The multi-phase program, originally outlined in the April 2017 document, envisions media fibs against Russia to counter its “disinformation and malign influence.” Interestingly, this year’s agenda included Skripal-related attacks just a month after the poisoning occurred, long before the Russia-UK tit-for-tat diplomatic moves.
The Anonymous hacktivist group has published documents according to which the UK government has been financing the so-dubbed Integrity Initiative program, directed at keeping up the anti-Russian rhetoric in the UK and beyond, as well as outlining the concrete tasks that the regional clusters of the project were entrusted with.
According to the open-source files, analysed by the founder of Telegram channel 338, the agenda first and foremost stipulates an in-depth analysis of the area that this or that hacking group specializes on, and which can further be applied in the segment RU (information attacks on the Russian-speaking population of the region.)
e regional clusters, one would notice that most of them are top pro-file politicians or civil servants: for instance, with Spain it is Nico de Pedro, who heads the cluster and represents The Institute for Statecraft, Eduardo Serra Rexach, former defence minister in Jose Maria Asnara’s government and currently a businessman, Fernando Valenzuela Marzo, Spain’s minister of foreign affairs etc.
Emails of almost all the French representatives correspond to those of foreign ministry’s employees, such as Thomas Bertin’s (National Human Rights and National Security Secretariat) and Raphael de Lagarde’s (France’s Foreign Ministry.)
So, the files shed light on UK-financed extended network schemes aimed at undermining Russia’s reputation abroad, with the said clusters involving not only ordinary EU servants, but official foreign ministry figures, intel officers and NATO’s top managements, as well as famed academics from European institutions. The network participants openly report on the results of their work, using email and WhatsApp, in particular on their meddling in governmental appointments in Spain, apparently in violation of the country’s sovereignty, amid multiple accusations of Russia carrying out its “troll attacks” and persisting in a “hybrid war.”
“Purpose: To counter Russian disinformation and malign influence, and associated weapons of ‘Hybrid warfare’, in Europe and North America by: expanding the knowledge base; harnessing existing expertise, and; establishing a network of networks of experts, opinion formers and policy makers, to educate national audiences in the threat and to help build national capacities to counter it,” the document issued as early as in April 2017 reads.