Anonymous Releases New Batch Of Integrity Project Files On Sputnik, Salisbury

Hacktivist group Anonymous has published a new batch of secret files with more details on UK's Integrity Initiative covert operation to influence allies and target Russia.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th January, 2019) Hacktivist group Anonymous has published a new batch of secret files with more details on UK's Integrity Initiative covert operation to influence allies and target Russia.

The leaked documents show how taxpayers' money was used to fund a media campaign against opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, research Sputnik and RT, and London's plans to create an EU disinformation unit.

The first publication on the London-based project last November blew the lid off UK's secret dealings in mainland Europe where it allegedly ran "clusters" in multiple countries, including its closest allies, France and Germany, as well as in Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Serbia, Spain, and Montenegro.

Integrity Initiative's reports on Sputnik and RT activities and invoices for writing them, leaked by the hacktivist collective, appear to credit both news outlets for "growing mistrust of western media among westerners."

The project researched RT's work in the middle East and North Africa, the agencies' coverage of Syria and the Salisbury poisoning. One writer, identified as Jassar Jamal Al-Tahat from Jordan was allegedly paid 1,000 Pounds for "a report on RT media campaign for the Integrity Initiative."

Another analysis, whose author is not identified, was dedicated to the principles of spreading news via social media. It acknowledged social media successes of both RT and Sputnik.

According to the leaked reports, "RT is currently seen as the most trusted source giving 'the other side of the story'," especially due to the fact that local intellectuals had long been exposed to dominant Western narrative and "their main concern now is to see a different side of the argument."

The released documents prove that the Conservative-led British government had been using taxpayers' money to pay for a campaign against the Labour Party and its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, on BBC, in the Guardian, and other local media.

According to the leaked reports, paid-for articles provided statistics and other data to substantiate the allegation that the opposition leftist party had been losing ground in the country.

News makers from the Integrity Initiative's Institute for Statecraft were paid by the governing party to make disparaging comments, according to the hackers, who published Names of people on the government's payroll and invoices for their services, paid for directly by the UK Foreign Office.

The British project appears to predict the Salisbury poisoning and its fallout years before the ex-Russian spy and his daughter were found slumped on a park bench in March 2018.

The document shows the head of the Integrity Initiative's Institute for Statecraft, Christopher Donnelly, speculate back in 2015 about sanctions on Russia and an expulsion of its "intelligence officer[s] and air/defence/naval attache from as many countries as possible.

"

"If no catastrophe happens to wake people up and demand a response, then we need to find a way to get the core of government to realise the problem and take it out of the political space," he wrote in a document dated 2016.

"My conclusion is that it is we who must either generate the debate or wait for something dreadful to happen to shock us into action. We must generate an independent debate outside government," he added.

Soon after that, hacktivists claims, Donnelly recruited a chemical and biological weapons expert, Mark Laverick, who previously worked at a military lab in Porton Down, to serve with the UK Army's Specialist Group Military Intelligence.

A scan of the project's document referred to a "Brussels-based EU Disinformation Unit," mentioned as part of a bigger campaign against Russian influence in Moldova, hacktivists have revealed.

The document, dubbed "Moldova -suggested priorities for consideration by clusters and UK staff in light of recent and ongoing developments," appeared to target the small Eastern European nation.

It proposed to "cascade" publications "on how Moldova's internal situation is exploited for the purpose of building Russian and Russian speaking influence in EU" "through relevant clusters, especially Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, but also Belgium (Brussels based EU Disinformation Unit, and NATO) and Netherlands (Europol)."

The Integrity project, according to Anonymous leaks, appears to be branching off to the post-Soviet states, Europe and as far as the United States to help them "understand better" the alleged Russian menace.

It has been mulling new clusters in Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, and Switzerland to "track, expose and counter the increasing current of Russian malign influence and disinformation throughout the West."

In the United States, the project aims to open an office in Washington and centers in other major US cities to "contribute to changing the attitude towards Russian malign influence and disinformation by enriching the public discourse with facts about Russian malign behaviour."

The Integrity Initiative, hacktivists say, already cooperates with a range of international organizations, including the European Union and NATO. The Foreign Office has confirmed the authenticity of the documents released last year.