Politico-Military Counsellor, Ankur Narayan, says that Russia's citing of a fake UK newspaper article would damage trust and credibility if, as seems likely, it was a deliberate attempt to manipulate the Forum.
Thank you, Mr Chair. I am delivering this statement, on Russia's Foreign Interference and Manipulation of Information in the FSC, on behalf of the United Kingdom. Norway has aligned with it.
This statement is about a falsified UK source, cited in the Russia FSC statement last week. It appears to be a brazen attempt to manipulate the members of this Forum. As Russia has made no attempt to correct the record, the UK and our Allies must now do so.
We have seen the Russian state using information warfare to attempt to undermine Ukraine and its supporters, sow divisions and bolster support for the Kremlin's war aims. Each week we use this Forum to hold Russia to account for its information manipulation, the scale and nature of which has been demonstrated through its war on Ukraine. And this is not just confined to the FSC - we continue to see Russia's attempts to push its information manipulation across international fora. The UK and our Allies stand firm in our commitment to the integrity of the multilateral system, and we will not allow Russia's deception to be normalised.
Mr Chair, last week, Russia took this an unprecedented step further. In its weekly General Statement, it displayed and quoted from the purported front page of a March edition of a local UK newspaper, the Hull Daily Mail. The headline was evidently designed to stoke criticism amongst the British public of the UK's continued support for Ukraine. However, it has been clearly established that the image displayed by Russia was a faked image, in which the actual headline of that edition had been replaced with a fake one about Kursk. The newspaper itself has made clear that the image had been faked. Two other newspaper headlines were also displayed which have also been proven to be faked.
The use by Russia of faked newspaper images and headlines was at best, a failure to ensure the authenticity of its sources. At worst, and far more likely given what we know about Russian behaviour, this was a deliberate attempt to manipulate the representatives in this Forum. Either way, this represented an egregious departure from the norms of conduct in international organisations.
The use of falsified documents by States in multilateral fora, and other efforts to sow disinformation, must be called out, and the record corrected. We cannot allow this Forum, or any other international organisation, to be influenced by these attempts to deceive us. Such attempts fundamentally undermine trust and credibility. Without trust, how can we deliver on our mandate of transparency, risk-reduction and Confidence and Security Building Measures? Without the credibility of our counterparts, how can we take seriously what Russia is saying?
Mr Chair, all of us have committed to executing the mandate of this crucial Forum. Trust and credibility are cornerstones of this. We urge Russia to return immediately to professional diplomatic conduct. Its efforts to deter us from supporting Ukraine will not succeed. We will continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. Thank you, Mr Chair.
