been invested in the Russian media, he insisted that Moscow nevertheless was losing.
It may be that Piskulov’s text is part of Russian propaganda and a tactical approach to solving the “Western question” once and for all. His view might assure the West that it has nothing to fear and should stop fighting an information war with Russia. The West’s faith in the argument made by Piskulov and people like him, and a subsequent weakening of its effort in fighting an information war with Russia might have devastating and enduring consequences, ultimately creating a pre-condition for the realization of Igor Panarin’s prediction.
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“RT’s
