Latest news with #pro-Kremlin
Novaya Gazeta Europe
19 hours ago
- Politics
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
Russian involvement suspected in German military truck arson — Novaya Gazeta Europe
Pro-Russian individuals were likely involved in the recent arson attacks that left several German military vehicles destroyed, independent Russian investigative outlet The Insider reported on Thursday, citing multiple pro-Kremlin military bloggers who posted videos and photos of the attack. Last Saturday, a fire broke out overnight in Erfurt, central Germany, that damaged six Rheinmetall MAN military vehicles parked at a commercial vehicle service company, some of which bore German military and NATO markings, according to local media reports. On Thursday, Russian pro-war Telegram channel Voenacher published a video of the incident that depicted several military vehicles engulfed in flames. It claimed that the vehicles had been under repair for the Ukrainian military, and alleged that '[its] people' conducted the attack. The video was then shared by several other pro-war Telegram channels, which, according to The Insider, similarly suggested that the arson had been committed in Russia's interests. 'The vehicles have Bundeswehr emblems, German numbers plates and other signs indicating their relationship to the German army. So either these vehicles were to be decommissioned and sent to Ukraine, or some German army vehicles were burned. In either case, it's a plus,' one channel wrote on Thursday. Police have not yet given any details about the cause of the fire or the number of vehicles affected by it, according to local media, while an official investigation into the incident has been opened. In mid-May, German authorities apprehended three Ukrainian nationals suspected of plotting sabotage operations on behalf of Russia. According to German law enforcement officials, the individuals were under orders from Russian state agencies to carry out arson attacks and intended to ship explosive-laden parcels from Germany to Ukraine that were designed to detonate in transit. In the last year, Moscow has been accused of carrying out numerous acts of sabotage and arson attacks on public buildings, transport networks and other infrastructure in several European countries, including Poland and Lithuania, as part of what experts believe is a hybrid warfare strategy designed to destabilise the West.
The Sun
18-06-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Families of Russian diplomats left Israel: ambassador
MOSCOW: The families of Russian diplomats have left Israel, Russia's ambassador to Tel Aviv Anatoly Viktorov said on Wednesday, as Israel and Iran traded fire for a sixth day. 'Almost all the wives and children of embassy employees' left on Tuesday via Egypt 'to return to their homeland,' Viktorov said, interviewed by pro-Kremlin presenter Vladimir Solovyev. He also did not rule out the possibility that the Russian embassy could be moved 'to a more secure location without leaving Israel,' after another night of strikes between Israel and Iran. Israel began launching an unprecedented wave of strikes across Iran on Friday, saying it aims to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon -- a charge Iran denies. The Israeli attacks have killed at least 224 people in Iran and wounded more than 1,000, according to an official toll released Sunday. In retaliation, Iran has carried out attacks that have killed at least 24 people in Israel since Friday, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office.
American Military News
17-06-2025
- Politics
- American Military News
Pro-Kremlin Media Hail Los Angeles Unrest As ‘Civil War'
This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission. Kremlin-friendly pundits and programs have been savoring every shot of protesters in Los Angeles this week, some proclaiming that the United States must be in midst of a new 'civil war.' Prominent state-run Rossia-1 TV host Vladimir Solovyov put it bluntly: 'I'm enjoying what I see.' He was not alone. 'Congratulations on the beginning of a civil war in the United States of America,' pro-Kremlin TV personality Sergei Mardan said. 'Unfortunately, I'm joking,' he added mirthlessly. Andrey Cherkasov of RFE/RL's Current Time surveyed the Kremlin-friendly media landscape over the past few days and found it rife with pronouncements of widespread pandemonium in the United States. 'In reality, the unrest in Los Angeles is limited to a small area,' Cherkasov said, 'but the propagandists describe it as a nationwide catastrophe.' The key scenes and images appearing so far are generally those of street demonstrations in the Los Angeles area, which were sparked by recent high-profile arrests of suspected undocumented immigrants by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Locals have demanded an end to ICE raids and enforcement actions there, including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. ICE said it arrested over 40 suspected undocumented migrants at a work site and another 77 people were reportedly arrested by ICE and federal partners across the greater L.A. area on June 6, which appeared to be the focus of the protests. 'This is a city of immigrants,' Bass said. 'This is a city that wants to help you get your legal status. This is a city that embraces everybody that is here, regardless of when you got here or where you came from.' Kremlin-friendly journalists have been airing a far more alarmist viewpoint — but at times are also gleeful. 'I can't help gloating over it all, I admit,' Mardan said on-air on Rossia-1. 'The worse it is for the United States, the better it is for us.' As Cherkasov pointed out, 'Cheering over unrest in the United States is standard fare for the Kremlin and Kremlin-friendly media.' The rhetoric is well-practiced and hardly new, he added. 'These outlets have, after all, come up with surveys that purportedly show America as their country's main adversary for the last 20 years.' Much of the pro-Putin coverage that depicts the Los Angeles area as 'apocalyptic,' Cherkasov said. But he noted that some broadcasters in the United States have been using similar language, at least some of the time. Viewers of CBS's Face the Nation heard reports with a voiceover that said: 'Chaos erupted in the Los Angeles area over the weekend following increased activity across the country by ICE.' But the Kremlin-aligned outlets have shown a passion for the most tabloid elements, Cherkasov said. 'Russian presenters are savoring every detail: flying rocks, smoke, and rubber bullets. Three he cited were succinct: 'Chaos in Los Angeles,' proclaimed Russia-1 TV, 'Fighting, violence, and provocations,' said a TVC host, and 'The tension is rising,' announced another Russia-1 TV presenter. Another usual angle in the Putin-approved media, Cherkasov said, was the invocation of Ukraine's Euromaidan protest movement, sparked a decade ago when pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych blocked progress toward EU membership. 'Just remember the Kyiv Maidan in 2014: It was a war zone,' said a commentator on Russia's Vesti FM. Suggesting deliberate conspiracies behind the Los Angeles demonstrations is also standard pro-Kremlin fare, said Cherkasov. 'The Kremlin has always tried to suggest there's foreign backing behind any civil protest.' So-called color revolutions are also said to be the work of US agents, he said, such as Georgia's 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution. As if on cue, a presenter on Russia's Channel 5 summed up the L.A. protests this way: 'All the elements of a color revolution are there.' Another, a guest on Solovyov's program, Solovyov Live, proclaimed, 'This did not happen spontaneously.' According to Western sources, since June 6, nearly 400 people have been arrested in Los Angeles, including 330 undocumented migrants and 157 people charged with assault and obstruction — including one charged with attempted murder of a police officer.
Winnipeg Free Press
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
The deepfake era has only just started
Opinion Last month, Google released its newest content tool, Veo 3, powered by artificial intelligence (AI). 'We're entering a new era of creation with combined audio and video generation that's incredibly realistic,' declared Josh Woodward, the vice-president of Google Labs, the tech company's experimental division. And Google isn't alone. Synthetic media tools have existed for years. With each iteration, the technology unleashes new innovations and commercial possibilities. South Korean broadcasters use digital news anchors to deliver breaking stories more quickly. Hollywood uses AI for 'de-aging' older actors to play younger characters onscreen. Digital avatars allow customers to try on clothing virtually. British software firm Synthesia has helped thousands of multinational companies develop audiovisual training programs and communications materials reflecting the languages and ethnicities of workers across their supply chains. Or clients in different global regions. But AI deepfakes — digital forgeries created by machine learning models — are empowering bad actors too. Whether democratic societies are equipped to deal with the consequences remains an open question. Indeed, many are currently reeling from the corrosive effects of far cruder forms of disinformation. The only certainty going forward is deepfake tools will become more sophisticated and easier to use. Commonly available generative AI apps can already make real people appear to say or do things they never did — or render fake characters uncannily persuasive. To demonstrate, CBC News used Google's Veo 3 to create a hyper-realistic news segment about wildfires spreading in Alberta after entering just a one-sentence prompt. Deepfake scams are surging as well. Altered images and recordings of real people — often created using their own content uploaded to social media — are being used to dupe others into fake online romances or bogus investment deals. It just takes feeding a 30-second clip of someone's speech into generative AI to clone their voice. The political dangers and possibilities are frightening. In early October 2023, Michal Šimečka, a progressive leader vying to be Slovakia's prime minister, lost out to his pro-Kremlin opponent after a fake audio clip emerged online days before the ballot. In it, Šimečka supposedly suggests to a journalist that he'd consider buying votes to seal a victory. In Canada, a network of more than two dozen fake Facebook accounts tried to smear Prime Minister Mark Carney to users outside the country by running deepfake ads featuring Carney announcing dramatic new regulations shortly after winning election. In his latest book, Nexus, historian Yuval Noah Harari argues that all large democracies owe their successes to 'self-correction mechanisms.' This includes civil society, the media, the courts, opposition parties and institutional experts, among others. The caveat is each entity relies on modern information technologies. And to function, their actions must be based on information grounded in truth. The problem: today's tech giants have instead obsessed over capturing greater market share in the attention economy, prioritizing user engagement above all else. 'Instead of investing in self-correcting mechanisms that would reward truth telling, the social media giants actually developed unprecedented error-enhancing mechanisms that reward lies and fiction,' Harari writes. This pattern is now being repeated with AI. For example, just as Google released Veo 3, the founder of Telegram forged a new partnership with Elon Musk's AI company to integrate its Grok chatbot into Telegram's platform. However, Telegram is notoriously hands-off with moderation. It is a haven for extremists, grifters and nihilists. 'If Grok allows Telegram (users) to create more persuasive memes and other forms of propaganda at scale, that could make it an even more powerful tool for spreading toxicity, from disinformation to hate speech to other odious content,' warns Bloomberg tech columnist Parmy Olson. This is being further aggravated by partisan agendas in Washington. Republican lawmakers have inserted a stealth clause into their tax bill winding through Congress that, if passed, would ban states — including California, which has authority over Silicon Valley — from regulating AI for 10 years. Social polarization, foreign interference, fraud and personal revenge schemes will likely all worsen as deepfakes become indiscernible from reality, tearing at the fabric of liberal democracy. There is also another grim possibility. Rather than stoke outrage, tribalism, and conspiratorial thinking among voters, these new digital tools might soon breed something arguably much worse: apathy. Put off by civic life becoming awash with misinformation and deepfakes, an even larger portion of the electorate may eventually choose to avoid politics altogether. For them, the time, stress, and confusion involved in discerning fact from fiction won't be worth it. Especially not when AI elsewhere delivers instant, endless entertainment and escapism on demand — genuine or not. Kyle Hiebert is a Montreal-based political risk analyst and former deputy editor of the Africa Conflict Monitor.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia plans crisis in breakaway Transnistria to sway elections in Moldova
Moldovan President Maia Sandu believes Russia may trigger an even deeper crisis in Transnistria, the Russian-backed breakaway region on the left bank of the Dnister, in an effort to destabilise Moldova ahead of this autumn's parliamentary elections and influence voting there. Source: Sandu on Moldovan TV channel PRO TV, as reported by European Pravda, citing Moldovan news outlet Newsmaker Details: Sandu expects the crisis to deepen in the coming months. "All these years, Russia has been using the residents of Transnistria and can provoke an even greater crisis at any moment if it suits its plans in Moldova. We can expect this crisis to deepen in the coming months, before the elections," Sandu said. The president also believes that Russia may try not only to bribe voters in Transnistria but also to blackmail the population by deliberately provoking instability in the region. "Russia may promise assistance in exchange for votes on the right bank [i.e. Moldovan government-controlled territory]. We can expect all kinds of games," she added. Meanwhile, Sandu said that the relevant state authorities are assessing the risks and will do everything possible to ensure this autumn's elections are free and fair. "We will do everything possible to ensure that the elections are genuine," Sandu stressed, noting that the situation in Transnistria remains unstable and that Chișinău is ready to support the population of the left bank of the Dnister, but first the Moldovan authorities must resolve "the main problem – the withdrawal of Russian troops". "This is a key issue that we must resolve peacefully, because otherwise we will not be able to justify our financial support," Sandu concluded. Background: Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said in an interview with the Financial Times that Russia wants to deploy 10,000 troops in the separatist Transnistrian region of Moldova and establish a pro-Kremlin government in Chișinău. In response, Sandu said she had "certain information" that Russia was preparing to expand its military contingent in Transnistria. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
