Michael Winiarski: Therefore, the success of Russia's campaign in Europe

the continuation of The pro-Russian desinformationen against the EU as the New York Times describes the deal in the first place if the ”digital fingerprint” that can be traced. The business is similar to the well-covered campaigns trollfabriker in Russia in the past has devoted himself, both during the early part of the war against Ukraine in 2014 during the US elections in 2016.

nevertheless, it turns out that a lot of posts and comments on social media have the same electronic signature as the extremist right-wing groups in Italy, or – as in Germany, where ytterkantsgrupper share servers with the Russian hackers who broke into the Democratic party's computers in the united states.

It was precisely the latter information in the u.s. valkampanjens final stage was published by Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange discussed the leaks with Roger Stone, one of Donald Trump's political fixer, and friends (who were arrested by the FBI in January 2019).

It is no coincidences that explain this coherence between the Kremlin and the various extremist groups in Europe: Both the right - and leading groups – thus far, regardless of political color – share the Russian view that the EU-cooperation is something that should be reduced, and preferably break-up.

Read more: So, trying to Russia to influence the voters ahead of the EUROPEAN elections

, a rysknationalistisk ideologue said to me when I was two years ago, shortly after Donald Trump's installation as U.S. president, asked him if the parties to the who stood next him:

" All who oppose globalization, for Russia and for traditional values. Center, right, ytterhöger, it doesn't matter, it can also be anti-capitalist ultravänster, as for example in Greece.

Flirten between the Kremlin and Europe's populists, nationalists and authoritarian politicians has now been going on for so many years that it has become a natural part of the political landscape.

German högerpopulistpartiet Alternative for Germany (AFD) will get plenty of support from pages and accounts related to the Russian statsmedier, according to the New York Times. Photo: Michael Sohn/AP

the Alternative for Germany (AfD) gained, for example, the open support of the Russian state-controlled media in the last election.

Marine Le Pen högernationalistiska party received generous loan of a Russian bank, ahead of the presidential elections in France.

Both parties got to express support for the illegal Russian annexation of the Crimea and opposed international sanctions against Russia. The representatives of these parties, as well as for the Austrian FPÖ and the Italian Lega, have also regularly visited Crimea and acted as ”observers” – although no established international organization that sent them there.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, who has been known to use anti-semitic arguments in their campaigns, has cordial relations with Moscow.

President Vladimir Putin and his Kremregering the crack and reinforce the message from the groupings on the outer edges in order to then further split between the voters of Europe, according to the New York Times. Photo: Pavel Golovkin/AP

which is now supported by right-wing populists, Poland is a bit of an exception; where the missing virtually completely pro-Russian moods, and support for the EU is stable at just over 80 per cent. Still learn no one in the Kremlin to be sorry that the Polish government is distancing itself increasingly from european cooperation.

That in itself is no easy task as the EU commission has set itself to combat the millions of imaginary or false information on the EU, immigrants, and conspiracy theories about jews and muslims, to spread on social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp. An action plan was presented at the end of last year ”to protect our democratic system and public debates ahead of elections to the european Parliament”.

even more difficult is to do something about a certain part of the population and the electorate is receptive to this false information, sometimes supported by the Russian påverkanskampanjer via news sites like Sputnik, RT and Ruptly.