Thread by @RVAwonk

Starting another thread on the ongoing Russian disinformation campaign surrounding the White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) and more broadly, the current state of affairs in #Idlib.

For reference, here's a link to last week's thread on the same topic.

The narrative being pushed today by the Russian govt is that "terrorists" (or "jihadists") met w/ the White Helmets, a humanitarian org, to finalize a plot to stage a chemical weapons attack on...themselves.

Putin/Assad have made similar claims before launching a chem attack. 2/

Per usual, Russian propaganda channels promptly got to work spreading the disinformation peddled by Russian govt officials. (Important to remember that people are more likely to believe false claims when they hear them from multiple sources.) 3/

As seen in the network graphs, Russian govt accounts & propaganda outlets are dominating the #WhiteHelmets discussion on Twitter. The next graphic shows the top contributors using the hashtag - and again, Kremlin sources are dominating. Same thing with the URL's being shared. 4/

The result is that the entire information landscape is skewed by the Russian narrative, as seen in the hashtag & word clouds associated with tweets using the #WhiteHelmets. Notice how prominent "chemical attack" (L) & "terrorists" (R) are, reflecting a high degree of overlap. 5/

This clip from the White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) was on CNN moments ago. This is why Assad & Putin target the group - because they work in areas that are largely cut off from the rest of the world and provide evidence of the atrocities carried out by Russian/Syrian regimes. 6/

The disinformation pushed by Russia is part of the offensive in Syria. It's psychological warfare designed to dehumanize the targets and distort the truth so when the White Helmets show evidence of Assad/Putin's war crimes, it will be discredited & the suffering discounted. 7/

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