The #EndBadGovernance protest in Nigeria held in August 2024 took a new turn on its third day as some young Nigerians, particularly in the northern part of the country, were seen displaying the Russian flag, a move condemned by the federal government as âtreasonable.â
A new report from the blockchain analytics firm, Chainalysis, has shown that cryptocurrency is being used to finance and facilitate disinformation campaigns globally.
A video of a massive fire circulated widely on social media in late April along with captions claiming it showed a strike by the Russian army on a NATO weapons convoy en route to Ukraine. However, it turns out that this is an old video that wasn't filmed anywhere near Ukraine.
The fake Cruise video, which appeared on the Telegram messaging platform last year, is called Olympics Has Fallen and uses artificial intelligence-generated audio of the film star's voice to present a 'strange, meandering script' disparaging the IOC. The documentary, whose title riffs on the Gerard Butler action film Olympus Has Fallen, also claims falsely to have been produced by Netflix and is promoted with bogus five-star reviews from the New York Times and the BBC.
This is a pro-Kremlin recurrent narrative about the alleged corruption and opacity of the West, purportedly needed by the globalist elites, contrasted with the transparency and probity of the multipolar world. In this instance, the narrative applies to the controversial new Georgian law on "transparency of foreign influence," which is inspired by similar measures in Russia.
The new law requires news media and non-governmental organisations that receive more than 20% of their budget from abroad to register as "carrying out the interests of a foreign power." Opponents denounce it as "the Russian law" because it resembles measures pushed through by the Kremlin. Since 2012, the Russian opposition, NGOs, and civil society as a whole have been diminished due to this legislative tool, which was progressively implemented.
This is a pre-emptive attempt to discredit the peace summit which Switzerland will host on 15-16 June 2024, mixed with pro-Kremlin narratives questioning the legitimacy of Ukrainian authorities and specifically president Volodymyr Zelenskyy -frequent targets of pro-Kremlin disinformation- and falsely portraying Ukraine's Maidan protests as a coup d'etat.
These disinformation narratives are being pushed again to challenge Zelenskyy's legitimacy. However, the Ukrainian Constitution is straightforward: the President of Ukraine exercises his powers until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President. The continuity of government institutions is one of the key principles of the Constitution. Ukraine's constitution clearly stipulates that no elections can be held during wartime. While this situation has caused some domestic controversy in Ukraine, almost all observers consider regular elections unfeasible as there are millions of refugees abroad, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians serving on the frontlines and a significant part of Ukrainian population lives under Russian occupation.
This is a pre-emptive attempt to discredit the peace summit which Switzerland will host on 15-16 June 2024.
The US is not behind this initiative, which was launched upon Ukraine's request with Switzerland agreeing to host. Switzerland has invited over 160 delegations from around the world to join for the first Summit on Peace in Ukraine, including members of the G7, G20, BRICS, many other countries from all continents, as well as the EU, three international organisations and religious representatives. According to the Swiss government, the summit aims to create a framework favourable to comprehensive and lasting peace in Ukraine, as well as "a concrete roadmap for Russia's participation in the peace process." If the summit does not provide fruitful results, it will be because of Russia's impossible preconditions for a peaceful settlement. Russia refuses to engage in any talks before the "unconditional surrender of the Kiev [sic] regime."
