Professional-Russian activists sought to painting Spain as “engulfed in chaos” following lethal floods final yr, in accordance with a report by the nation’s nationwide safety division launched on Thursday.
The October 2024 floods claimed 235 lives nationwide and brought about widespread injury. Many of the deaths had been within the jap Valencia area, the place fashionable fury focused officers within the aftermath.
The “pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation ecosystem” exploited the floods with opportunism to gasoline public mistrust in state establishments, the annual report mentioned.
It described how activists unfold messages claiming that Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s authorities was diverting public funds to help Ukraine after Russia’s invasion on the expense of “Spain’s actual want for help”.
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Professional-Russian teams additionally intensified disinformation campaigns forward of the European Parliament elections in June 2024 in an effort to undermine belief within the electoral system, the report mentioned.
Russian intelligence companies and allied organisations search to “improve pre-existing social or political divisions within the goal nation, undermine its cohesion and, ideally, foster a rapprochement with Russian theses,” the report added.
The European Union warned in March that Russia and China had been utilizing “large digital arsenals” to intervene in Western democracies, whereas their messaging across the Ukraine battle had change into more and more aligned.
The EU has grown extra involved about Russian interference as a part of what it sees as a broader hybrid marketing campaign from Moscow that features sabotage assaults to weaken the West.
Brussels imposed sanctions on Russian intelligence operatives in December over the alleged malign actions.
False claims unfold quickly on-line following Spain’s floods, with some posts — typically shared on platforms linked to Russia — alleging the federal government was hiding the true variety of victims.
Different unfounded experiences falsely blamed dam failures for the flooding and warned, with out proof, of contaminated ingesting water within the Valencia area.
In opposition to this backdrop, livid locals hurled mud and insults at Sánchez, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia in November 2024 once they visited one of many worst-hit cities in a startling present of anger.
