Share of Secondary Infektion themes by language 2020

“Secondary Infektion” – the name given to the long-running operation – is defined as a collection of online disinformation actions that constituted a methodic campaign carried out on global social media, blogging platforms, and online information outlets. Between 2014 and 2020, almost 50 percent of all the operation's disinformation content in Ukrainian focused on presenting Ukraine as a failed or unreliable state. Between 2014 and 2020, Secondary Infektion produced 830 pieces of disinformation content across several languages that focused on presenting Ukraine as failed or unreliable.

In May 2019, Facebook announced it had removed a small network of 16 accounts and pages active on Facebook and Instagram, as part of its efforts to contrast Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior, or CIB. Facebook's findings were shared with the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council, which was able to connect the removed accounts and pages to a wider network of disinformation agents and operations. Such network was renamed "Secondary Infektion," due to its similarity to the original disinformation campaign "Operation Infektion". Planted in English-language global media by the Soviet Union's main security agency in the 1980s, Operation Infektion main object was to spread disinformation around the origins of the HIV virus and to create social destabilization, mainly in the United States.

Distribution of leading themes mentioned by content related to the disinformation operation Secondary Infektion from 2014 to 2020, by language

Characteristic	Failed / unreliable Ukraine	U.S. / NATO aggression	Divides / Weaknesses in Europe	Insulting Kremlin critics	Migration and Muslims	Defending Russia / Putin	Other	Election focus	Turkish aggression	Sports / doping
English	25%	21%	19%	9%	6%	6%	4%	5%	-	-
Russian	40%	16%	15%	9%	6%	7%	5%	-	-	-
German	22%	23%	22%	-	12%	-	6%	-	5%	-
Spanish	19%	24%	29%	-	7%	5%	4%	5%	-	-
Ukrainian	49%	20%	16%	-	-	-	-	7%	-	-
French	20%	25%	31%	7%	12%	-	-	5%	-	-
Swedish	45%	18%	-	9%	18%	9%	-	-	-	-
Other	-	33%	-	33%	33%	-	-	-	-	-

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Release date

June 2020

More information

Region

Worldwide

Survey time period

2014 to 2020

Supplementary notes

The values may not sum up to 100 percent due to missing data.

According to the source (page 9): "As of May 2020, this operation has not been directly attributed to a particular actor or entity." Additionally, the source gives the following notes on attribution (page 12): The attribution to operators in Russia rests on multiple indicators, both technical and contextual. Based on technical signals, Facebook first attributed the operation to Russian actors in May 2019. In December 2019, Reddit attributed the leak of US-UK trade leaks to the same operation. The context and content of the Secondary Infektion campaigns across the years echo that initial attribution. The operation started out working in Russian and targeted the Russian opposition, especially Alexei Navalny. It shifted focus to attacking Ukraine just as Russia annexed Crimea and launched its proxy war in the Donbass."

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