Washington (AFP) – From false claims of a Ukrainian assassin shot dead in Alaska to baseless reports of Russia declaring the sale of the territory to the United States illegal, misinformation has swirled around the summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. The online falsehoods spreading across tech platforms were muddying the waters around Friday’s closely watched Alaska summit, a test of the US president’s pledge to end the three-year bloody war in Ukraine.
“Malign actors (have) flooded the internet and social media with falsehoods and distortions” that were “circulating from across the political spectrum and across the globe,” disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said in a report. Among them was the unfounded claim that American soldiers had recently shot and killed a Ukrainian assassin named Stefan Orestovych, a supposed trained sniper for Ukraine’s special forces, in the Alaskan city of Wasilla. There was no evidence that an assassin by that name even exists. The falsehood, which circulated on X, Instagram, a QAnon conspiracy theory platform as well as a Sri Lankan news website, originated on Real Raw News, according to NewsGuard.
A self-proclaimed “humor, parody, and satire” site, Real Raw News is often mistaken as a legitimate news outlet and has repeatedly been called out by researchers for publishing fabricated claims about the Russia-Ukraine war as well as American officials and politicians. Trump critics online have also falsely claimed that Putin signed a decree in January last year declaring Russia’s sale of Alaska to the United States “illegal,” while mocking the US president for hosting a leader who purportedly rejected American sovereignty over the territory.
Putin was “preparing the future annexation of Alaska and Trump fell for it,” one user wrote on X, an unfounded claim that has also spread across Bluesky and TikTok. The United States bought Alaska in 1867 from Russia, and there was no evidence that Putin had signed such a decree. Meanwhile, pro-Kremlin nationalist accounts on social media were circulating an image of a fake “People’s Republic of Alaska” flag, using the summit to assert that the territory rightfully belonged to Russia. The images were being spread online by Russian nationalist media outlets as well as the Pravda network, a well-resourced Moscow-based operation known to circulate pro-Russian narratives globally.
“The fake flag is the latest instalment in a decades-old narrative pushed by ultra-nationalists in Russia, framing the Nineteenth Century sale of Alaska as a national betrayal,” NewsGuard report said. The swirling misinformation underscores how easily online falsehoods can originate and spread around a high-profile event, especially across tech platforms that have largely scaled back content moderation.
Trump extended the invitation for the summit at the Russian leader’s suggestion. The meeting will be closely followed by European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not included and has publicly refused pressure from Trump to surrender territory seized by Russia.
© 2024 AFP
