Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has become a target of a Russian disinformation campaign conducted on social media. The vociferousness of the attacks increased following her declaring that she intends to carry on her dead husband's political activities, Euronews reported citing the AFP news agency.
On February 19, three days after Navalny’s death had been publically announced, his wife published a video recording on the X social media platform, pledging to continue Alexei’s political activism.
Mere hours later, many Facebook and X users published a picture of Navalnaya on a beach accompanied by a male individual, prompting sarcastic and malicious comments about the “widow having found herself a new one,” which, as AFP’s fact-checking website pointed out, were meant to discredit Navalnaya, and thereby her late husband’s struggle.
Another photo spread around social media and meant to provide proof of Navalnaya’s intimate relationship with Chichvarkin, is a doctored 2013 AFP photo.
The man in the picture is Evgeny Chichvarkin, a Russian businessman, who published the photo on his Instagram profile all the way back in August 2021. He fled Russia for the United Kingdom in 2009 and is a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin. As the “Time” magazine had established two years ago, since 2010 the Chichvarkin has provided more than EUR 100,000 in monetary support to Navalny’s opposition activities.Navalny's widow and Chichvarkin. You can see she loved her husband very much pic.twitter.com/FjrKf9dypH
— Пересвет / Peresvet (@Oganesyan_real) March 4, 2024
Another photo spread around social media and meant to provide proof of Navalnaya’s intimate relationship with Chichvarkin, is a doctored 2013 AFP photo.
The original image shows Yulia Navalnaya embracing her husband following his release from prison. The manipulated image shows Navalnaya embracing Chichvarkin and, additionally, with a “blunt” in his hand.
As AFP noted, this would not be the first time Navalnaya became a target of a disinformation campaign. The two pictures described above have been making their rounds on the Internet for years, and have initially been spread via online media outlets such as “Pravda” (Russian for “truth” - TVP World), which are known to spread pro-Kremlin fake news and Russian propaganda in Europe and the U.S.
Such information is also being widely spread using the Telegram app, e.g. via a channel of pro-Russian paramilitaries in Bulgaria.
As Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian investigative journalist told AFP, the disinformation campaign targeting Navalnaya was launched several days before her husband’s death, as a prelude to a disinformation operation.
The news about Alexei Navalny’s death was released on February 16, one month ahead of the Russian presidential election.
The dissident was arrested in early 2021, upon his return to Russia following his stay in Germany, where he was treated for attempted poisoning.
He had spent almost 300 days of his imprisonment in a penal colony located in the Russian Arctic.
As AFP noted, this would not be the first time Navalnaya became a target of a disinformation campaign. The two pictures described above have been making their rounds on the Internet for years, and have initially been spread via online media outlets such as “Pravda” (Russian for “truth” - TVP World), which are known to spread pro-Kremlin fake news and Russian propaganda in Europe and the U.S.
Such information is also being widely spread using the Telegram app, e.g. via a channel of pro-Russian paramilitaries in Bulgaria.
As Christo Grozev, a Bulgarian investigative journalist told AFP, the disinformation campaign targeting Navalnaya was launched several days before her husband’s death, as a prelude to a disinformation operation.
The news about Alexei Navalny’s death was released on February 16, one month ahead of the Russian presidential election.
The dissident was arrested in early 2021, upon his return to Russia following his stay in Germany, where he was treated for attempted poisoning.
He had spent almost 300 days of his imprisonment in a penal colony located in the Russian Arctic.
Source:
More In Politics MORE...
