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“The Kremlin is threatening our democracy through a variety of channels”

Professor Florian Töpfl heads the ERC Consolidator Research Group RUSINFORM, which has been researching Russian influence on public opinion abroad for five years. In this interview, he talks about the influence of Russian propaganda in Germany and the massive repression faced by researchers in his field.

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Professor Florian Töpfl has held the Chair of Political Communication with a focus on Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet region at the University of Passau since 2020.  In the ERC Consolidator Research Group RUSINFORM, he and his team have been researching the effects of digitalisation on Russia's informational influence abroad for five years. In a new bidt project starting in April 2025, he is investigating how Russia and other autocracies regulate and control the development of large language models (LLMs). In this interview, he explains what it is like to conduct research and have to fear repression, how the Kremlin also uses academia as a channel of influence and what has changed since the start of the Russian war of aggression.

What exactly is your group researching in RUSINFORM?

We are looking at which digital strategies the Kremlin uses to influence public opinion abroad. We do this in very different ways: for example, we have evaluated tens of thousands of hits in the search engines Google and its Russian counterpart Yandex to analyse how websites controlled by the Kremlin can spread conspiracy myths about the coronavirus pandemic via search engines. Another area is social media: how does Russia use Facebook to spread propaganda in other countries, how does it use VKontakte to reach its own people? A doctoral student is investigating the workings of the St Petersburg troll factory. Thirdly, we also looked at German sub-publics: One doctoral student, for example, investigated the links between German-language so-called “alternative” media, often right-wing populist or far-right media outlets such as Politically Incorrect or Compact, and Russian elites. Another researcher analysed interviews she conducted with Russian-speaking Germans on their media use and trust. She conducted more than 40 interviews before and another 28 after the start of the war.

Did anything change with the start of the Russian war of aggression?

The interviews reveal a typology of problematic understandings of the truth, whereby the polarisation of the individual types has intensified once again with the start of the war. Some interviewees state that the truth must lie somewhere in the middle between the ‘facts’ reported by the Kremlin and the Western media. That is highly problematic. Let's take the war crimes in Butsha as an example. If a person believes that the truth lies somewhere in the middle between the facts claimed by Ukraine and Russia, then that means that from that person's point of view both the Russian army and the Ukrainian army committed, or could have committed, war crimes there. That is demonstrably false. There are intersubjectively tangible facts and thus statements whose truth can be determined beyond doubt.

ERC Consolidator Grant RUSINFORM 2019 - 2024

ERC Consolidator Grant RUSINFORM 2019 - 2024

ERC Consolidator Grant „The Consequences of the Internet for Russia's Informational Influence Abroad“ 2019 – 2024: The research group analyses how political elites in Moscow can influence media audiences in Germany, Belarus or Estonia via new internet-based technologies.

Looking back, were we too naive when it came to Russia's influence abroad?

I think we realised too late how unscrupulously and with what long-term goals the current Russian leadership is acting. It was right to look for ways to reach an understanding in the 2010s, but at the same time we should have been much more vigilant and acted much more decisively on many levels. Let's take Ukraine as an example. In our studies, Ukraine is the country where, after analysing the Google hits, we find that the Kremlin-driven conspiracy myths have spread the least there. This was due to the fact that Ukraine has deliberately blocked Russian networks and the Russian search engine Yandex since the annexation of Crimea. Non-governmental organisations sharply criticised this at the time, as it was of course a targeted interference in the freedom of the press. In retrospect, I believe this intervention was justified. If you are under military threat from your own neighbour, then the protection of the national public and your own sovereignty must surely be seen as the greater good.

Germany is due to hold elections in February 2025. How does the influence of Russian propaganda manifest itself here?

Professor Florian Töpfl calls for stronger protection for researchers in Eastern European Studies.

Russia will certainly do its best - not exclusively, but also by covert means and using targeted misinformation and deception - to support those actors in German politics in the election campaign who are in favour of policies that promote Russia's national interests and political goals. As before, a variety of channels will be used: skilfully launched official statements, posts by Russian politicians on social networks, covertly supported news websites, troll factories, acts of sabotage, repression against and intimidation of critics, establishing and maintaining contacts with actors on the political fringes or potentially co-optable elites. Parties whose positions are very close to Russian interests include the Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Basically, the Russian leadership's aim is, on the one hand, to align the process of democratic opinion-forming with its interests and political goals at the largest possible number of centres of influence. Secondly, the aim is to undermine trust in our democracy and its institutions, such as the media, parliaments, judiciary and universities, to fuel existing conflicts between groups, for example in migration or social policy, and thus to weaken our liberal community as a whole. Thirdly, I am observing an increasingly anti-liberal orientation of foreign communication as an end in itself. In other words, it is about agitating against liberal values such as equal rights for women or LGBT rights.

You are researching a topic whose relevance and topicality has really come into focus as a result of the war. How is research on an authoritarian regime possible under these circumstances?

Theoretically, it would even be possible for Russia to apply for an international criminal warrant against me, which could then be enforced by a friendly state. 

Of course, you have the potential threats and harassment emails in the back of your mind when you speak out publicly, and this has intensified with the start of the war of aggression. The military expert Professor Carlo Masala, for example, said in an interview that he receives a large number of hate mails after every public appearance. I myself occasionally receive emails after public statements that insult me and threaten me with violence. This leads to scientists holding back in public communication, which is entirely in line with Russian influence.

Many researchers in Eastern European Studies have close personal ties to Russia, some of them familial. In July 2024, the German Association for East European Studies (DGO) with its more than one thousand members was declared an ‘extremist organisation’ by the Russian government. At the same time, the organisation's servers were hacked and it can be assumed that all member data was leaked. In Russia, under Section 282.2 of the Criminal Code, ‘organising the activities of an extremist organisation’ can be punished with a prison sentence of up to twelve years. I am also a member of the DGO. Precisely because of my research topic, which is very critical of the Kremlin, it is clear to me that I cannot travel to Russia under the current conditions. Theoretically, it would even be possible for Russia to apply for an international criminal warrant against me, which could then be enforced by a friendly state. That is of course very unlikely, but it cannot be ruled out. The current environment for researchers is more repressive than it was during the Cold War. Back then, Eastern European studies were not criminalised in their entirety and across the board as "extremist".

What is the state of science in Russia?

In the current Academic Freedom Index, a global ranking of academic freedom, Russia is among the 10 to 20 per cent of the worst-rated academic systems. The repression is enormous. Even researchers who continue their work abroad report threats, in some cases against family members. At the same time, there are clear incentives in the humanities and social sciences in Germany to encourage research that promotes the Kremlin's political goals. In the 2010s, for example, an incentive system was set up at some Russian elite universities whereby Russian academics who publish in top international journals receive many thousands of dollars in bonuses. These are massive sums of money and incentives that have led to researchers from Russia being not unsuccessful in publishing internationally. At the same time, there was and is no longer any independent research funding. The Russian equivalent of the German Research Foundation (DFG) has a supervisory board whose members are personally appointed by the president and can be dismissed at any time. In the articles published internationally, content or aspects critical of the Kremlin were often omitted - mainly due to the simultaneous threat of repression. Instead, a kind of ‘sugar code’ prevailed. In my opinion, this complex system of incentives and repression has also resulted in a rather embellished picture of the situation in the country in the social science literature.

What can be done?

There needs to be a greater awareness that the Kremlin is threatening our democracy through a variety of channels, that it explicitly intends to damage its stability and trust in its institutions and our social cohesion, and that the Russian ruling elite also considers the use of cunning and deception to be a legitimate means of achieving its goals. We must strengthen and protect our democratic public sphere. We also need to systematically monitor the attempts to exert influence and the threats faced by researchers working on repressive regimes. Democratic politicians - including those in education policy - must not tolerate repression against international humanities scholars and social scientists and must take a clear stand in favour of academic freedom. And the scientific system in Germany must also offer stronger protection for researchers.

This text was machine-translated from German.

About RUSINFORM

The ERC Consolidator project RUSINFORM investigates the impact of digitalisation on Russia's informational influence abroad. It focuses on the question of how and with what consequences new internet-based technologies have contributed to the emergence of new resources, techniques and processes with which political elites in Moscow can influence media audiences abroad. The five-year project (2019-2024) is funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and is linked to the Chair of Political Communication with a focus on Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet region at the University of Passau. The ERC research group consists of the project leader, Professor Florian Töpfl, and other researchers. Various guest researchers are also involved in the project for shorter periods of time.

Prof. Dr. Florian Töpfl

Professor Florian Töpfl

studies digital communication in Russia

How does Moscow influence media audiences abroad using internet-based technologies?

How does Moscow influence media audiences abroad using internet-based technologies?

Professor Florian Töpfl holds the Chair of Political Communication with a Focus on Eastern Europe and the Post-Soviet Region at the University of Passau. He heads the ERC Consolidator project "The Consequences of the Internet for Russia’s Informational Influence Abroad (RUSINFORM)" at the University of Passau. Before Dr. Töpfl was appointed professor at the University of Passau in 2020 he conducted research as the head of an Emmy Noether Research Group at Freie Universität Berlin (2014-2019) and as Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2012-2014).

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