As the Ukraine war grinds on, the Kremlin has created increasingly complex fabrications online to discredit Ukraine’s leader and undercut aid. Some have a Hollywood-style plot twist.
The fake news organizations, experts say, represent a technological leap in the Kremlin’s efforts to spread false and misleading narratives.
The Kremlin, asked on Tuesday whether U.S. journalist Tucker Carlson had visited the Russian presidential administration in Moscow this week, declined to comment. Russian media showed pictures of Carlson at several spots around Moscow on Monday during a visit which has fuelled speculation that the former Fox News host may become the first Western journalist to interview Russian President Vladimir Putin during the war in Ukraine.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has hired Covington & Burling to advocate for the release of Alsu Kurmasheva, an editor for the media organization detained in Russia. Kurmasheva, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen, was arrested in October while visiting family in Russia and charged with failing to register as a foreign agent. She was one of two American journalists detained by Russia in 2023. In March, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was arrested during a reporting trip and detained on espionage charges.
U.S. negotiators made a fresh offer to Russia in recent weeks to secure the release of detained Americans Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal and Paul Whelan, but Moscow rejected the American proposal, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. The offer involved trading prisoners, people familiar with the matter said, but they didn’t offer further details. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)
A Russian court ordered an American journalist to be held in pre-trial detention through at least Monday on charges that she failed to register as a “foreign agent,” according to her employer, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in a case that threatens to further exacerbate tensions between Washington and Moscow.
X’s failure to slow the spread of disinformation on the internet would have violated E.U. social media law, had it been in effect.
Russia said today that a possible prisoner swap involving Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich can only be considered after he is put on trial, despite efforts by the United States to push for his release. Gershkovich was arrested last month after Russia’s Federal Security Service accused him of gathering classified information about a military factory, a claim that the WSJ and the United States have rejected as false.
The closest parallel to the experience of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich in Russia unfolded almost four decades ago, at the height of the Cold War.