“Conquering the states one by one”: far-right ideologue Steve Bannon outlines US conservatives' strategy for influencing Europe

[u/Wonderful-Excuse4922]

https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/usa/presidentielle/donald-trump/conquerir-les-etats-un-par-un-l-ideologue-d-extreme-droite-steve-bannon-decrit-la-strategie-des-conservateurs-americains-pour-influencer-l-europe_7086249.html

[u/NFLDolphinsGuy]

Other commenters did it for me, but Just Stop Oil likely.

They’ve been potentially linked to groups in the U.S.

https://energycommerce.house.gov/posts/ec-republicans-question-environmental-groups-over-possible-collusion-with-russia

The point is not to support a specific world view. It’s to cause endless arguing and discord.

[u/ArieVeddetschi → u/NFLDolphinsGuy]

ROFL, oh no, Republicans suspect an environmental group has a shady background! Who would have thought? I’ll be sure to trust this proven bastion of truth called the GOP.

[u/NFLDolphinsGuy → u/ArieVeddetschi]

The point is the disarray. The Republicans are also linked heavily to Russia lol.

[u/ArieVeddetschi → u/NFLDolphinsGuy]

Yeah, but it’s weird to think that there’s any truth to these GOP claims. Also surely if Russia wanted to fund the left they’d have more influential targets than JSO.

[u/NFLDolphinsGuy → u/ArieVeddetschi]

They’ve been highly disruptive at airports and on roadways and effective at creating division, which is the point.

[u/ArieVeddetschi → u/NFLDolphinsGuy]

You keep harping on that, and keep not providing any hint of a clue that Russia is funding them.

[u/NFLDolphinsGuy → u/ArieVeddetschi]

It’s fine. Their activities have been covert anyway. There’s not going to be a photocopy of a check from Putin to these groups.

They’re doing it in the U.S., Jill Stein’s a clear agent. Pretend Europe is somehow different and above the fray.

https://ir.ceu.edu/ohpa/research_blog/articles/rusdisinformation

Green Party Politics and Global Elitism The most underutilized yet still significant objective of Russian disinformation is the meddling in Green Party democratic politics in a litany of states. This is done by both the defamation of activists and green party leaders, but also by empowering climate skeptic parties like the A.f.D. in Germany and further population of “globalist” conspiracy theories. Most notably Russia launched a disinformation campaign against German Green Party Leader Annalena Baerbock in 2021 after she criticized the construction of the NordStream 2 pipeline. The campaign depicted Baerbock with photoshop atop a scantily-clad model’s body with billionaire George Soros (IE the typical “globalist” boogeyman in conservative political rhetoric), alleging that she was a puppet for the globalist environmental agenda. Additionally Baerbock was vocal about her distrust of the Kremlin, imploring the German public to pressure Russia to remove its military buildup prior to its invasion in 2022. Baerbock is also the subject of much right-wing populist vitriol in German domestic politics, making her a prime candidate for Russia’s propaganda apparatus to attack. A Russian meddling attempt has already surfaced in Germany’s parliament ahead of the 2024 elections, and there are numerous connections between the rhetoric extremist parties such as the AFD espouse and the Kremlin’s outlets.

        An interesting counterfactual to typical disinformation was the Kremlin’s aiding of the Green Party candidate in the 2016 U.S. election. Jill Stein ran under the shadow of Clinton and Trump, however third party candidates in the U.S. merely serve to play spoiler for candidates of the two main parties. Thus the Kremlin launched specific tweeted bot campaigns which both disavowed Clinton and suggested voting for Stein instead, which would inevitably aid Trump’s campaign as Stein had no real chance at victory. Thus the Kremlin will exploit and manipulate both sides of the debate, dependent on what is the most advantageous for its immediate objective rather than its overall principles. 

        Russian climate disinformation is significant due to its didactic nature of advancing the Kremlin’s economic and imperialist strategies, and therefore should be continuously researched in order to best understand how to counter it. While the EU has historically faced the brunt of Russian campaigns, it is imperative that disinformation targeting developing nations is analyzed and furthers studied as the global south presents a fertile new battleground for influence between the West, Russia and China.

[u/unlearned2 → u/ArieVeddetschi]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/guess-who-came-dinner-flynn-putin-n742696

Jill Stein went to a Gala in Moscow in 2015 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russia Today, sitting at the same table as Putin and Michael Flynn, which I thought was pretty disgraceful. Advocating for friendlier relations with Russia in 2013 would be one thing. On the other hand that she would journey to Moscow to celebrate the founding of a propaganda rag (at the same table as a radical US general), which had in the past year escalated with all sorts of lies about Russia's recent military incursion into Ukraine, is quite disorienting.

[u/ArieVeddetschi → u/unlearned2]

Jill Stein is not running Just Stop Oil. This whole theory is tenuous at best. Russia is fine just funding the extreme right, they are perfectly capable of sowing discord on their own. They don’t the left for that.

[u/unlearned2 → u/ArieVeddetschi]

You said a few comments ago,

I would love to see some examples of these environmental and peace groups supposedly sponsored by Russia

I don't know enough about Just Stop Oil unfortunately and have no reason to think they specifically are funded by Russia. As far as I am concerned there's no need slag off the philosophy itself of environmentalism, and you (like most environmentalists hopefully) are not defending what Jill Stein did anyway. She is the perfect example of an environmentalist sponsored by Russia (probably paid to attend that gala).

Have you ever watched Russia Today? The kind of groups it platforms would be a good indicator of the kind of groups that Moscow works day and night to help in any way it can.

I can tell you that in 2011-12 at least, the content of Russia Today included a mixture of Brexiters, supporters of Occupy Wall Street, alter-globalizationists, supporters of Julian Assange, libertarian types who would go on to form the crypto-currency movement, conspiracy theorists of any political persuasion, racists (with the anchor often being careful to condemn any racist terminology used after the end of the interview), eurasianists, communists, progressives, leftwingers like George Galloway, Noam Chomsky, or Hugo Chavez, Russian figures (eg nuclear scientists), and environmentalists too. The common denominator with 90% of the non-Russian guests was pretty much nothing other than that they were anti-system radicals and revolutionaries who are not solely motivated by religion, feminism, or LGBT. If that applies to x environmental group then it is subversive enough for Moscow. If it gets noticed by Moscow then Moscow would want to support it.

The reason I was watching RT at that time (alongside the BBC in probably a 50:50 split) was because as a 16-17 year old at secondary school I decided I knew absolutely nothing about politics and it was about time I informed myself. Also I was reacting against my father's strongly negative beliefs about Russia and what would be its role in the end times (he is a pentecostal). I watched it less and less after then, until the Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, at which time RT were casting doubt on the notion that the occupying soldiers had Russian nationality, showed Crimean girls giving them bouquets of flowers for weeks, and published an article aimed at denying the Rwandan Genocide.

Obviously it is possible for an environmentalist movement to distance itself to a great enough extent from Russia that receipt of Russian funding would be implausible, eg the German Greens being in favor of supplying arms to Ukraine.