Disinformation

German authorities announced on Wednesday (7 December) that they have arrested 25 alleged far-right extremists under suspicion of plotting to overthrow the state and replacing it with a Germany modelled on the Second Reich.

The French army says it has filmed Russian mercenaries from the paramilitary group Wagner burying bodies near a Malian military base, in an attempt to falsely accuse France’s departing troops of leaving behind mass graves.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, has recalled the Ukrainian ambassador to Kyrgyzstan. Zelensky accused Kyrgyzstan of justifying the Russian involvement in Ukraine during a call between the Kyrgyz President, Sadyr Japarov, and Russia's Vladimir Putin.

On Thursday (20 January), the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States placed four Ukrainians, including two parliamentarians, on the US sanctions list. Their assets in the US are blocked. This is the latest action the OFAC has taken to target purveyors of Russian disinformation, including designations in April 2021.

In an exclusive interview with the British broadcaster BBC, the president of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, said that it is "absolutely possible" that his forces helped migrants and asylum seekers to cross the border into Poland. However, in the interview the president denied that his regime deliberately brought in foreign migrants to put pressure on the European Union.

The Russian Ministry of Justice on Friday (8 October) designated the international research collective Bellingcat as a "foreign agent". In addition, two companies and nine journalists, one of whom works for BBC Russia, have also been labelled as such. 

The decision means that the organisations are under strict surveillance by the Russian authorities. They have to state in their communications that they have this label and are subject to strict financial supervision.