Figure of the Week: 200

This week, EUvsDisinfo is celebrating its 200th Disinformation Review.

Since the creation of the East Stratcom Task Force in 2015, the Disinformation Review has exposed weekly trends of pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem, based on 8693 cases collected so far in the EUvsDisinfo database. This has meant following the pro-Kremlin media’s footsteps from the battles in Eastern Ukraine to the crash site of MH17, to a poisoning in Salisbury and COVID-19 conspiracy theories.

While we were not able to change the outcome of these past events, our aim was – and remains – to make sure that disinformation spread by pro-Kremlin media is called out, publicly recorded and debunked. While the weekly Disinformation Review has played an important role in this, we are grateful for all the references and quotations by political leaders, ministries, think tanks, and journalists throughout Europe and beyond.

Looking back at the early days of the EUvsDisinfo activities, it is astonishing to see how little the Kremlin narratives have changed. The US and NATO were – and still are – the main adversaries cited by pro-Kremlin media, while information attacks on Ukraine’s sovereignty and integrity have not calmed either.

Capturing and documenting these examples of disinformation has meant scanning the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem inside Europe, but also looking for pro-Kremlin disinformation messages being amplified in the EU’s neighbourhood and even the Middle East and North Africa region.

One of the most important ways to address disinformation is to expose it and to raise awareness about it. This is exactly what the Disinformation Review is doing with regular and up to date information to which you can subscribe here.