How Putin's Disinformation Mirrors Soviet Propaganda

For much of his life, Milton Leitenberg has been studying, with a rare devotion, the propaganda tactics of the Soviet Union. From “Operation Infektion”, launched in the 1980s to allege the

- Andrew Buncombe

US had invented HIV and Aids, to allegations made by Joseph Stalin in the early 1950s that Washington was using biological weapons in the Korean war, Leitenberg has documented the falsehoods in more than 30 books and articles.

Now, at the age of 88, he is turning his attention to the claims being made by Vladimir Putin over Ukraine, and finding there is a clear pattern. “Disinformation for the Putin administration is not new,” he tells The Independent.

“It started at least as far as back as 2004, with the “colour” revolutions in Ukraine, and Georgia, and Tajikistan. Then you got the invasion of Georgia, and before that you had the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium. After that you have the invasion of Ukraine, and the shooting down of the airliner, the Skripal poisoning in England, and then the Navalny poisoning.” He adds: “Each is a case study. The pattern is the same. The Russian government does not supply or distribute one disinformation information story, but 12, 15 or 17. They’re all mutually contradictory.”

He says the disinformation response by Moscow to the July 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which was blamed by independent investigators on pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, and which killed almost 300 people, was “extraordinary”. “They went to such lengths to concoct false satellite aircraft tracks – that is a little bit of work. That is not just verbal bullshit,” he adds.