How Russia Exploits Antivaxx Sentiment to Spread Energy Disinformation

The prospect of a cold winter makes energy a hot topic in Europe. Russia, aiming to chip away at Western support for Ukraine, has an interest in stoking people’s fears. And where does Russia find enthusiastic supporters? You guessed it — among public health skeptics.

This is the first episode of our 4th season, in which we will focus on Germany and the ways various health, energy and climate conspiracies link up there. For this episode we talked to GMFUS’s Bret Schafer and Kristine Berzina to learn about how Russia goes about shaping public opinion abroad.

Here are some of the information sources used for this episode:

Polling Nordstream 2: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1282647/umfrage/festhalten-am-projekt-nord-stream2/

Germans’ opinion now: https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Mehrheit-ist-gegen-Offnung-von-Nord-Stream-2-article23536541.html 

Share of Russian gas in Europe: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201743/russian-gas-dependence-in-europe-by-country/

Dependency on Russia:
https://www.statista.com/chart/26768/dependence-on-russian-gas-by-european-country/

Russian gas reserves: https://www.statista.com/topics/6207/russian-natural-gas-industry/#dossierKeyfigures

 

Imports: https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/russian-gas-imports-in-the-eu-threat-or-a-chance.html

and: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/business/russia-gas-europe.html

How Russia cut gas supplies: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60131520 

 

Our earlier episodes:

Episode 25 - Are Antivaxxers More Likely to be Pro-Putin?

Episode 21 - The Falsehood Firehose: How Russian Disinformation Actors Spread Propaganda

Episode 18 - How Anti-Vaccination Movements Pull Parents In

Episode 17 - Fight Against Vaccine, Climate Disinformation Linked: Expert

Episode 11 - Social Media, Russia, Disinformation -- GMFUS' Bret Shafer

Episode 10 - 'Superspreaders of Malign' -- Disinformation Expert Miriam Matthews Talks About Russian Information Manipulation