Fake news websites registered in the UK and resembling trusted British media are spreading misinformation about Western companies operating in Ukraine.
According to an article in the Guardian, there is suspicion of Russian propaganda. There have been calls for lawmakers to amend the legislation to require news websites registered in the UK to disclose information about their owners, as is the case in the EU.
Despite being English-language and registered in the United Kingdom, the websites londoninsider.co.uk and talk-finance.co.uk have disseminated their materials in Ukraine, a country that regards British media as reliable and trustworthy.
The American company Sarn, which operates in Ukraine in the fields of energy and military technology, has noted the use of these sites. The Guardian stated that the articles on these two websites falsely accuse Sarn of arms trafficking, judicial fraud, and embezzlement.
It appears that the content on the websites was generated by artificial intelligence, whereas the analysis by a linguist engaged by Sarn revealed that the original text was created by a Russian-speaking person.
The British journalist’s true identity was disclosed in the articles; however, he claimed under oath that he was unaware of the article he had allegedly written for londoninsider.co.uk in his testimony.
The liberal democrat Lord Wallace of Saltaire: “It is extremely concerning that London’s reputation as a media and financial centre is being exploited by the Russian propaganda machine to harm Western companies operating in Ukraine.”
The Deputy Chairman of the Sarn Board, Armen Agas, stated that the company categorically rejects “unfounded and completely fake news,” which, according to him, is spread by websites under the headline: Weapons, Money, and Sarn: How a Czech-American Group Plundered Ukraine.
NewsGuard, a company that analyses and evaluates news websites in order to counteract misinformation, discovered that false narratives regarding Ukraine and its allies were being disseminated online prior to the invasion in February 2022.
The company declared that it has refuted more than 250 fabrications concerning the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and identified 627 websites that were disseminating these stories. These deceptive narratives included propaganda claims that the reports of mass murders carried out by Russian troops in locations such as Bucha were “staged” and assertions that Ukraine’s political elite is motivated by Nazi ideology.
Russia persists in disseminating propaganda and disinformation, which poses a threat to democratic societies.
