Disinformation Wars: From NPR to Prague

Quick Europe, take over the war in Ukraine for US.

Published: 2024-05-31

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Disinformation Wars

The Saturday 25th May 2024 edition of NPR's "All Things Considered" played an interview by Eleanor Beardsley with Ivana Stradner and then Tristan Mendes France. They discussed a piece of "disinformation" or what used to be called "fake news".

It was a “deepfake”.

From this we learn that the quality of AI generated deepfakes has descended to the level where they can't even get the lips to line up.

Beardsley introduced the segment with:

France 24 quickly debunked the video, linking it to a French-language pro-Russian news outlet. But not before former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and many others retweeted it. Dr. Ivana Stradner is a specialist on Russian propaganda with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Earlier in the transcript, host Scott Detrow had introduced the topic with:

... where investigators say they think Russia's secret services paid Bulgarian operatives to deface a Holocaust memorial in Paris.

Which investigators "thought" Russia's secret services had paid the unnamed Bulgarian operatives was also unnamed. One was immediately puzzled by who was running the disinformation?

Disinformation expert Stradner began with:

I have no doubt that we are going to see more deepfakes videos, more AI tools that are going to play the role in spreading Russia's narrative and sowing divisions.

confirming that she views the poorly lip-synced video a deepfake which involved "AI". Beardsley then bounced off Stradner by quoting her and not asking a question to allow Stradner to continue. Stradner came straight to the point which NPR was giving her the opportunity to make:

They have to do everything possible to distract the West from helping Ukraine. And if there is one thing that Russia is really, really good at, it is attempting to sow divisions across the West.

At this point, your author knew he was in the middle of a disinformation war, it just wasn't yet clear who was fighting with whom. But, Beardsley wasn't finished with her artillery and next wheeled out Tristan Mendes France, "an online extremism expert".

He confirmed the dangerous situation by informing NPR's audience that "Moscow doesn't have to push that hard its own propaganda", "Russia relies on like-minded local actors".

So, the battlelines were clearly drawn. If you think that Russia has any valid points to make you are a "like-minded local actor" and theoretically an "online extremist" seeking to "distract the West from helping Ukraine". Right. Gotcha.

Anything else?

Citing "extreme-right movements in France, in Germany and in other countries in Europe" Mendes France informed the NPR audience that these like-minded local actors are employing other dangerous ideas:

It can be immigration, family values. It can be hatred of LGBT communities, all those values they have in common.

But, what about Stradner?

It turns out she is a Research Fellow at the Foundation to Defend Democracies, cited by the FDD as having expertise in "Cyber, Disinformation, International Organizations, Russia, Ukraine".

As a Computer Science professional with 25 years of experience I can inform you that a) Cyber does not mean anything and b) she's got no idea about "deepfakes". In three hours I could use two to prepare a class and with the other train 15 people to produce crap videos like the one she's complaining about with a laptop running GNU/Linux, an internet connection and the FFmpeg Free and Open Source Software tool. Thereafter I could produce another 15 deepfakers per hour, given willing students. That is to say one could produce an army of 600 deepfakers of this shitty quality, a week.

They could then flood the interwebs with cool memes, some of which might be political. You never know.

Stradner's Bio says:

Ivana has a Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD) and a Master of Laws from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.

She studies Russia’s security strategies and military doctrines to understand how Russia uses information operations for strategic communication.

Ivana also analyzes Russian influence in international organizations.

Ivana also serves as a special correspondent for KyivPost.

Before joining FDD, Ivana worked as a visiting scholar at Harvard University and a lecturer for a variety of universities, including the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and as a Jeane Kirkpatrick fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

So, it looks like Stradner is working in information warfare/intelligence. She worked at the American Enterprise Institute too. I have no idea what a "Doctor of Juridical Science" is. This qualification wreaks of the degree mills which Andrei Martyanov speaks. Stradner looks very much like a deep-stater in training. What does one call a deep-stater in training who works in information-warfare/intelligence anyway?

But, one should not be quick to judge, so lets head to Kyiv Post where she was a "special correspondent". In The Real Architects of “Russophobia” in late December 2022 Stradner was informing Ukrainians and anyone else reading that:

Russia has not only been weaponizing information, refugees, energy, and food crises— but also the Russophobia narrative.

Stradner's core message was that Russia has been "weaponizing" being an “innocent victim” as one of its “persistent disinformation narratives”. She makes this case by quoting the US State Department, which is an interesting choice of source for an argument about Russian “disinformation narratives”.

Perhaps we can pick apart a later paragraph:

The Kremlin has flooded the internet space with claims of Russophobia and neo-Nazism to distract from its wrongdoings. During the global fuel crisis stemming from sanctions on Russian oil, a Russian Embassy in USA tweet claimed White House officials were blaming Russia for the crisis “to earn political points on #Russophobia.”

Firstly, the Kremlin does not do stuff like this. Russia has agencies for this, just like the US. Or, to put that another way, a Russian embassy in country X is not the Kremlin just as a US embassy in country Y is not the White House. So, one strike, for failing in your area of expertise, Ivana.

Russophobia is not a "claim". The EU banned all Russian news outlets. I know, I was living there at the time and had to use Tor and other tools to be able to access Russian media to hear their side of the story. Various nations in the EU banned Russian books and music. They banned artists and sports persons. What should one call multiple nations issuing total bans on Russian media and culture, Ivana? Strike two, lady.

As for neo-Nazism, this is also not a "claim". Western media were reporting on neo-Nazis in Ukraine up to 2016. Then, it all suddenly disappeared. The reporting, that is. Strike three, Ivana.

Dr. Stradner’s paragraph continues, after admitting that the global fuel crisis was caused by "sanctions on Russian oil" (who issued those, Stradner?), with "a Russian Embassy in USA tweet claimed White House officials were blaming Russia for the crisis" .... Yeah, Ivana, the US caused the crisis. That Russia was accusing them of using it to fuel Russophobia is very reasonable. The US was running propaganda to fuel a war.

So, Dr. Ivana Stradner is an information operative posing as an expert in disinformation, which is what this whole business has been about all along. The problem these people have today is that you can put lipstick on a pig, but it very hard to put it on a genocide or a lost war.

But, you can always accuse "the Russians" of running disinformation campaigns, can't you? And that, of course, is exactly what US Secretary of State Blinkenlights is doing.

PRAGUE (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday assailed Russian attempts to sow discord in democracies with misinformation after hinting the Biden administration may soon allow Ukraine to use American-supplied munitions to strike inside Russia.

This flinging of disinformation operations accusations at the Russian Federation is somehow meant to justify NATO member states permitting Ukraine to attack Russia proper with their weapons. As previously noted, this is a simple ploy to get Europe to take over the war against Russia while the US deals with its selection season. It is also shockingly dangerous.

It took 6 days from Dr. Ivana Stradner’s disinformation accusations on NPR to Blinken’s in Prague.

Its a goddamn obvious play.

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PS

A first search for Blinken issuing his "misinformation" disinformed accusation yielded a result from DuckDuckGo which matched the words. But, the link went to an article involving the same author but with a totally different topic. This is just another sign that news outlets like AP issue stories and then quickly re-purpose or heavily edit them.

This does look rather nefarious, but it is also the case the news changes quickly and search engines cache older things. It is interesting though, when the headline and the author list change dramatically. I take it as a hint.

The below graphic shows the search and the result. The mouse is over the link, which is displayed at the bottom left. If one follows that link one gets the different article. The DDG search result is exposing an aged cache entry. The Yahoo! News article this piece has used is itself a cache of the original AP News article.

Playing with caches, and disinformation operatives. :)

Sources

France fights back as Russia sows disinformation to weaken support for Ukraine, Eleanor Beardsley interviews Ivana Stradner, All Things Considered, 2024-05-25

Blinken assails Russian misinformation after hinting US may allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia, Matthew Lee, AP News (republished by Yahoo!), 2024-05-30

Ivana Stradner, Bio, Foundation for Defense of Democracies, accessed 2025-05-31

OPINION: The Real Architects of “Russophobia”, Ivana Stradner, Kviv Post, 2022-12-24

American Enterprise Institute, Wikipedia

Biden partially lifts ban on Ukraine using US arms in strikes on Russian territory, US officials say, Matthew Lee, amer madhani and zeke miller, AP News, 2024-05-30

Europe: Vote No to War, YesXorNo, 2024-05-30

Censorship: Rejecting a One-Sided Argument, YesXorNo, 2022-03-06

Culture

Uptown Girl, Billy Joel (from his 1983 album "An Innocent Man"), uploaded 201304-09

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