On November 30, in the thick of the U.S. presidential campaign, Russian propagandists stated, on its internet news portals that the three presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, had engaged in a conference call to Donald trump. The propagandists claimed CNN to be the source for the info. The presidents were said to have driven Trump into such a rage that he told them to shut up and slammed the phone down.
Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid stated that such a news item is nonsense and totally false. The phone call never happened.
The creation and dissemination of such news is typical. The information is attributed to a reliable source such as CNN. The news is said to be from an interview with Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway. With references to an actual source and identifiable person appears in some Russian news portals. Outside attempts to trace it to CNN fail. But within an hour the item appears in some ten other similar portals and thereafter it appears on Twitter and other social networks. Within one day it reaches influential Russian propaganda channels.
The production of this ‘news’ is to create suspicions, promote disunity amongst NATO and EU countries, amplify any strategic differences between Europe and North America and increase insecurity amongst the populations. Kseniya Kirillova a Russian based in the US has identified five American vulnerabilities that help spread the Kremlin’s propaganda message. (Pikemalt Eesti Elu 20. jaan. paberlehest)