Ukrainian journalist and military expert Oleksandr Kovalenko draws attention to Russia’s psyop operation in his article.
False accusations of Ukraine's involvement in the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea continue to be made in Russia. The hybrid media attack is being "led" by "independent" and "impartial" investigative journalists affiliated with the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The outlet does not conduct thorough investigations or provide concrete evidence to support its claims, instead relying on speculative discussions that often border on implausible accusations.
The situation is reminiscent of the MH17 incident.
After the tragic event, when Russian militants shot down a Malaysian Airlines passenger plane over Donbas, Russia quickly initiated numerous "investigations" into the causes of the tragedy. These so-called "investigations" put forward different versions, but they all had a common element: blaming Ukraine.
Initially, a barrage of such reports originated from Russian media outlets. However, to create the illusion of an "unbiased" perspective, random foreign "journalists" emerged, aligning their versions with Russia's propagandistic narratives.
Among these foreign "investigators" of the MH17 tragedy was the Dutch pseudo-journalist Max van der Werff. Regrettably, he merely propagated Russian misinformation to Western audiences, presenting fabricated accounts that directly blamed Ukraine for the incident.
“There’s nothing new in Russian intelligence agencies exploiting Western media, information platforms, or certian individuals to push their psyops to international audiences. Unfortunately, there is a fairly extensive network of Kremlin’s agents of influence across the globe,” Kovalenko writes.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung, a publication with a track record of ambiguous materials, has unsurprisingly taken charge of the "investigation" into the Nord Stream 2 incident.
In January 2023, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published a report claiming that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden, requested that the United States prioritize sending tanks to Ukraine before Germany would take action regarding their own tanks. Despite a denial from the German government spokesman, Steffen Hebestreit, the article remained on the website and social media without being removed.
In 2021, the Süddeutsche Zeitung published a story suggesting that Russia aimed to integrate the self-proclaimed entities of "LPR" and "DPR" in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions into the Russian Federation, following a similar scenario as Crimea. The article also claimed that Western democracies had no objections to such developments and might even convince Ukraine to agree. This unfounded assumption was both false and disregarded factual accuracy.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung has faced previous questions regarding its credibility, including allegations of latent anti-Semitism. The newspaper's actions, when examined together, paint a troubling picture, revealing the ugly face of Russia's intelligence community rather than that of a reputable news outlet that claims editorial independence and impartiality.
Fortunately, it is increasingly challenging for Russia to carry out its psychological operations (psyops) on foreign soil using previously unnoticed platforms for malicious manipulation. Among the Kremlin's numerous "independent" and "unbiased" outlets in the West, none can claim an impeccable reputation.