Details on Newly Uncovered GRU Online Personas

On Christmas, Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post from published two widely shared reports on GRU (Russian military intelligence) activities in creating fake profiles on social networks, along with “astroturfed” political activist groups.

The first, longer article, entitled “Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options,” was written by Nakashima along with Greg Jaffe and Adam Entous. This article paints a wide picture of online activities from the GRU and presumably Kremlin-linked individuals, centered on a “freelance journalist” Alice Donovan (also known as Sophie Mangal). A central detail in this investigation is an “intercepted Russian military report” from February 2014 that “documented how Moscow created fake personas to spread disinformation on social media to buttress its broader military campaign.”

Ivan Galitsin

In her second article of the day, “Inside a Russian disinformation campaign in Ukraine in 2014,” Nakashima elaborated on this document, with the specific example of “Ivan Galitsin.” This persona was allegedly a specific part of the GRU cyber operations to influence opinion in Ukraine during the uncertainty of the Euromaidan revolution and the ensuing drama in Crimea.

Nakashima provides a few details about “Ivan Galitsin” that allow us to find the digital footprints of the alleged disinformation campaign carried out by the GRU. Specifically, the Post article describes how this online persona left a comment on a “British newspaper” under a February 22, 2014 story about former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

In going through Google results for stories about Tymoshenko from February 22, 2014, a handful of British sites that also have a physical newspaper seem promising, such as the the Guardian and the Daily Mail. Of these results, only a  particular Guardian article has a large number of comments.

Sure enough, on the second page, we can find a comment from an “Ivan Galytsin” with the exact words printed in Nakashima’s reporting. Additionally, “Ivan Galytsin” uses a photograph of Konstantin Yaroshenko, as described in the Post article, and created his account (and posted both of his only comments) on February 22, 2014.

We can also find “Ivan Galitsin” on Facebook, using the same avatar of Konstantin Yaroshenko.

According to the Post article, and corresponding to this Facebook profile, “Ivan Galitsin” created his profile on February 22–just as he did on the Guardian website. This “Ivan Galitsin” is supposedly from L’viv, a Ukrainian city in the country’s west.

Vova Kravets

Another online persona created by the GRU in the Post article is “Vova Kravets,” who was posing as a radical Ukrainian and sent death threats to Ukrainian politicians on Facebook.

This persona is also quite easy to find on Facebook, with only one profile currently on Facebook that could be a possible match. This “Vova Kravets” profile was created on January 31, 2014, a few weeks before “Ivan Galitsin,” and ceased posting on March 27, 2014. The persona’s identity is clear–a radical, far-right Ukrainian who is either a fan or member of the ultra-nationalist group Right Sector. Additionally, the profile’s only “friends” are a number of well-known individuals in Ukraine.

Unanswered Questions

Tracking down these two individuals named in the Post article was not especially difficult, but there are still a number of unresolved issues that were either directly raised in the Post‘s reporting or in need of attention.

Firstly, on February 27, 2014, four groups were allegedly created by the GRU on Facebook and Vkontakte (VK). In particular, these groups “encourage[d] Crimeans to support secession from Ukraine.” Furthermore, these groups “used paid ads on Facebook” and “received nearly 200,000 views on Facebook on Feb. 27 alone.” What are these groups? All of the pages liked by “Vova Kravets” and all of the groups he was a part of were in line with the persona that “he” was projecting–a Ukrainian ultranationalist, thus “he” would not have been part of any of these alleged GRU groups created on February 27. “Ivan Galitsin” liked three pages and was a part of one group that fit with the political theme of the GRU pages: Ukrainian Front (group), Ukrainian Front (page), Slavic Shield, and Antimaidan. However, none of these were created on February 27, though it is worth nothing that the Ukrainian Front page (not group) was created on February 22, the same day that “Ivan Galitsin” created “his” account.

Secondly, how effective were these online operations? While the figure of 200,000 views on a Facebook page is impressive, it is unclear if these are page views on the group’s page itself or impressions from its posts. When looking at “Ivan Galytsin” in particular, this online persona hardly made a dent in the online information space, with two comments on the Guardian‘s website and a neglected Facebook profile. Were the other online personas far more active than this virtual nobody?

Lastly, did this GRU operation have any relationship with the infamous St. Petersburg Troll Factory, allegedly run by Yevgeny Prigozhin? From the Post report, this GRU operation seems to have been run in-house, rather than outsourced to Prigozhin as a sort of contractor. However, with additional data points, it may be possible to find links between Prigozhin’s vast network of news (and more often, “news”) sites and army of social network sock puppet accounts.

The post Details on Newly Uncovered GRU Online Personas appeared first on bellingcat.

A noble act: The female writer who fought Nazis and machismo

On December 10, 1966, the Jewish-German poet Nelly Sachs received the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm, an award she shared with the novelist Shmuel Agnón. In her acceptance speech, she paid tribute to another Nobel laureate for saving her life. “In the summer of 1939, a German friend came to Sweden to visit Selma Lagerlöf and asked if she could find somewhere for my mother and I to take refuge,” she said. “In the spring of 1940, after several tortuous months, we reached Stockholm. Denmark and Norway were already occupied. The great novelist was no longer here.”

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The EU isn’t punishing Poland. It’s protecting its integrity as a bloc | Natalie Nougayrède

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Brexit negotiators should take note: Brussels has acted to put European law first

It’s been fascinating to look at some of the reactions, in Europe and beyond, after the European commission last week took the unprecedented step of triggering a mechanism against Poland, for the first time potentially threatening to strip a member state of its voting rights in the club.

Brussels decided to move against Poland’s democratic backsliding, namely the crushing of its independent judiciary – a process that had recently been accelerated by its populist government, elected in 2015. On social media, the far right raged. Here was the European behemoth lashing out at a country whose sovereign choices were being trampled on, its image unfairly tarnished. Sound familiar?

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US to make at least $285m cut to UN budget after vote on Jerusalem

Cut our influence and risk our national security because… you can #TraitorTrump – #LoserTrump!

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  • US is responsible for 22% of the UN’s annual operating budget
  • Timing sends message after UN rejects Trump’s recognition of Israeli capital

The US government has announced significant cuts in its United Nations budget obligations for 2018-19 in what will be interpreted as a further ratcheting up of pressure from the Trump administration looking to bend decision-making at the international body to its will.

Related: UN votes resoundingly to reject Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as capital

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Punishment Sustains Patriarchy

Male self-delusion to get a pass for someone who supports what you support is as infinite as other self-delusions to justify making the world like you want it. Should Al Franken Resign

Punishment Sustains PatriarchyAl Franken the serial groper. Al Franken the scapegoat.

History proceeds clumsily. Innocent people — or “innocently guilty” people, like the junior senator from Minnesota — often get unfairly hung out to dry. Should he have to resign? As far as I can tell, his alleged sexual wrongdoings over the years consist of three butt grabs, several uninvited kisses, a breast grope and a waist squeeze.

There may be more, of course, and they add up to something beyond what could be called innocent mistakes or misunderstandings. An adolescent sense of entitlement seems to be at work here, but . . . this is the moral standard of a Congress open for purchase by corporate lobbyists? Who among us (Roy? Donald?) hasn’t committed transgressions worse than the above? And shouldn’t a person’s positive achievements be factored into the severity of his punishment, at least when no permanent damage has occurred?

Yet . . . yet . . .

We live in a deeply problematic and unfair world, but suddenly social awareness has solidified around the wrongness of sexual abuse, so much so that powerful men are feeling the sting of accountability for stupid and cruel behavior that until recently seemed consequence-free.

I get the outrage, which is a release of decades — centuries — of the hopeless despair of so many women, who have been powerless even to stop, let alone get justice for, sexual abuse, harassment, assault. We live in a deeply problematic and unfair world, but suddenly social awareness has solidified around the wrongness of sexual abuse, so much so that powerful men are feeling the sting of accountability for stupid and cruel behavior that until recently seemed consequence-free.

I get that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, who has long stood up courageously against the sexual assault that permeates the U.S. military, led the way in calling for Franken to resign and calling for zero tolerance of all forms of sexual harassment.

But I also get the counter-outrage: the support for Franken (including “feminists for Franken”); the calls for him to reconsider his resignation; the outcry that zero tolerance for minor transgressions, sexual or otherwise, is morally simplistic and can quickly devolve into destructive self-righteousness that only makes matters worse; and the demand for some sort of due process, e.g., convening the Senate Ethics Committee to consider the accusations against Franken.

What’s clear is that this is a moment of social change. I believe we should value everyone who is a participant in it, willingly or otherwise. Real social change leaves no one out.

So . . . should Al Franken resign?

As Masha Gessen wrote last month in the New Yorker, “maybe ‘Should Al Franken resign?’ is the wrong question.

“The question frames the conversation in terms of retribution, but it is not possible to hold to account every man who has ever behaved disrespectfully and disgustingly toward a woman. Nor even every senator, or every comedian. And, even if it were possible to punish every single one of them, what would be accomplished? Punishment, especially when it is delayed, is not a very effective deterrent.

“. . . the real issue here,” she goes on to point out, is “the power imbalance that allows some men to take women hostage using sex. Franken, from what we know, was not such a man.”

Harvey Weinstein, on the other hand, held women sexually hostage with the power he wielded over their careers. So did Roger Ailes — and so many others. But even they, and all those who preceded them in such behavior, and worse, weren’t acting simply as bad individuals. They were acting in a social context. a.k.a., the patriarchy, in which male sexuality mattered more than female humanity.

Rape, indeed, was once a property crime. “The idea that rape is a crime against a woman, and specifically a crime against a woman’s body, is relatively new,” writes Emily Crockett at Vox. “For most of human history, rape has been treated as a property crime against a woman’s husband or father, since they effectively owned her.”

This is the horrific social context that has suddenly stopped coddling the tainted celebrities of the 21st century, some of whom have lost their careers because accusers have finally felt empowered to tell their stories. But for the most part the national conversation about it has not moved beyond the bad behavior of individual men and the need to punish them for what they did. I keep believing that we can move more deeply into the matter.

Consider, for instance, how the tiny indigenous village of Hollow Water, Manitoba, confronted, back in the 1980s, its own long-festering sex abuse problem, as described in Rupert Ross’s book Returning to the Teachings. The sex abuse was the hidden part of the problem, which manifested in alcoholism and various forms of violence, as well as the profound alienation of the community’s teenagers.

Inflicting punishment on the perpetrators of various crimes, the Western way, did nothing but further destabilize this fragile community. The situation became so desperate that a group of community members finally came together and started talking.

Several years ago, after I heard Ross and Burma Bushie, a resident of Hollow Water, speak at Des Moines University, I wrote : “And at the core of it all was the circle: the whole. They sat with one another in peace circles and talked with raw honesty. They sat with the injured and those who caused harm. As Ross put it, ‘Their definition of justice sounded more like our definition of healing.’ It was about healing, about reconnecting people with one another and their surroundings. The Hollow Water team had made lifelong commitments to heal their community and supplant the Western replacement legacy of punishment-based justice and welfare bureaucracies, which only intensified the wreckage.”

The global restorative justice movement emerged from indigenous communities, such as Hollow Water, beginning the process of healing themselves by reclaiming the tribal circle, which included truth-telling and forgiveness. Accountability is a far more difficult process to undergo than punishment, but it empowers everyone, both victim and perpetrator. Indeed, claiming accountability turns perpetrators into healers.

All of which brings me back to Al Franken, and why his resignation seems to accomplish little more than fueling the momentum of revenge. It further splinters the political culture but does nothing to set free its collective secrets.

And as long as punishment rules, the patriarchy remains intact.

Robert Koehler
PeaceVoice

The post Punishment Sustains Patriarchy appeared first on LA Progressive.

Israeli activists stage vigil to release the Tamimi women

16-year-old Ahed, her 20-year-old cousin Nur, and her mother, Nariman, have been in prison for nearly a week. Activists in Tel Aviv say the vigil is meant to remind the Israeli public of the reality of the occupation. Activists from the Coalition of Women for Peace staged a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Defense on Sunday evening to protest the detention of Ahed, Nariman, and Nur Tamimi, of Nabi Saleh. Some of the demonstrators kneeled, their eyes blindfolded, while others held signs reading, “It’s not the slap, it’s the occupation,” and called for the three Palestinian women to be…

Source: Israeli activists stage vigil to release the Tamimi women

An Israeli anti-nuclear activist won the Nobel, and no one is talking about it

Sharon Dolev won the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month for her work on nuclear disarmament. Despite the media blackout in Israel, and the reluctance to even touch the subject, she remains steadfast in her belief that a regional nuclear pact is on its way. 

By Yael Marom

Israeli nuclear disarmament activist Sharon Dolev speaking at the United Nations. (Clare Conboy)

Israeli nuclear disarmament activist Sharon Dolev speaking at the United Nations. (Clare Conboy)

The Israeli media all but ignored the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, which took place in Oslo in early Decebmer. This was especially strange considering the fact that one of the recipients is an Israeli, and the newspapers here never miss an opportunity to gush whenever a Jewish person wins the award. The silence may be a result of the fact that one of winners, Sharon Dolev, was part of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which won the Nobel for efforts in highlighting the dangers of nuclear weapons as well as working on a treaty to ban them.

I spoke to Dolev, the Israeli prize winner who established the The Israeli Disarmament movement, and one of the bravest and most determined activists I know, who for years have worked alongside a small group of other dedicated activists on an issue that Israel prefers to remain silent on (since this interview was published, three more Israeli media outlets reached out to Dolev for interviews).

[tmwinpost]

Let’s talk about the media blackout. When it was announced that the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons had won the prize, the media did not mention the Israeli Disarmament movement, even though a Jewish Israeli was among the prize winners. How is this possible?

“Let’s take a step back to before the announcement. If I were speaking in the United Nations about human rights violations in the occupied territories, I would have been on the front page of the newspapers, and all the ministers would be attacking me. But here I am, speaking to the UN General Assembly about the Israeli nuclear program and the ways to disarm it, and no one is criticizing me — no one is calling me a traitor for daring to speak about the issue. The ambiguousness works in all directions. It has always been about ignoring us.”

Why does this happen?

“Self-censorship. The fear of speaking about something they do not understand. Perhaps some feel that this is one step too far. That it is undeserving. But at a certain point, and perhaps winning the prize will help, we will need to come to grips with the fact that something is happening here — that this is a win for civil society.

“But it is legal to speak in Israel about its nuclear program. Our nuclear program threatens us on a daily basis because we do not oversee it, neither its facilities nor the program itself. It is a threat because other countries view it as a nuclear threat. We are living in a false sense of security. That is why every time we choose not to talk about it, we are committing a crime. The discourse in the rest of the world is far different. I invite organizations and activists to speak with us. At least know what is happening. And if this prize gives me access or a possibility to speak to civil society organizations in Israel — then it was worth it.”

LARGE CAMPAIGN BANNER

What happened during the ceremony? The global nuclear powers responded in an unusual manner, and Israel was the only country to send an ambassadorial representative to the ceremony. It was a strange situation.

“The ceremony itself was very touching. I could not travel to Oslo, but I watched the broadcast. There were three main speeches, all delivered by women: one by a representative of the Nobel Committee, another by Beatrice Fihn, the executive director of the international campaign, and a third by Setsuko Thurlow, a Hiroshima survivor who was 13 years old when the bomb fell, and now dedicates her life to telling her story and struggling against the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“Even the host of the ceremony mentioned the fact that Israel sent an ambassadorial representative. The other nuclear powers sent lower-ranking representatives as a statement. It is funny because Israel’s biggest fear is that its program will be mentioned as a special case, and at the ceremony it found itself alone. I assume this happened by mistake. Israel’s policy of deliberate ambiguity creates a situation in which these things are simply not spoken about. Somebody must have forgotten to tell the ambassador not to show up. I was happy he was there, and hope that he was listening closely.

Executive Director of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Beatrice Fihn (right) and nuclear disarmament activist Setsuko Thurlow receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 2017. (Jo Straube/ICAN)

Executive Director of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Beatrice Fihn (right) and nuclear disarmament activist Setsuko Thurlow receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, December 10, 2017. (Jo Straube/ICAN)

“The nuclear powers are acting as expected. It’s nice of them to have replaced the rhetoric of “this weapon will protect us” with talk of protecting the weapon from humans, at least those who want to disarm. Yet they refuse to take part in any dialogue or process, and one of the reasons is that they do not have good answers to the current campaign.

“It’s not just a matter of fearing nuclear weapons, although we certainly should fear them. ‘We are one tiny tantrum away from nuclear war,’ as Beatrice Fihn put it in her speech. A study published back in 2008 showed that even a ‘limited’ or ‘small’ nuclear — one nuclear submarine — would be enough to create world hunger or a nuclear winter.

What was the prize for? What does the new treaty say?

“The new treaty is meant to complete the work of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In fact, when they signed the treaty in 1967, the signatories became obligated to disarm. This caused other countries to avoid becoming part of the cycle of nuclear armament. This has yet to take place. No one is talking about it, and no one knows when it will happen. The new treaty forbids the development, holding, transfer, or hoarding of nuclear weapons — all according to international humanitarian law. So far 122 countries have endorsed it.

“The prize was awarded to our campaign, in which over 400 civil society organizations from over 100 countries — including peace, human rights, and environmental groups — successfully came together to set a goal and reach it. At first the goal was to cause the countries to talk about the issue. After that the goal was to hold negotiations and pass the treaty. We can no longer be called naive. We are making nuclear weapon illegal. This does not mean we have won. It means the victory is on the way.”

What is it like to be a woman and do this work, especially in the Middle East and in such a militaristic Israeli culture?

“I am taking part in various meetings with various people. It takes time until my position is even considered a legit one to talk about. This is both because I am a woman and because I am talking about the impossible. My biggest frustration is organizing panels that I myself would boycott because there is no representation for women. This frustration always exists. When will I stop being a woman and start being someone who talks about nuclear weapons?”

What does the movement do in Israel? What’s next after the Nobel win?

“In Israel we are trying to reach as many people as possible. People need to know, and after they know, they can decide what to do. They need to know how many nuclear weapons there are in the world. They need to know the dangers. They need to know what it means to be a nuclear-armed country. And they need to know what each and every one of us can do. Our role is to continue passing on information. This is urgent for two reasons. The first is that, today, we are closer to a nuclear war than we have been in the past 40 years. The second reason is economic. In the past two years, the U.S. and Britain have each approved spending $200 million to update their nuclear arsenals. These are weapons they cannot use.

“Furthermore, the Israeli Disarmament movement decided to create a path for the country to safely join the international conversation about nuclear disarmament, which it reportedly has. We authored a regional treaty for a nuclear-free Middle East, which will soon undergo rounds of negotiations that will include academics and diplomats from across the region, including a few Israelis.

“The impetus for the treaty is two-fold. On the one hand, we understand that a nuclear-armed country will not join the conversation on disarmament if it does not have a safe environment to do so. For instance, India will not disarm if Pakistan and China do not also disarm. It is clear that Israel needs a regional solution — and there is a way to do it. Official Israel claims that it wants one. The Arab League says the same. And everyone argues that it is impossible. The treaty tries to provide a solution. Additionally, it tries to show that those same countries that claim it is impossible are not interested in a solution. The only thing lacking is good will.

“Israel is not the only country that does not want a solution. It is very easy for Arab countries to constantly claim that Israel is the one that does not ant progress, even as they do not allow Israel to do so by demanding impossible preconditions, while rejecting Israeli conditions. The treaty shows how it is possible to establish a regional body with an oversight system that can exist between countries that do not speak to one another, and how this could benefit the world.

“We will establish a nuclear free zone will in the Middle East, I’m telling you. I do not know how long it will take, but it will happen.”

Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call, where this article was originally published in Hebrew.

Rebel groups reject talks on Syrian conflict hosted by Russia

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Rebels refuse to head to Sochi conference, claiming that Moscow has not contributed ‘one step’ to ease the suffering of Syrian civilians

Syrian rebel groups on Monday rejected Russia’s planned Sochi conference on Syria, saying Moscow was seeking to bypass a United Nations-based Geneva peace process and blaming Russia for committing war crimes in the country.

In a statement by around 40 rebel groups who include some of the military factions who participated in earlier rounds of Geneva peace talks, they said Moscow had not put pressure on the Syrian government to reach a political settlement.

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