Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth

[TomSea]

Agents of doubt: How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth
Joby Warrick and Anton Troianovski, The Washington Post

SALISBURY, England - The initial plan was a Cold War classic - brutal yet simple. Two Russian agents would slip onto the property of a turncoat spy in Britain and daub his front door with a rare military-grade poison designed to produce an agonizing and untraceable death.

But when the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal was botched, the mission quickly shifted. Within hours, according to British and U.S. officials who closely followed the events, a very different kind of intelligence operation was underway, this one involving scores of operatives and accomplices and a scheme straight out of the Kremlin's 21st-century communications playbook - the construction of an elaborate fog machine to make the initial crime disappear.

Dozens of false narratives and conspiracy theories began popping up almost immediately, the first of 46 bogus story lines put out by Russian-controlled media and Twitter accounts and even by senior Russian officials, according to a tabulation by The Washington Post - all of them sowing doubt about Russia's involvement in the March 4 assassination attempt. Ranging from the plausible to the fantastical, the stories blamed a toxic spill, Ukrainian activists, the CIA, British Prime Minister Theresa May and even Skripal himself.

Read more at: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Agents-of-doubt-How-a-powerful-Russian-13454256.php