Leaked documents reveal plans for extensive Russian influence campaign in Israel
September 30, 2024 4 Comments
LEAKED INFORMATION PUBLISHED BY leading German media outlets has revealed Russia’s plans for an influence campaign targeting Israel. The information was leaked earlier this month by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and German television stations Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), as well as by Israeli news outlets. It allegedly came from Social Design Agency (SDA), a Moscow-based firm hired by the Kremlin, which operates in Israel and several countries in the West.
Founded in 2017, the SDA is reportedly one of a host of firms and organizations that are collaborating with Russian intelligence in its efforts to influence public opinion worldwide. Earlier this year, the United States imposed sanctions on SDA, “for providing services to the government of Russia in connection with a foreign malign influence campaign”. The SDA’s founder is Ilya Gambashidze, who is said to be in direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials.
Israel has been a central target of SDA’s Russian influence campaign. The country’s internal situation, with mass demonstrations against the legal reform is “perfect for launching a campaign to influence public opinion”, an SDA document from 2023 reads. The document accurately describes the political and social situation in Israel and names a number of influential Russian expatriates whose activities should be monitored.
According to the leaked documents, the purpose of the planned campaign was to raise support for Russia in its war against Ukraine, and strengthen the proportion of Israelis who espouse anti-Ukrainian sentiments. Another central goal was to ensure that no party in the Knesset —the Israeli
parliament— would support a possible transfer of military aid to Ukraine.
From the documents, it appears that the conclusions formulated by the SDA were infused into around 50 cartoons distributed every month on social networks, around 20 fictitious articles appearing on websites pretending to be legitimate, and many reactions on various social networks. Among other things, the company distributed through paid ads on Facebook cartoons showing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky burning the Israeli flag, as well as cartoons accusing Israeli leftists of supporting Hamas.
One of the main revelations of the recent leaks is that the Arab community in Israel constitutes a target of the Russian influence campaign. For example, a fake Arabic-language article that was circulated online claimed that Israel did not have in its possession enough precision weapons, because it had given them to Ukraine. The article went on to claim that the lack of such weapons would lead to failures on the battlefield. “The good news should be heard by all believers living under occupation”, the article states. “The policy of the occupation government will soon lead to its defeat. We will wait for a spark to ignite our war of liberation, in which the entire Muslim world will support us”. The purpose of the article appears to be to prompt the Israeli-Arab population to turn against the Israeli government based on Israel’s alleged weakness, and to support Israel’s enemies. Read more of this post
AT LEAST FOUR OF the eight Russians 
AN INVESTIGATION HAS BEEN launched in France after a Ukrainian-born Russian national reportedly detonated explosives in a hotel room near Paris, suffering severe burns in the process. 
FRENCH POLICE ARRESTED THREE foreign nationals on Monday, accusing them of having deposited five coffins draped in French flags at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The flags bore the inscription “French Soldiers of Ukraine”, while the coffins were found to contain sacks of plaster, according to 
AUTHORITIES IN GERMANY and Poland have charged three individuals with working on behalf of Russian military intelligence in planning acts of sabotage and assassination on European soil. One of the plots allegedly involved an effort to assassinate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Another aimed to sabotage commercial airport facilities that are being managed by the United States military.
NO COUNTRY HAS BETTER intelligence on the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (known as ISIS-K) than the United States. American forces have faced ISIS-K almost from the moment the group was founded in 2015 in Pakistan, just a few miles from the Afghan border. It was there that a group of disaffected members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan (TTP, commonly referred to as the Pakistani Taliban) began turning their backs on al-Qaeda, which they saw as a failing brand, and joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
not being taken into consideration by the group’s primary targets, namely Afghanistan, Iran, and Russia. Indeed, despite the Washington’s best efforts, its warnings about pending ISIS-K attacks have been ignored by the group’s primary targets. A few days after an ISIS-K attack killed nearly 100 people in Kerman, Iran, The Wall Street Journal 
THE RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE SERVICES have been “bolstering the[ir] architecture” aimed at stopping potential defectors and “liquidating” those who have already defected and are living in exile, according to a new report. In a 
AUTHORITIES IN IRELAND ARE systematically “freezing” applications for Russian diplomatic visas from Moscow over concerns that the Kremlin is using its embassy in Dublin as a base for espionage activities. In 2018, the Irish government introduced emergency legislation that canceled a previously approved expansion of the Russian diplomatic compound in the Irish capital, allegedly due to concerns about espionage activities by Russian diplomats. Three years later, 
AN AFGHAN-BORN MAN, who became a naturalized British citizen and worked for British intelligence for over a decade, is attempting to regain his British citizenship, which was revoked after he was accused of being a Russian spy. The man, who is identified in court documents only as “C2”, was born in Afghanistan and grew up under the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan he left the country alongside the Russian forces and resettled in Russia, where he attended university and married a Russian woman.
AUTHORITIES IN INDIA HAVE arrested a security employee at the Indian High Commission in Russia, accusing him of spying for Pakistani intelligence. The embassy of India in Moscow is one of its largest in the world and is viewed as critical to New Delhi’s strategic relations with Russia. Employees that staff the Moscow embassy are highly vetted and typically represent the cream of the crop of India’s Ministry of External Affairs. It follows that news of the arrest of a Moscow embassy security employee on espionage charges must have raised eyebrows in India.
AUTHORITIES IN ITALY ARE investigating a series of suspicious cash withdrawals that were made from accounts belonging to the Russian embassy in Rome, according to reports in the Italian press. On November 14, the Rome-based daily La Repubblica 
THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT HAS accused Russia of carrying out a disinformation campaign using stenciled images of Stars of David that mysteriously appeared in the streets of Paris late last month. The stars, between 60 and 80 in number, were found in the 14th arrondissement of the French capital, as well as in several Parisian suburbs in the early hours of October 31. The stars (see accompanying picture) are all blue and all have the same size. They appear to have been hurriedly stenciled and have no accompanying text.
A FORMER SOVIET KGB officer, who now lives in the United Kingdom under witness protection, can sue the British state for revealing his identity to Latvian authorities, which may have put his life in danger, a judge has ruled. 
intelNews.org 
Possible Russian role probed in incendiary devices found in Britain and Germany
October 21, 2024 by Joseph Fitsanakis 2 Comments
On September 1, the German government issued a warning about unknown suspects allegedly shipping “unconventional incendiary devices” throughout Europe. The warning referenced a fire that occurred at a DHL logistics center in the east German city of Leipzig. Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) warned at the time that “further incendiary incidents” were anticipated, but provided no further details.
Late last week, British newspaper The Guardian reported that an incident like the one that occurred in Leipzig had taken place in a DHL warehouse in Minworth, a suburb of the city of Birmingham, located in the British Midlands region. In subsequent reporting, the paper alleged that British and German authorities have been investigating a link between the two incidents. Moreover, authorities are reportedly probing the possibility that the incidents may be part of a wider campaign by Russian military intelligence to sabotage Western European transportation and shipping networks.
Meanwhile, Lithuanian media revealed on Friday that a suspect had been arrested in Lithuania in connection with the two fires in Britain and Germany. The reports suggested that the two incendiary devices had been shipped from Lithuania by the same individual. However, there have been no updates about who may be behind the apparent sabotage campaign.
► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 21 October 2024 | Permalink
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with DHL Group, Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Germany), Germany, GRU, Lithuania, News, Russia, sabotage, transportation security, UK