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94–186PDF 2015

CONFRONTING RUSSIA’S WEAPONIZATION OF

INFORMATION

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

APRIL 15, 2015

Serial No. 114–37

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Mr. Peter Pomerantsev, senior fellow, The Legatum Institute ........................... 5

Ms. Elizabeth Wahl, former RT anchor, freelance journalist/public speaker ..... 13

Ms. Helle C. Dale, senior fellow for public diplomacy, The Heritage Foundation ........................................................................................................................ 18

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Mr. Peter Pomerantsev: Prepared statement ........................................................ 8

Ms. Elizabeth Wahl: Prepared statement .............................................................. 15

Ms. Helle C. Dale: Prepared statement ................................................................. 20

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 46

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 47

(1)

CONFRONTING RUSSIA’S WEAPONIZATION OF 

INFORMATION 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., in 

room 2172 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Edward Royce 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Chairman ROYCE. This hearing will come to order. I will ask if 

the members can all take their seats. 

And I had an opportunity in the early 1980s to go into East Germany and spend some time there, and during that time to see the 

quality of propaganda being broadcast into the East Bloc by Russia, the type of disinformation campaign that was going on. 

And I would have to say that since that time the caliber of propaganda has become much more clever than that which was disseminated then. 

And today we are going to look at the danger of Russia’s misinformation campaign in Europe and, indeed, today that misinformation campaign is worldwide and we are also going to look at the 

failed response to that effort. 

And as we will hear today, Russia’s propaganda machine is really at this time in overdrive and part of the focus, from my standpoint, seems to be to subvert democratic stability. And, frankly, 

there is also an element of this that goes to the issue of fomenting 

violence in Eastern Europe. 

Now, myself and Eliot Engel had an opportunity to go into 

Dnepropetrovsk and talk to civil society, the women’s groups, a lot 

of different organizations, the lawyers groups, and this was one of 

the issues that people are concerned about and these tactics have 

undermined the government in Ukraine and, frankly, helped lay a 

foundation for invasion there. 

This same plan is being worked in Eastern and Central Europe 

and this Russian propaganda has the potential to destabilize 

NATO members and it could impact our security commitments, especially if we look at some of what is going on in the Baltic States. 

So this Russian campaign, what one witness describes as the 

‘‘weaponization of information,’’ seriously threatens U.S. security. 

Russia has deployed an information army inside television, radio, 

and newspapers throughout Europe. 

Some are doing the Kremlin’s bidding and are given explicit 

guidelines to obscure the truth by spreading conspiracies, and I 

2

would just give you examples of some of the things you read now 

on these Russian broadcasts or some of the things that are alluded 

to. 

One was a conspiracy that our own Government here is responsible for everything from 9/11, the attack on 9/11 to the downing 

of Malaysia Flight MH17 over Ukraine. Others are simply paid 

more for demonizing the West, while those who pursue credible reporting are pushed aside. 

Today, we will hear from journalist Liz Wahl, who dramatically 

interrupted a live broadcast to resign from RT, a Russian outlet, 

explaining she could not stand by its distorted coverage of Russia’s 

occupation of Ukraine. 

Meanwhile, independent journalists in Russia have come under 

attack. There have been three journalists in Russia killed so far 

this year. Unfortunately, Ms. Wahl is a rarity. 

So Russian speakers in the frontline states like the Baltic, 

Ukraine, and Moldova continue to be told that their governments 

want to oppress and render them second class citizens. 

Unfortunately, many are buying this divisive message. In parts 

of Europe where there aren’t Russian speaking populations there 

is also a message and that message is that Western democracy is 

morally corrupt and that integration with Europe since the Cold 

War has failed. 

It is estimated that Putin is spending more than $600 million a 

year to deride democratic pluralism and the U.S. response to this? 

Well, the agency expected to manage our response, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, is far behind. 

After years of Mr. Putin ramping up the effort in Russia, last fall 

the BBG finally launched its flagship response to Russian propaganda—a mere 30-minute television news program in the Russian 

language called ‘‘Current Time.’’

The program was put on air in Lithuania, Moldova, Georgia, 

Ukraine, and Latvia. But after just 4 months it was pulled in Latvia because it couldn’t draw an audience. Now, what U.S.-backed 

news and information that does get through, the amount of that is 

a thimble of journalistic credibility in an ocean of Russian-driven 

news distortion and this isn’t a matter of resources, from my perspective. 

U.S. broadcasters are laboring under a flawed bureaucracy. 

Members may recall that then Secretary Clinton called the agency 

defunct in her testimony before this committee in 2013. 

The Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office 

have been highly critical, and the agency hired a CEO and he quit 

after 42 days on the job. Last week, the director of the VOA announced his resignation. 

Our international broadcasting is in disarray. The journalists of 

the BBG risk their lives reporting from the front lines across the 

world. They deserve better support, and the American people need 

much more from this agency if we are going to respond to the rapidly evolving media environment and better secure the long-term 

security interests of the United States. 

Last Congress, the House unanimously passed bipartisan legislation introduced by myself and Ranking Member Eliot Engel. This 

3

legislation is referenced in an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal that I wrote. 

But I will just share with the members here that that legislation 

will help us fight Putin’s propaganda by allowing more resources 

to be spent in the field and on content instead of on a broken bureaucracy, and by clarifying the BBG’s mission, creating accountable leadership through a CEO and reducing the bureaucracy, this 

can lead to a situation where the budget there can be spent on disseminating truthful news and that should be the goal. 

Righting international broadcasting must be an urgent priority 

in our foreign policy, and now I would like to turn to the ranking 

member of this committee and the co-author of the legislation to 

do this, Mr. Eliot Engel of New York. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for calling this morning’s hearing and I especially 

want to thank you for your leadership as this committee works to 

address the growing Russian threat. You have really been right on 

top of it. 

I really appreciate it and it is just so important. Thank you for 

your courage and for your voice. It has been a pleasure to be your 

partner. 

Let me also thank our witnesses today for sharing your expertise 

about a major part of that threat—Russia’s new and intensified 

propaganda effort. 

It is long past due that we take a hard look at this challenge. 

The Kremlin’s disorientation campaign goes beyond political spin 

and disinformation. 

What we see pouring out of the Kremlin amounts to the 

weaponization of information. Propaganda is a critical element of 

Russia’s so-called hybrid warfare strategy, a strategy on devastating display in occupied Crimea and war-torn eastern Ukraine. 

Coupled with cyber-attacks and other covert operations, these 

new capabilities and Vladimir Putin’s belligerence pose a direct 

threat to our allies and our interests. 

These measures are well financed, these measures are working 

and these measures demand a robust response from us. Kremlincontrolled media are putting down roots around the world. 

Russian financial support is bolstering fringe political parties, 

creating puppet NGOs and fostering a facade of academic research 

sympathetic to Vladimir Putin’s anti-democratic world view. 

The Kremlin aims to undermine democratic organizations and alliances. Russia’s leaders want to divide allies and partners while 

seeking to discredit the post-Cold War order in Europe. 

This strategy is not just to disseminate lies but to sow doubt and 

confusion, especially about what is actually and really happening 

in Ukraine. The component of this propaganda war that concerns 

me most is the influx of Kremlin-controlled television broadcasts in 

frontline states. 

From the Baltics to Central Asia, a Russian-speaking population 

of nearly 100 million people is getting its news from such distorted 

broadcasts. Here, the Kremlin uses high quality entertainment to 

draw an audience, then interlaces that programming with their 

twisted and false perspective on political, military and economic 

events. 

4

Today, I hope we can hear more about Russia’s propaganda campaign and, more importantly, what we can do to push back against 

it. We cannot match the hundreds of millions of dollars the Kremlin is blowing into this effort. 

Instead, we must look to create thinking and broad-based partnerships. Given the scale of the Kremlin efforts, it is clear to me 

that traditional public affairs and public diplomacy, while important parts of a broader effort, do not go far enough. 

We have seen some promising initiatives. For instance, the Governments of Latvia and Estonia are developing a plan to launch 

Russian language television networks in their respective countries. 

They want to create platform for content sharing and establish 

a fund for the production of locally focused content. Additionally, 

we anticipate a feasibility study this spring from the European Endowment for Democracy recommending a similar approach. 

Mr. Chairman, as you recognized, the United States needs its 

own strategy to deal with this and we need it now. I have been told 

that our State Department is now working full tilt toward a plan 

to address this problem. 

This can’t come soon enough. We are eager to work with the administration to develop this plan and set it in motion because the 

United States has a major role to play. 

In my view, the United States is in a unique position to convene 

partners from the private sector that will be essential for the success of such initiatives. Furthermore, U.S. leadership will be necessary to ensuring that reluctant Western European allies understand and appreciate the risks posed by an unchecked Kremlin 

propaganda campaign. 

One thing is clear. Meeting this challenge will certainly not be 

easy. A nondemocratic government in Russia is able to devote nearly limitless resources to spreading lies and sowing confusion, 

disinformation and division. 

But the stakes are high and acting sooner rather than later will 

make a daunting task a little easier and much more effective over 

the long run. 

I look forward to hearing our witnesses’ views on this challenge 

and their ideas about how we are going to deal with it. So thank 

you again, Mr. Chairman, for calling this hearing. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Mr. Engel. 

We will begin with Mr. Peter Pomerantsev. He is the senior fellow to the Transitions Forum at the Legatum Institute in London. 

His writing focuses largely on 21st century propaganda. It is featured regularly in the London Review of Books and the Atlantic Financial Times in foreign policy and elsewhere. He is author of the 

‘‘The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture and Money.’’

We will hear next from Ms. Elizabeth Wahl. She formally worked 

for the U.S. Branch of RT Television until her resignation last year 

on live Russian television in protest to President Putin’s government and their distorted coverage of the conflict in Eastern Europe. 

Ms. Wahl is now a freelance journalist and public speaker. 

Ms. Helle Dale is the senior fellow in public diplomacy studies 

for the Heritage Foundation where her work focuses on the U.S. 

5

Government’s institutions and programs for strategic outreach to 

the public of foreign countries. 

Ms. Dale’s career started in journalism where she worked for 

both domestic and foreign publications as well as print and electronic media. 

And I would also like to welcome the Vaclav Havel Journalism 

Fellowship Program, an initiative of Radio Free Europe, Russia 

Liberty and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. 

The Vaclav Havel journalism fellows in attendance today, and 

they are in the second row there on the left, are from Belarus, from 

Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, and Russia who have been targeted, 

these particular journalists have been targeted by the Kremlin and 

have been victims of Putin’s assault on free media, and we thank 

them for being with us here today. 

And without objection, the witnesses’ full prepared statements 

will be made part of the record and members will have 5 calendar 

days to submit statements and questions and any extraneous material for the record. 

And so I would encourage you, Mr. Pomerantsev, if you would 

like to summarize your remarks for 5 minutes lay out the case. 

Then we will go to Ms. Wahl and Helle Dale and then we will 

go to our members for questions. 

STATEMENT OF MR. PETER POMERANTSEV, SENIOR FELLOW, 

THE LEGATUM INSTITUTE 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. Thank you very much for having me here. 

Russia’s information war—we have been hearing these words a 

lot lately. Russia has launched the most amazing information warfare blitzkrieg we have ever seen since Supreme Allied Commander 

General Philip Breedlove after the annexation of Crimea. 

We are losing the information war, complained the British head 

of the House of Commons’ Culture and Media Committee as the 

Kremlin international media was launched in London. 

Information war is now the main type of war, argues Dmitry 

Kiselyov, the infamous Russian TV presenter and Kremlin media 

boss who also likes to remind the world, and it shows, that Russia 

can turn the USA into radioactive ash. But what do we mean when 

we say information war? 

Because if we mean propaganda as mass persuasion, propaganda 

in the sense of some sort of geopolitical debate where each side 

tries to convince the other it is right, well, then we don’t understand the real threat of the Kremlin’s information war at all. 

To understand what it actually is, let us go back to 1999. Back 

then, Russian Defense Minister Marshal Igor Sergeyev admitted 

the Kremlin could never match the West militarily and needed to 

find, in his words, revolutionary powers and asymmetric responses 

to compete. 

Look at it from the Kremlin’s point of view. NATO is 

undefeatable on the battlefield. The West has a much stronger social and political system—democracy based on openness and competition. 

But what if the Kremlin could bypass NATO militarily, make 

war without ever, officially at least, firing a shot? What if it could 

6

use the very openness of democracy’s open markets, open culture 

and, very importantly, open information against us? 

So over the 21st century, Russian military theorists developed a 

theory of what they called information psychological or hybrid 

war—a mix of media, economic and cultural warfare with a dab of 

covert military action. 

We saw an early example of this is Estonia in 2007 when Estonian authorities decided to move a Soviet war memorial from the 

center of the city. Russian media, which is very widely available in 

Estonia, went into a frenzy, accusing the Estonians of fascism. 

Russian vigilante groups started riots in the center of Tallinn. A 

massive cyber-attack disabled Estonia’s Government and banking 

sectors. 

Moscow was sending a message, despite membership of NATO 

and EU, that Estonia and all other frontline states were still vulnerable and the Kremlin could cripple them without giving Estonia 

a chance to invoke NATO’s Article 5. 

The aim was not just to humiliate Tallinn but show that Western 

and, specifically, American promises of security are empty and once 

the NATO alliance has been undermined and American influence 

weakened, then the Kremlin will have a stronger hand to play 

around the world. 

Since 2007, the Kremlin’s information psychological strategy has 

expanded. The Kremlin is now bankrolling and lending political 

support to both far right and far left parties in Europe while using 

open markets to make whole countries dependent on its money and 

energy. 

Unlike their Soviet predecessors, this regime will work with anyone as long as they help create stability in their home countries. 

The Kremlin is also putting out its message in multiple media 24/7. 

Russian language media reaches 30 million Russians outside of 

Russia, a lot of them in EU and NATO states. The Kremlin has invested hundreds of millions into foreign language media. 

Russia Today (RT) broadcasts in English, Spanish, German and 

Arabic. There is the web and radio service Sputnik, while the 

Kremlin also funds troll farms, regime-funded companies who 

spread messages online in social media and comment sections. 

Conspiracy theories, disinformation and fake news are a staple 

in these media claims that the U.S. invented Ebola as a weapon 

or re-editing interviews with Ukrainian rabbis to make it seem contrary to what they actually said, that there is a threat to the Jewish community in post-Maidan Ukraine, or even planting stories 

that the Rand Corporation is advising the Ukrainian Government 

on how to ethnically cleanse east Ukraine. 

The ultimate aim of the Kremlin’s international media is not to 

make anyone like Russia. It is not PR or necessarily engaged in 

fact-based journalism. 

Instead, information is used to sow divisions, demoralize and disorganize—to weaponize information. After Malaysian Flight MH–

17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine by Russian missiles last 

summer, Russian media spewed out scores of outlandish stories, 

blaming Ukrainian fighter jets, claiming the plane had deliberately 

taken off from Amsterdam carrying dead bodies. 

7

Their aim appears to have been to trash the information space 

with so much misinformation that a conversation based on actual 

facts would become impossible. This is not merely an information 

war but a war on information. 

If the very possibility of rational argument is submerged in a fog 

of uncertainty, the public will give up trying to understand what 

happened. Trust, the key ingredient of democracy, is destroyed and 

the strategy is working. 

Recent research in Ukraine and the Baltics shows that audiences 

exposed to both Russian and local media end up not trusting anyone. In Germany, 43 percent do not trust anything they read on 

Ukraine. 

Throughout Europe, conspiracy theories are on the rise and in 

the U.S. trust in the media has declined. The Kremlin may not always have initiated this phenomena but it is fanning them. 

And I would like to finish with the fact it is not just Russia and 

the Kremlin doing it. The Chinese are starting a similar tactic in 

Asia. We see how ISIS works in the Middle East. 

This is a global problem. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pomerantsev follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. 

Ms. Wahl. 

STATEMENT OF MS. ELIZABETH WAHL, FORMER RT ANCHOR, 

FREELANCE JOURNALIST/PUBLIC SPEAKER 

Ms. WAHL. All right. We are dealing with an organization that 

doesn’t play by the rules, where the facts on the ground and the 

reality that citizens face as a result of them don’t matter, at least 

when that reality clashes with Russia’s foreign policy agenda. 

In that case, one or more alternative realities are pushed, anything to deflect from the facts and confuse the public. 

Of course, Russia has a history rich in propaganda but for a 

while it seemed to lie dormant as many hoped that a reset in diplomatic relations meant a change in direction. 

But during the war in Ukraine, the Russian-funded television 

channel RT was mobilized as a weapon to manipulate people into 

believing half-truths and lies skewing reality in the Kremlin’s 

favor. 

And I saw firsthand how this was orchestrated. When the protests erupted in Maidan Square it was made to look not like a popular uprising but comprised mostly of bloodthirsty neo-Nazis and 

fascists. 

Through misleading language, RT pinned the blame on the West 

for fomenting unrest in Ukraine. When Russian troops invaded Crimea, Russian media looked the other way. Even Western media organizations indirectly gave strength to Russia’s denials in the 

struggle to maintain balance amid the confusion. 

But behind the deliberately confusing rhetoric were essential 

facts. Russia had invaded a sovereign country and was lying about 

it. And when it became impossible to deny the presence of what 

later became known as the little green men, they were hailed as 

volunteers compelled to rescue fellow Russians from Ukrainian fascists. 

Through denial and deception, the Kremlin was able to shape reality or at least make it difficult to uncover what that reality really 

is. With the international community stunned and incapacitated, 

Russia sent in tanks, troops and weapons. 

Crimea was annexed and Russian-backed separatists gained 

ground in eastern Ukraine. The disinformation tactics employed by 

RT during the war in Ukraine I saw used before, though not as vigorously and strategically. 

The most celebrated host at the channel holds staunch antiWestern views where deranged conspiracy theories are given a 

platform. It didn’t matter how credible the voices were as long as 

the underlying message was reinforced—that the U.S. and West is 

crumbling, corrupt and hypocritical. 

There was a running joke among some employees about adopting 

this mind set by drinking the Kool-Aid. I saw how employees and 

viewers eventually drank it all up. It is the result of being engrossed in an environment where hating America was rewarded. 

It is a mentality that is perpetuated by Internet personalities 

that gain followers and a sense of belonging by spewing hate and 

twisting the truth. One of the many things I came to find troubling 

was the surprising amount of people prone to being manipulated. 

14

Part of it is that with this explosion of information constantly 

generated online it had become difficult to tell fact from fiction, to 

sift through it all. Another part of it is the trend of thinking it is 

hip to believe in any anti-establishment alternative theory. 

Russia is aware of this population of paranoid skeptics and plays 

them like a fiddle. Those that challenge any narrative against Russia are branded CIA agents, of being puppets for neo-conservatives 

intent on reigniting a cold war and face the ire of seemingly countless paid and volunteer online trolls. 

I was accused of being all of these things and faced the constant 

stream of cyber hate for being perceived as such. Now, this is just 

a minor example of this new propaganda technique in action. 

The Russian bosses say that the organization is simply providing 

another perspective, one that is ignored in Western media. The implication there is that there is no such thing as an objective truth. 

But let us not get duped by this falsehood. Someone is responsible for pulling the trigger that killed Russian opposition leader 

Boris Nemtsov. Someone is responsible for launching the BUK missile that downed MH–17, killing all 298 passengers on board. 

This is not open to interpretation because behind the strategically false finger pointing there is a true story and in both cases 

the story is still unclear and there is someone that prefers it stays 

that way. 

We shouldn’t let it slide. We need to take notice and take action 

and the best weapon against this rapidly expanding propaganda 

campaign is the truth. We just need to fight for it. 

We fight it by refusing to look the other way when a lie is told 

and by spreading awareness about this new disinformation stream 

that is polluting the airwaves and online discussions that shape 

our perception of world events. 

We fight it by thinking before clicking, tweeting or sharing an article that aims to deceive, and while it is true that the truth can 

be difficult to uncover, we should seek to find it, spread it and 

learn from it whatever that truth may be. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Wahl follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Ms. Wahl. 

Ms. Dale. 

STATEMENT OF MS. HELLE C. DALE, SENIOR FELLOW FOR 

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION 

Ms. DALE. Chairman Royce——

Chairman ROYCE. Helle, could you just hit the button there? 

Ms. DALE. Hit the button. I will start again. 

Chairman Royce, Ranking Member Engel and distinguished 

members of the committee, thank you very much for putting together this timely and very important hearing today and for inviting me to speak. 

The views I will express are my own and should not be construed 

as representing the official position of the Heritage Foundation. 

I come before you as someone who has studied U.S. public diplomacy for years and as a former journalist. I have interviewed 

enough dissidents of Cold War days to appreciate the profound importance and the moral obligation we have of reaching citizens of 

countries under authoritarian or totalitarian control with truthful 

information. 

The recent past has shown that it does make a difference, sometimes changing the course of history itself. Unfortunately, after the 

end of the Cold War the United States all but disarmed itself in 

the battle for hearts and minds in Russia and its neighboring countries. 

It was assumed that the West had won the ideological battle and 

strategic decisions were made in public diplomacy and international broadcasting that turned out to be huge mistakes. 

Today, we are scrambling to increase broadcasting and digital capacity to counter Russian disinformation. The relevant U.S. agencies in this information war are, of course, primarily the Broadcasting Board of Governors, or the BBG, which oversees all U.S. civilian international broadcasting, the State Department and to 

some extent the Department of Defense. 

To give you a preview of my conclusion, the U.S. Government 

must ramp up its international broadcasting capacity but it has to 

be done through the reform of the BBG. At present, this is our 

most important tool in this information war. 

The BBG has over the past decade shut down many language 

services and radio transmissions which now turn out to be critically 

important. The motivation has been budget constraints and the desire to focus on the Internet and, at times, satellite television. 

In 2008, VOA ended its broadcasts in Russian the very week 

Russia invaded Georgia. After the invasion, the decision was not 

reversed. 

Short wave radio was abandoned and whatever English language 

content there was to be rebroadcast in Russia had to be negotiated 

with Russian local AM and FM stations. 

Moscow finally shut down all VOA broadcasting in 2014. But the 

United States has, as we heard, allowed Russian media to flourish 

within our own borders in the name of freedom of expression. 

RT has impressive television studios right here in the nation’s 

capital. The contrast could not be more stark. The conditions attached to rebroadcasting of VOA English content to Russia were 

19

heavy handed and I just want to give you a short personal anecdote. 

I was invited on a program, a foreign policy discussion at VOA 

in 2012. It was just before the Russian Presidential election and I 

asked if we were going to discuss it and I was told no, the management had told them, the journalists, that they could not discuss the 

Russian election because Voice of Russia had threatened to cancel 

its agreement with the BBG if the U.S. Government allowed VOA 

to go ahead with a discussion of the Russian election. 

Now, why this mattered so much is hard to understand but a 

global audience were thereby deprived of a discussion of the subject. 

The management at VOA, the producers, followed orders from 

Moscow and it should be mentioned that this is the same management that often fiercely resists any editorial influence from the 

U.S. Government itself. 

Currently, the only content offered from VOA in Russian is Internet-based Skype video and use broadcasts as well as VOA’s Russian language Web site. Now, it is argued that the Internet is the 

best way to reach Russians because they have a high level of Internet connectivity as an advanced society. 

Yet, VOA’s Russian service Web site ranks number 3,828 in Russia, which does not compare very well with RT’s influence here in 

the United States where it is something like number 64. 

Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, the U.S. Government’s 

surrogate broadcasters, have run into the same problems as VOA. 

They also took a major beating in the international press in 2012 

when the management of Radio Liberty fired most of its Moscow 

staff. 

I can see I am running out of time. I just wanted to mention finally that we are trying to play catch up in reform legislation and 

in the BBG’s strategy paper produced in 2015. I mean, sorry—for 

2015, 2016 on countering a revisionist Russia. 

But we are playing catch up here and I would be happy to discuss that further with you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Dale follows:]

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Chairman ROYCE. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Dale. 

One of the questions I am interested in here is that usually 

around the globe people hunger for information and especially 

when they think they are being denied facts. 

But what seems to be happening in Russia is that people begin 

to presume that these conspiracies are in fact true as they are, you 

know, introduced to this on a daily basis. 

They repeat it over and over and over again and suddenly the 

conspiratorial theories begin to take on a life of its own, and I wondered if maybe the panelists could explain the factors that make 

this Russian disinformation campaign seemingly so effective from 

some of the polling I have seen inside Russia in terms of the credibility the people have to information which logic would contradict. 

But also I was going to ask you a little bit about the platform 

that it provides for fringe and radical views, not just in Russia but 

worldwide, as sort of the extreme fringe as given a platform for 

what otherwise would not be considered reputable television, you 

know. Most broadcasts wouldn’t have on the types of voices with 

these conspiratorial theories. 

But maybe you could explain the process that RT undertakes to 

select its experts, and I will just turn it over to the panel for your 

responses. 

Ms. WAHL. That is an interesting question, selecting the experts, 

because that word, I think, is used loosely in Russian television. 

Essentially, anybody that is an expert is somebody that is willing 

to toe the Russian line and to—I mean, they could be from the far 

left, they could be from the far right, they could have unconventional deranged theories. 

It didn’t matter, and sometimes the producers would scour the 

Internet for these experts. So what qualifies as an expert it is kind 

of murky what that is. 

And why it is effective, I think you had mentioned that it provides this voice for fringe voices, extremists and it works because 

it provides a place for these people, a place where these people can 

congregate and feed off of each other’s biases. 

It is almost like a community that is almost like a cult, I would 

say, that is formed online and they mobilize and they feel like they 

are part of some enlightened fight against the establishment and 

they find a home. 

They find a place where they are heard and they find a sense of 

belonging. They find an outlet where they can—where they can—

a platform to voice their deranged views. 

And I know that formally of Radio Free Europe Mr. Lack, who 

has since departed, had gotten a lot of criticism for comparing Russia today and Russian propaganda to ISIS propaganda. 

And while yes, there is a strong difference—we are talking about 

a terrorist organization versus a government—you know, a nation 

state, I think he did have credence and in comparing the strategy 

that is there by using the Internet to mobilize people that feel displaced, that feel like they have been on the outskirts of society and 

give them a place where they can find a sense of belonging and 

maybe make a difference in their own way, and it is a problem and 

we see that it is effective. 

30

We see that they are shaping the discussion online, on message 

boards, on Twitter, on social media. And the Internet—you know, 

we thought that it would be this place where, you know, it is wonderful in a lot of ways because a lot of different viewpoints and a 

lot of different people have a voice like never before. 

But, unfortunately, it has provided a forum where 

disinformation, false theories, people that are just trying to make 

a name for themselves, bloggers or whatever, that have absolutely 

no accountability for the truth are able to rile up a massive amount 

of people online for——

Chairman ROYCE. Well, I think what is interesting about it—I 

mean, the use of raw violence, which they do a lot of on YouTube, 

1.4 billion hits is a lot of hits. 

Ms. WAHL. Yes. 

Chairman ROYCE. So people will go to the use of raw violence 

and then that will be used as, you know, part of a thesis on some 

conspiracy theory that then is played out. I wondered, Peter, your 

take on this. 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. This question—you have hit on one of the key 

issues here, which goes—takes us all the way through the problems 

at stake. They are not fringe anymore, these groups. We are talking about a France where Jean Marie Le Pen’s far right party is 

surging in the polls. 

We are talking about a Hungary where Jobbik, the far right 

party, is rising, rising. We are talking about 20 percent of parliamentarians in the European Parliament having what we used to 

think were fringe, very pro-Russian views. 

Among the people who vote for these parties there is a lot of people who believe in conspiracies because they are working on a similar thing. 

Conspiracies happen when people don’t trust the institutions 

around them, don’t trust Parliament, don’t trust media. Everyone 

is lying to you? Then there must be a shadowy hand. So the Kremlin is in this loop. 

It is pushing out more conspiracies to fan that audience. They 

are funding these parties. You know, we know that the Kremlin is 

funding Jean Marie Le Pen in France. These are not fringe parties. 

This is actually now becoming the mainstream and this is very, 

very frightening. Conspiracy is—what is conspiracy? Sort of a linguistic sabotage on the infrastructure of reason. 

You know, you can’t have a reality-based discussion when everything becomes conspiracy. In Russia, the whole discourse is conspiracy. Everything is conspiracy. When a genuine opposition person like Alexander Navalny emerged in Russia, the first thing the 

Kremlin does? 

He is one of ours—he is a conspiracy as well. Don’t believe in 

him. Sort of about destroying belief in anything. When you have no 

believe in truth then you can’t believe in anything. 

But also more insidiously than that, look, our—I am going to get 

very grand now—our global order is based on the idea of realitybased politics. 

If that reality-based sort of, you know, base is destroyed then you 

can’t have, you know, international institutions and international 

31

dialogue. I mean, I remember a quote from, I think, a Franciscan 

monk after the Second World War. 

He is, like, lying is not a form of communication. It rids people 

of their right to live in reality and makes reality-based politics impossible. This is a very insidious trend. 

Chairman ROYCE. Thank you, Peter. Let me go. My time has expired. I am going to go to Mr. Engel of New York. 

Mr. ENGEL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Let me start with you, Mr. Pomerantsev. Some of the distortions 

coming out of the Kremlin are just absurd. For instance, blaming 

Ukraine or the United States for the shooting down of that Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine. 

But as three of you have mentioned, we know these messages are 

taking hold. Can you give us a bit more detail about the major 

messages being driven by Moscow and describe how those messages are affecting public opinion among Russian speakers in the 

frontline countries? 

And could you also tell us what your sense is of the way our 

other European allies are looking at the problem? Do you they not 

see the problem—our Western allies? 

What steps have other governments taken to respond to Russian 

propaganda and is it having any great effect? 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. That is a lot of questions. So, listen, I just 

read a very interesting study of Estonia where actually got into the 

weeds of who believes what, right. 

So there is a certain amount of the population who just watch 

Russian TV and they buy the Russian lie. The message has been 

changing. First, it was a fascist revolution. Then it was a NATO 

conspiracy. 

Now it is the Ukrainians who are the fascists. It is always 

changed and changing. It is not about establishing a truth. It is 

about coming up with crazier and crazier stories, which are meant 

to be emotionally engaging. 

The Russian deputy minister for communication openly says that 

truth in journalism doesn’t matter. It is all about, you know, coming up with fantasies that are powerful. 

So the message changes but, you know, it is clear. It is the 

West’s fault. Ukraine is a zone of chaos. Russia is a zone of stability. That is a very big one. You know, like, Russia equals stability, Ukraine equals chaos. 

Everywhere that America goes equals chaos and so on and so 

forth. So there is some interlocking narratives but they shift. But 

what is interesting in Estonia—so there is a small percentage of 

people who just watch that and believe in it. 

A bigger one and a more active one, the younger people, watch 

both Estonian and Russian. But they don’t just end up not believing in anything. 

They just end up completely confused and completely passive and 

so this really challenges some old ideas that if we could just get 

the truth out there like in the Cold War we will win. It is a much 

more intricate challenge nowadays. 

We have to not only get the truth out there, we have to win 

trust, which might mean a much cleverer and deeper and actually 

sort of more thoughtful form of programming to make. 

32

As for European countries, it is a real mix. The frontline countries are, obviously, very alarmed because for them it is an existential threat. Britain is aware. Germany is aware. 

I think as you go further and further they care less and less, and 

some countries are far more interested in their financial relationships with Moscow and don’t perceive Eastern Europe maybe as 

their problem. But hopefully that is shifting. 

Mr. ENGEL. Ms. Wahl, you—as you mentioned in your testimony 

you have seen Russian propaganda up close. You left Russia Today 

because you refused to be a mouthpiece for the Kremlin and since 

then you yourself have been a target. 

You mentioned propaganda. Since that time we have seen Russia 

Today open up shop in more places round the world. Can you give 

us some detail about the strategy behind the growth of Russia 

Today around the world and the specific methods used by Russia 

Today so-called journalists to advance Moscow’s message? 

Ms. WAHL. Right, yes. It is true that since my resignation that 

Russian media has only grown. There was a channel that was 

opened up in London and Berlin. 

There was a video organization called Ruptly that was formed. 

Sputnik also launched—it is also funded by the Russian Government as in dozens of—dozens of cities throughout the world. 

That is rapidly expanding, and we are seeing a lot of—a lot more 

resources being devoted to Russian propaganda. Meanwhile, as we 

had mentioned earlier, before independent voices has been—have 

been shut down and, well, what is behind it? 

Mr. Pomerantsev touched on it before. It is that just putting this 

narrative out there that the West is really the evil hypocritical corrupt player here and that for far too long the West has been dominating the conversation and they are inserting themselves now as 

an alternative, as somebody that is telling the other part of the 

story. 

But I saw that that, indeed, was not the case, that this was actually manipulation. And I guess another thing about conspiracy 

theories it seems like a bizarre thing. I mean, who believes in these 

bizarre conspiracy theories? 

And I think what is interesting is that it doesn’t really matter. 

You don’t need to believe the conspiracy theory as a whole to be 

confused as to what is really going on. I am going to use my experience as an example. 

The narrative that RT put out about me and kind of their friends 

was that I was simply just a puppet intent on reigniting the Cold 

War—that, basically, that I had had no mind of my own and 

strings were being pulled and that the intent there is that it was 

some nefarious intent to reignite a cold war. 

Now, a lot of people hear that and it seems farfetched and it is 

not true. But if you—by just putting that narrative out there and 

by the trolls retweeting it and repeating it so often, it becomes a 

thing. 

It becomes part of the discussion. It becomes part of the discourse, and after a while you have to address it because it is out 

there. The seeds of doubt have already been planted and first impressions matter. 

33

And even if you don’t believe that I was a puppet in that way, 

it still shaped the narrative in terms of casting doubt on my credibility, on my motivations, on what really went on. 

So that is kind of just a small example of how conspiracy theory 

works. You know, you don’t have to necessarily believe that 9/11 

was an inside job completely but if you have that out there in so 

many other nefarious plots a viewer gets kind of confused and 

thinks maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle. 

Maybe it wasn’t orchestrated but surely the West was instrumental in letting it happen in one way or another. So I think that 

is one way that conspiracy theories work is that it just causes 

chaos and confusion and even people that are seemingly logical and 

not prone to this type of manipulation are—I see that they are affected by it because if you see the constant stream of chatter online 

it does kind of start to get to you. 

And I saw that there, especially within RT where you are constantly exposed to these articles and this anti-American, anti-Western rhetoric. 

You are kind of in this vacuum where you kind of think whoa, 

you know, maybe Russia has a point. Maybe there is some truth 

there that is to be uncovered. 

And so I think it is important to kind of come to terms, and it 

is bizarre and it is kind of strange to grasp but these strange conspiracy theories that are put out there really are aimed at just disrupting and deceiving and causing chaos so nobody really knows 

what the truth is. 

Chairman ROYCE. We will go now to Dana Rohrabacher of California. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Well, having been a former journalist myself 

and know about the way our journalist profession works in the 

United States, and I have been very interested in your analysis 

that truth is the way that we should fight this threat and I agree 

with that. 

I would hope that we are honest enough with one another to realize that we have major flaws in our dissemination of facts and 

information in the United States as well. 

So the truth may well be what we have heard today in the testimony, that Russia is engaged in a major effort to basically support 

its own policies and promote changes and effects on other populations that further the interests of Russia. 

I would be surprised if that wasn’t the case. Let me just note 

that so I can accept everything that was said here I would have 

preferred, Mr. Chairman, that we had at least one other person to 

balance out this in a way that perhaps could have compared our 

system to the Russian system and to find out where that truth is, 

just how bad that is. 

There are, by the way, I am convinced there are people here in 

the United States who want us to have the same status toward 

Russia today as we had during the Cold War and they still believe 

that this—we should be in a Cold War status and that Russia is 

today the same as it was under communism and that Putin is 

Brezhnev, if not Hitler. 

34

And I don’t believe that necessarily those people who are promoting that concept are any more accurate than the Russians that 

you are now talking about presenting their concepts. 

You know, I—frankly, I think there is a little bit of fanaticism 

on both sides that don’t hear both sides and if we are going to have 

peace in this world we have got to be disciplined ourselves in 

searching for that truth. 

And I just say that when I was a newsman I remember covering 

stories and I don’t want to be too—I won’t name the exact publications but I know major publications that would not cover a story 

that made us Republicans look good and all the journalists who 

worked for some very strong newspapers in southern California 

were just basically propaganda for the liberal left position in our 

political spectrum. 

And I saw that and, yeah, so we have bias here and they have 

bias there and let us find out what the truth is and I would have 

preferred, as I say, Mr. Chairman, would have had at least someone to talk about that, to give us that type of analysis. 

But I am very happy that we have this information being presented to us today. Let me just ask this about, you know, the stories. What caused you to leave RT? RT is, obviously, a Russian 

propaganda outlet. I mean, obviously, it is. 

I mean, we would expect it to be, and we have private—that is 

why we have private media in the United States so we don’t have 

our Government setting a policy for what the information will flow. 

But I will have to say that in terms of this whole conflict in 

Ukraine, when I—almost everybody I know no one ever starts the 

scenario about what was going on in Ukraine with the violent overthrow of an elected President. They always started with the scenario where Russian troops came in. 

I happen to oppose any idea that Russian troops should ever 

have been introduced in that country but I also recognize that a 

democratically-elected President was violently overthrown in order 

to achieve certain political objectives in that country. 

And so I would hope that we search for the truth and that we 

understand that all of the horrible things that you are talking 

about today and the direction of the Russian Government out to 

get—make sure its interests are being taken care of by propaganda 

offensive, we understand that. 

But that we have the discipline to be honest and seek the truth 

ourselves and not just fall into this Hitler—Putin is Hitler and this 

is—and Russia hasn’t changed since the Cold War. 

We don’t need another Cold War. We don’t need to be—to take 

such belligerent stands and I will tell you I find that belligerence 

on both sides of this fight. 

Ms. WAHL. I absolutely—can I respond to that? 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Sure. 

Ms. WAHL. Okay, and I absolutely hear what you are saying. I 

mean, I certainly don’t want another Cold War. I think—I can’t—

I bet you most people in this room don’t want another Cold War, 

and I hear what you are saying there, that there is—and I think 

what it—I am not arguing that our media here is perfect. 

But I think what I am going to have to push back on with your 

statements is that in a way that kind of rhetoric kind of equates 

35

our media here—Western media—with what is happening in authoritarian governments like Russia. 

It is providing this false equivalence that simply just does not—

they do not go hand in hand. There is—there is essential differences, and Russia, yes, they look at our media within the U.S. 

and they see it in disrepair. 

They see, you know, Fox News is known as being conservative. 

MSNBC is known as being liberal, and therefore everything is a 

matter of perspective. But there is a difference. There is a difference in that I think it goes to intent. 

I think that instead of it being maybe a Republican viewpoint or 

a liberal viewpoint, what have you, whatever, that there is an intent to actual—to actually advocate and manipulate a war for an 

authoritarian leader’s foreign policy objectives and actually fabricating facts, twisting truths, making up lies. And I understand 

that, yes, the media is not perfect. 

But to compare the two and to say that they are morally or ethically equivalent in any way I think is actually giving some strength 

to Putin and this propaganda machine and I think he manipulates 

that mind set and the ability for us here in the United States to 

be critical of our own media and that is another essential difference 

because here we can be. 

Here, we can call out—I mean, look at Brian Williams. He makes 

a little flub, he is gone. He is assassinated on Twitter. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Truth—your point is taken. 

Ms. WAHL. It is just not—and I do understand what you are saying and I am not here to make excuses for our own media or say 

that it is perfect. 

But I think that by saying or making any kind of moral equivalence that we are giving power to Russian media and the growing 

machine. So I think we just have to be cautious in that regard. 

Chairman ROYCE. We will go now to Mr. Gregory Meeks. 

Mr. MEEKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ms. 

Wahl, for your push back. 

I just, on this subject, will say that I think you are right in the 

sense that I wouldn’t have any problem with RT if there were other 

media outlets in Russia, you know, various perspectives and that 

is what, you know, I think is tremendously different in the United 

States. 

You know, we have—you know, I listen to Fox, as you said, and 

I think that is propaganda and the other side listens to MSNBC. 

But at least you have two or three and you have other alternatives of which you can listen to so that you can then make your 

determination as to where and what is—you know, where you are 

for. 

Whereas, from where I am understanding, there is no government-ran institution. RT seems to be financed exclusively by the 

government which means that they can exclude anything that does 

not favor the government. 

We would have a tremendous problem here if in fact, for example, you know, what we have dialogue right now, whatever side, 

whoever is the President of the United States. If Barack Obama 

was able to just put out his side without anything else, you know, 

we would be up in arms in this country. 

36

I know when George Bush was President if the paper just only 

put out George Bush’s side I would have had a big problem. The 

fact of the matter is you can have the argument on both sides. 

You can’t go after the press and, you know, and I don’t like some 

of the things that the press writes but they have the right to write 

it based upon our Constitution and I think that is a major difference. 

So for me, as opposed to focusing on because they, Russia, and 

how they run is different than what we do in the United States 

and I understand that CNN, for example, international can play inside of Russia but it is not in the Russian language so it is only 

in English so therefore people don’t understand that. 

So my then concern will then go to what takes place outside of 

Russia, I think, is where Mr. Engel was going as far as the influence so that other areas can have equitable opportunity to listen 

to all sides. 

Russian TV is there, can we—do we have other, whether it is 

local television from, you know, maybe in Moldova or in Georgia 

where they are countering or have more freedom to say what the 

other side is. 

Do we have America—what can we do to make sure that that 

choice that I am talking about that we have in America, particularly within the European countries, that we have—that they have 

the choice and are not listening to one thing but multiple things. 

And I am not saying cut out Russia or RT. I am saying make 

sure they have all of the evidence so that they can then make a 

determination of what they believe or don’t believe as we do here. 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. Well, I will take it first if that is okay. 

I mean, I think—I think actually once upon a time we actually 

intuited the right idea when—you know, when the BBG had Radio 

Liberty, had Radio Svoboda—the Russian branch of RFE. 

The concept worked there, which is the right concept, as surrogate news. Not us believing in the truth. That is always—you 

know, if you’ve got ‘‘America is evil’’ in their heads you are not 

going to believe anything. 

Mr. MEEKS. That is correct. 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. There is going to be wall there. So it is about 

going to local issues, finding local voices, local access and it is not 

just about truth. 

I really is about developing a different level of what journalism 

is. It is almost like the methodology because there is—look, 

Ukraine, Moldova, you have got oligarch channels, you have gone—

you know, it is like one—do you think Fox News is a bit—is a bit 

sort of, you know, slangy and truthiness? There it is crazy. 

You know, like that is—what they lack is not another opinion. 

There is a lot of bullhorns there. What they lack is that central pillar of education and understanding of how you, you know, think rationally, critically, what evidence is. 

So it is both education and this kind of tradition that Radio 

Svoboda represents and it still represents—it is just so underfunded—of finding local voices who, you know, spread that culture. 

So I think that is the secret. It is going local and much deeper. 

Ms. DALE. May I make a remark? I think you are absolutely 

right that the diversity of views and the diversity of news is what 

37

we thrive on in this country and we are fortunate that we can 

make up—listen to whatever we want and make up our own mind 

about what we think is the truth and oftentimes a lot of people reporting from different perspectives will arrive at something that 

looks like the facts. 

Well, in Russia and in the countries—areas that they occupy like 

eastern Ukraine they were shut down, the independent media—

any media that is not controlled by them the moment that they 

move in and that is how you persuade a local population of one 

point of view. 

It permeates the airwaves to a degree we don’t see here at all 

and can’t probably comprehend and I hear this from Ukrainians on 

the ground. 

The moment the Russians come into a town you will start to 

hear different points of views from their friends and family who 

live there because suddenly they have been presented with a set 

of facts which are only from one perspective and that is the one of 

the Russian Government. 

I want to commend Peter for saying that the journalists and raising the level of journalism is important. We can support journalists. 

As far as journalistic outlets—trained journalists—in Ukraine 

the journalists who work in the battle zone don’t even—many of 

them don’t have any body armor. They don’t have any helmets. 

They don’t—they are not equipped in any way, shape or form for 

reporting from front lines and yet they are trying. We here in the 

United States have the means to support them materially and with 

training and that, I think, would be—establishing some credibility 

and some credible voices that trust in the journalistic enterprise 

that is missing as something that we need to work on to interject 

in Russia, Ukraine and the countries that are under its influence. 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. Just to be clear, we were talking about different bits of Ukraine so my colleague is talking about the Ukraine 

bit that is occupied by the Russians. I was talking about the rest 

of it, which is pretty chaotic as well in other ways. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go to Mr. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for not being 

here up front. 

I was next door at another committee hearing, and I hope to get 

to some questions but I think it is important for the record to give 

some people a sense of history they might not know because we 

have people in this country and around the world that are apologists for what Russia and other similar nations and viewpoints are 

doing and so I think it is important to reflect on the past and know 

that this has been going on—this is nothing new. 

And so I am just going to read—this is out of a book published 

in 1986, I think, called ‘‘The Harvest of Sorrow’’ and it is in regard 

to the terror famine forced on Ukraine by the USSR and Russia. 

So the first passage is—that I will read,

‘‘And even more striking or at least a more important aspect 

of the psychopathy of Stalinism may be seen in the fact that 

no word about the famine was allowed to appear in the press 

or elsewhere. People who referred to it were subject to arrest 

38

for anti-Soviet propaganda, usually getting 5 or more years in 

labor camps.’’

And then,

‘‘Hitler approvingly calls the big lie. He knew that even 

when the truth may be readily available, the deceiver need not 

give up. 

‘‘He saw that the flat denial on one hand and the injection 

into the pool of information of the corpus of positive falsehood 

on the other were sufficient to confuse the issue for the passively uninstructed foreign audience and to induce acceptance 

of the Stalinist version of those actively seeking to be deceived,’’

and I have got a few more here that I found interesting. 

This is in regard to a gentleman named Walter Duranty who reported or failed to report or misreported on the famine of the time 

who was working for the New York Times. This passage says that

‘‘What the American public got was not the straight stuff but 

the false reporting. Its influence was enormous and long-lasting.’’

Furthermore, regarding Duranty, who was a Pulitzer Prize winner for the New York Times based on his work in Ukraine, the 

praise which went to Duranty was, clearly, not due to a desire to 

know the truth but, rather, a desire—to a desire of many to be told 

what they wished to hear and, of course, his own motives needed 

no explaining. 

One communist gave as the reason or one of the reasons for the 

suppression of the truth the fact that the USSR could not only win 

the support of workers in the capitalist countries if the human cost 

of its policies was concealed. 

So I do have a little time for some questions and that is just part 

of the historical perspective of what has been refined over time, 

and Americans and free people around the globe must be—must be 

apprised of this and must be aware of it and must be prepared to 

fight for their freedoms because if they don’t will fall prey to the 

same thing. 

I am going to just say Peter, if that is okay with you, the question I think I have for you and I apologize if it has already been 

asked, there are reports of think tanks becoming puppets of Putin, 

and I think you have identified the Institute for Democracy and 

Cooperation in New York as one in particular, if that is true. 

What is the strategy behind co-opting these think tanks? Is the 

strategy working? 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. I think—I think that is—I haven’t researched 

that place myself but I think that is quite openly—from as far as 

I know and can recall right now is quite openly an extension of the 

Kremlin. I think they do stuff like publishing America’s human 

rights problems. 

As Mr. Rohrabacher said, you know, we all have faults so let us 

just play that game. Much more troubling in many ways is that because there was such—a little bit of a collapse in the funding of 

Russia studies after the Cold War—there is a famous New Yorker 

cartoon with a homeless man standing on Fifth Avenue with a litVerDate 0ct 09 2002 13:08 Jun 26, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 Z:\WORK\_FULL\041515\94186 SHIRL
39

tle—you know, a little board saying ‘‘Give money. I am a Russia 

expert’’—so there was a collapse in funding and the Russians kind 

of stepped into that breach. 

So a lot of intellectuals were kind of drawn toward that. There 

is the Valdai Forum, which is a very, very clever little operation 

where, you know, the world’s Russia experts get treated like royalty to get to meet Putin once a year and that is sort of like subtly—they know they are being spun but they are still being spun. 

There is a game going on there. So it is really about us. We collapsed our funding for Russia studies and, you know, the Kremlin 

could step in. It is very important to have. The Kremlin understands the values of intellectuals. Stalin understood it. 

Lenin understood it. They understand the virtue of having these 

sort of higher up people. More obviously is their recruitment of 

former statesman Gerhard Schroder, who works for Gazprom, who 

has become, you know, Putin’s spokesman in Germany in many 

ways. 

In Britain, we have the phenomenon of the Lords on the boards, 

so various peers who, on the one hand, politically they are just in 

the House of Lords. On the other hand, you know, they are all 

working for Russian companies, and they are against sanctions 

against Russia. 

So co-opting elites—intellectual elites, sort of public figures, is 

very much part of their plan and I think it is actually sometimes 

more dangerous than RT because RT is kind of out there. We see 

it. 

You know, it’s like, whoa. This is stuff happening that where we 

don’t quite see it and in a way far more—far more disturbing. 

So to pick up on one thing that you said, that it is not new, 

disinformation is as old as ‘‘The Iliad’’ and the Trojan Horse—

greatest disinformation operation ever. But there is new things 

going on. 

Firstly, the intensity—the information age. The intensity of technology makes the power of technology so much more pervasive and 

can do so much more with it. We have created this beast called the 

Internet. We are only just understanding how powerful it can be. 

So that really changes the intensity of propaganda that you can 

do. Also, look, there—I mean, you weren’t here at the start. I tried 

to explain a bit of Russia’s idea of information and psychological 

war. 

They see this as the war of the 21st century, a war where you 

kind of defeat another side in the realms of perception, economy, 

culture without ever actually invading them—just by breaking a 

country without ever—without ever having sent troops across. 

I gave the example of Estonia. That is different. That is a new 

idea of war. Usually, you know, the Clauswitzian idea of war is, 

like, you know, war is a continuation of politics. Politics ends, you 

have a war, you go back to peace. 

This is permanent war, you know, and information and psychological war is permanent, it is endless subversion, endless destabilization. It is a complete rejection of the idea of globalization as 

a win-win rules-based system where we all agree to profit from 

each other and it is an idea that integration is actually a way to 

mess with the other side endlessly. 

40

So we always ask what does Putin want. He sees the 21st century that is going to be like this—endless subversion, 

disinformation, economic manipulation—and he might be right. I 

mean, there is a great study of the Chinese three-way warfare in 

Asia where they are doing something very similar using legal, 

media and psychological warfare to bully the Philippines and other 

neighboring states. 

They don’t do it toward us. You know, they wouldn’t. They just 

do it toward people they’ve had. ISIS has come up several times. 

The age of information is becoming the age of disinformation and 

sort of in the 21st century wars might be decided by whose story 

line wins, not what happens on the ground. 

It might not even matter anymore that NATO has the biggest 

troops. All that the Russians have to do is make NATO look ridiculous by subverting Article 5 and then the whole narrative edifice 

comes crumbling down. 

So there is something new going on. We are all trying to work 

out what it is. But I look at other people studying this and I can 

see we are all coming to similar conclusions. 

Mr. PERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield. 

Chairman ROYCE. We go now to Joaquin Castro of Texas. 

Mr. CASTRO. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you to each of the 

witnesses for your testimony and for your scholarship and your experiences on these issues. 

Mr. Pomerantsev, you mentioned the development of conspiracy 

theories and particularly on the far right in Russia the development of those conspiracy theories. 

I would ask you, do you see that spreading anywhere else? Is 

Russia the worst actor with respect to this or how do you see that 

developing in other nations? 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. No, sir. Maybe I was unclear. No, no. It is 

spreading within the far right, which is now mainstream in Europe, in France, Hungary——

Mr. CASTRO. So you are speaking of Europe generally? 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. In France——

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. 

Mr. POMERANTSEV [continuing]. Hungary, Slovakia. Those are 

the countries that have been studied and these parties are becoming mainstream. The people who support them are into conspiracy 

theories because, you know, they are into the far right——

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. 

Mr. POMERANTSEV [continuing]. Because they don’t trust media 

government so they are drawn toward conspiracy theories. 

Mr. CASTRO. Well, and I guess let me point out my colleague, Mr. 

Rohrabacher, mentioned—you know, made reference to liberalism 

in the United States. 

But we have a few Presidential candidates running for President 

of the United States who have also cozied up to people who are 

conspiracy theorists and who themselves espouse conspiracy theories. Could you speak on that? 

Mr. POMERANTSEV. I just don’t know the details of that. But this 

is a global problem. I mean, globalization generally has led to a 

breakdown of trust. We can’t tell is our Government in charge. You 

know, everybody feels insecure. 

41

A butterfly flaps its wings in China and a town in Michigan goes 

bust. So we all feel insecure. We all feel that those old bonds of 

trust are creaking a little bit and conspiracy theories are the result. 

That is what I mean. The Kremlin can see what is going on in 

Europe and the world. That is why it plays on conspiracy theories. 

They are not being stupid. They can see this is rising everywhere 

and they are trying to feed it. 

In Europe they even fund the—you know, it is a cycle. They feed 

the conspiracy theories and then fund the parties who represent 

that constituency. 

You know, you have got a nice little thing going on. You know, 

this is—this is—the Kremlin thinks it is on the right interpretation 

of history. 

They think this is the way the 21st century is going to be—chaotic with no idea of stable reality, no stable global institutions and 

in that context the country or the state or even the non-state actor 

who can be the most subversive, who can lie best and be the most 

kind of, you know, the most subversive—there is no better word, 

sorry—that state will win. 

It is a rejection of 21st century based on kind of rules and institutions. They are saying don’t believe anyone—don’t believe your 

institutions—just follow the, you know——

Mr. CASTRO. Well, and I guess my question is, and if any of you 

would like to comment on it, do you see—I mean, should we be 

worried about that in the United States or the Americas? Is it 

something that is particular to Russia and to Europe? 

Ms. WAHL. I think that it is something that we should be worried 

about here because I think that that is kind of the aim of where 

I saw at Russia Today at the U.S. bureau is that they are trying 

to mobilize this group of people that are anti-Western, prone to 

conspiracy theories, people that are so skeptical and paranoid 

about the establishment, that are disillusioned, that think that the 

mainstream media is not only complicit but instrumental in carrying out Western dominance. 

There is a population of people within the U.S. that believe in 

this. And yes, they are a fringe, but as Mr. Pomerantsev had pointed out, they are coming out and they are branding together and 

they are finding a place on the Internet to come together and to 

make an impact and to make an effect. 

And I saw while I was there there was a strong focus on 

former—I am sure you are well aware of him, former Congressman 

Ron Paul, and he was kind of the celebrated voice, the celebrated 

candidate—Presidential candidate. 

Why? Well, I mean, I am not going to make an analysis of, you 

know, his policies and, well, how I personally feel toward them. 

But he was seen as kind of like the rock star candidate, the alternative, somebody that is against, you know, intervention, that is 

very open to speaking out against Western meddling, Western hegemony. 

So they do kind of cling to these kinds of voices that tend to be 

favorable to Russian foreign policy. I am not sure that it is quite 

equivalent to what we are seeing in Hungary and elsewhere or in 

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the Baltic countries where there is large populations of Russian 

speakers and ethnic Russians that might be more susceptible. 

But yes, they are trying to find this group within the West and 

even within here in the United States and trying to mobilize them 

in any way possible, and the thing about these people is that they 

are loud on the Internet. 

They comment on forums. They tweet. They share articles. They 

are—they do. They make an impact. They shape the discussion——

Mr. CASTRO. Sure. 

Ms. WAHL [continuing]. Whether we like it or not, and I do want 

to comment on, Congressman, earlier about how this is nothing 

new, and I mentioned earlier that yeah, Russia does have a history 

of propaganda. 

But we are seeing something new here and I think that from my 

experience what I have come to realize is that the Kremlin is being 

savvy by using Western media as a model by kind of, you know, 

making it look sexy with slick graphics and kind of trying to use 

the Western model. 

And it is not propaganda all the time. There are some valid stories on there. But you kind of sneak in the disinformation among 

the facts and especially when it comes to a war, Ukraine, is where 

this organization was able to be mobilized and actually used as a 

tool for—to further war interests. 

So yes, it is having an impact within the U.S., in my opinion and 

from what I have seen. 

Ms. DALE. If I could just make a remark on what we could and 

should be doing from our side, because it is very easy to kind of 

feel like the Internet takes over your brain and suddenly, you 

know, you feel like your head is going to explode. 

I think it is critically important that part of our strategy is to, 

within the U.S. Government and within the news organizations 

that are independent, to try to expose what is going on so that 

when you do see a credible news organization suddenly being sponsored by the Russian Government or advertising supplements in 

the newspapers or things that happen online that we have a response team, preferably interagency within the U.S. Government or 

within possibly collaborating with other organizations that we do 

not just sit in a receptive mode but that—as we did during the 

Cold War. 

Yes, this is a different age but I think the principles that applied 

then still apply today, that an untruth has to be confronted by a 

truth. That is really the only thing you can fight it with. 

You may—the volume may be different today but the principle 

has to be the same and we had that capacity in the past. In the 

past, we fought Soviet disinformation very effectively and eventually saw the end of the Soviet Union. 

I am confident that today, if we put together a sufficient strategy, we can do the same thing and we should. 

Chairman ROYCE. Let me just thank Mr. Peter Pomerantsev and 

Ms. Dale, Elizabeth Wahl. Thank you very, very much for your testimony today. 

I also wanted to thank the reporters here who report in Moldova 

and in Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia, for being with us and 

these reporters in particular have been targeted by the Kremlin. 

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So we wanted to give them an opportunity to be with us today. 

We are going to have to stand adjourned at this time but we will 

continue this dialogue. 

And thank you to all our panelists. 

[Whereupon, at 11:28 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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