ANNA News

ANNA News (Analytical Network News Agency) is a Russian pro-Kremlin[14] news agency.[15] The agency's name ANNA used to stand for "Abkhazian Network News Agency"; after the head office moved to Moscow, when registering in Roskomnadzor on 22 September 2017,[16] "Abkhazian" was changed to "Analytical".

ANNA News
IndustryNews media
Founded18 July 2011 (2011-07-18)
FounderMarat Musin
HeadquartersMoscow, Russia
(Abkhazia until 2017)
Number of employees
50 (as of 2013)[1]
Websitewww.anna-news.info

History

ANNA News was officially registered as mass media in Abkhazia on 18 July 2011 after the events of the Abkhaz–Georgian conflict.[17][18] It was founded and managed by Marat Musin until his death in May 2018.[19] Musin was a specialist in financial intelligence who worked at Moscow State University and at the Russian State University of Trade and Economics.[1]

The agency takes a pro-Kremlin position,[20][21] and is part of a wider network of outlets that amplifies Russian propaganda.[21] ANNA publishes in the Russian language and is known for being "a voracious purveyor of insider YouTube footage of the Syrian civil war since 2012"; ANNA embedded with the Syrian Arab Army in their operations against rebels.[22][23] It has been known for publishing footage recorded directly from Syrian Army tanks.[24] In January 2013, a Russian judge and a former military intelligence officer Sergey Berezhnoy survived being shot while accompanying ANNA crew in the Damascus suburb of Darayya, Syria.[25][26] Berezhnoy said that he participated in the coverage of the military operation in Syria as a writer.[27] According to a 2018 publication from the Moscow Psychological and Social University, ANNA News works with officers of the information confrontation group of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria.[28]

Anchor Helen Krasovskaya with latest news of Novorossiya, 9 August 2014 (at background a title "South-Eastern Front")

ANNA journalists were also embedded with Russian-backed separatists fighting the Government of Ukraine since 2014.[29][30]

In May 2020, ANNA News was banned from YouTube for violating its terms of service.[31][13][32][33][34] It was revealed that employees of ANNA also worked for Russian propaganda websites NewsFront and SouthFront,[35][32] and that NewsFront had raised money for ANNA in 2014.[32] Both ANNA News and SouthFront support separatist forces in Ukraine.[36][37][38] In August 2021, president of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy, based on the decision of the National Security and Defence Council, signed a decree "on the application of personal special economic and other restrictive measures" against ANNA News. The decision ordered the web resources of the news agency to be blocked.[39][40]

Content

According to U.S. intelligence officer T. S. Allen, Pascal Andresen and the Ukrainian magazine Political Life, it is engaged in influence operations and is a propaganda tool.[41][42][43] According to The Moscow Times newspaper, it has a 'forceful pro-Assad slant.'[1] Professor of Arabic language and civilisation Stéphane Valter writes that the way the news agency diffuse their images "clearly indicates a bias in favour of the Syrian regime."[44]

In June 2014, ANNA News falsely claimed that political advisor Jen Psaki had been fired from the US State Department.[45] In the fall of 2014, the agency published a fake photo of several dead people who were allegedly killed by the Ukrainian authorities.[46]

On 5 January 2017, ANNA News falsely claimed that the jihadist organisation Al-Nusra Front, which fought against the Syrian authorities, calls the White Helmets volunteer organisation "soldiers of the revolution".[47]

In February 2017, ANNA News claimed that Ukraine was the source of a leak of radioactive iodine-131. The news agency did not provide any evidence.[48][49][50]

In late 2017, ANNA News journalist Oleg Blokhin based in Syria created staged photos to substantiate the existence of a fake private military company Turan.[2][51][52] After it was discovered that the photos were fake, ANNA removed all of Blokhin materials from its website.[53] Oleg Blokhin categorically rejected the claims of Russian research group Conflict Intelligence Team that the PMC Turan, fighting in Syria, is a fiction created by him.[54] He also mentioned that neither he nor ANNA News have ever released information about "Turan", since he doesn't comment on information of any Russian units in Syria at all.[55]

See also

References
  1. Nechepurenko, Ivan (12 March 2013). "'Crazy Abkhaz' Journalists Cover Syria Frontline". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  2. Marten, Kimberly (4 May 2019). "Russia's use of semi-state security forces: the case of the Wagner Group". Post-Soviet Affairs. 35 (3): 181–204. doi:10.1080/1060586X.2019.1591142. ISSN 1060-586X. The existence of at least one Russian PMC seems to have been completely fabricated, for unknown reasons. Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team (a group that describes itself as conducting open-source, devil's advocate, big-data intelligence on Russia's wars in Ukraine and Syria), demonstrated through comparative photographic evidence that the group, "Turan," a supposed Muslim Russian PMC in Syria, was fake. A different "journalist," Oleg Blokhin of two pro-Russian-state news organizations (the Abkhazian Network News Agency, http://anna-news.info/about/, and Russian Spring, http://rusvesna.su/about), who "broke" the news about Turan, actually created an elaborate photo-shopped hoax, starring himself and a colleague in combat fatigues. Several Russian newspapers had written about Turan as if it were real (Bukkvoll and Østensen 2018).
  3. Hosaka, Sanshiro (27 September 2019). "Welcome to Surkov's Theater: Russian Political Technology in the Donbas War". Nationalities Papers. 47 (5): 756. doi:10.1017/nps.2019.70. ISSN 0090-5992. S2CID 214289953.
  4. Backman, Jussi (2020), Lehti, Marko; Pennanen, Henna-Riikka; Jouhki, Jukka (eds.), "A Russian Radical Conservative Challenge to the Liberal Global Order: Aleksandr Dugin", Contestations of Liberal Order: The West in Crisis?, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 289–314, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-22059-4_11, ISBN 978-3-030-22059-4, S2CID 202323563, retrieved 30 September 2021
  5. Semen, Natalia (27 December 2017). "Соціальні мережі як один з найефективніших засобів протидії інформаційній агресії в українському Інтернет-просторі" [Social networks as one of the most effective means of counteraction information aggression in the Ukrainian Internet space]. Visnyk Natsionalnoho Universytetu "Lvivska Politekhnika" (in Ukrainian). Lviv: Lviv Polytechnic. 883: 129. Archived from the original on 1 October 2021. Retrieved 1 October 2021 – via Vydavnytstvo Lvivskoi politekhniky.
  6. Taylor, Adam; Sohyun Lee, Joyce (15 October 2019). "U.S. troops abandoned their Syrian base. Video appears to show Russians have moved in". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  7. Hubbard, Ben; Troianovski, Anton; Gall, Carlotta; Kingsley, Patrick (15 October 2019). "In Syria, Russia Is Pleased to Fill an American Void". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  8. Rondeaux, Candace (7 November 2019). "Decoding the Wagner Group: Analyzing the Role of Private Military Security Contractors in Russian Proxy Warfare". New America (organization). p. 7. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  9. "Russia holds funerals for journalists shot in C. Africa". Agence France-Presse. Moscow. 7 August 2018. Retrieved 29 September 2021 – via France 24.
  10. Gross, Judah Ari (16 October 2019). "US Mideast pullback didn't start with the Kurds, and it won't end there either". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  11. Esch, Christian; Amalia Heyer, Julia; Kuntz, Katrin; Nelles, Roland; Popp, Maximilian; Reuter, Christoph; Salloum, Raniah; Scheuermann, Christoph; Weiland, Severin (18 October 2019). "The Syrian Debacle and Its Implications for Europe". Der Spiegel. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  12. Romashenko, Sergey (28 November 2020). "Роскомнадзор призвал создать видеохостинги для российских СМИ" [Roskomnadzor urged to create video hosting for Russian media]. Deutsche Welle (in Russian). Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  13. Kuznets, Dmitry; Kolomychenko, Maria; Kovalev, Alexey (20 November 2020). "To block or not to block: Will Roskomnadzor actually restrict access to major sites like YouTube for 'censoring' Russian content?". Meduza. Translated by Eilish Hart. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  14. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13]
  15. "Перечень наименований зарегистрированных СМИ" [List of names of registered media]. rkn.gov.ru (in Russian). Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  16. "anna-news.info". ANNA News (in Russian). Archived from the original on 29 November 2018. Retrieved 2 February 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  17. "О нас" [About us]. anna-news.info (in Russian). 8 August 2011. Archived from the original on 25 June 2014. Retrieved 1 October 2021.
  18. Shezhkova, Irina (2016). "Отражение Гибридной Войны В Электронных Ресурсах Украины И России" [The reflection of the Hybrid War in Ukrainian and Russian electronic resources]. Вестник Антропологии (in Russian). 4 (36): 176. ISSN 2311-0546 – via eLibrary.ru.
  19. Eremenko, Polina (31 January 2019). "Он не хотел приспосабливаться: Полина Еременко — об операторе Кирилле Радченко, убитом в ЦАР" [He did not want to adapt: Polina Eremenko — about the operator Kirill Radchenko, who was killed in the CAR]. Meduza (in Russian). Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  20. Adam Taylor & Joyce Lee, U.S. troops abandoned their Syrian base. Video appears to show Russians have moved in, Washington Post (October 15, 2019): "pro-Kremlin media outlets such as the Abkhazian Network News Agency"
  21. The Kremlin's Amplifiers in Germany: The activists, bots, and trolls that boost Russian propaganda, Atlantic Council Digital Forensic Research Lab (June 22, 2017).
  22. Alleged Syrian Tank Footage Offers Glimpse Into Devastation In Darayya (VIDEO), The Huffington Post (8 March 2013).
  23. "Russian Media In Syria: Organized Propaganda Breaking The Censorship Scissors". Enab Baladi. 4 September 2019. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  24. Robert Mackey (8 March 2013). "Russians Bring Dashcam War Reporting to Syria". The New York Times.
  25. Kelley, Michael B. (1 February 2013). "Russian Judge Goes On Vacation To Syria's Front Lines, Gets Shot In The Face". Business Insider. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  26. Mackey, Robert; Barry, Ellen (31 January 2013). "Vacation on Syria's Front Lines Goes Wrong for Russian Judge". The New York Times. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  27. "Sergey Berezhnoy: I was in Syria as a writer". Belnovosti. 22 February 2013. Retrieved 22 February 2013.
  28. Dudulin, Vasily; Savchenko, Igor (2018). "Особенности применения сил и средств информационно-психологического воздействия в ходе гибридных войн" [Features of the use of forces and means of information and psychological impact in the course of hybrid wars]. Мир Образования - Образование В Мире (in Russian). 1 (69): 92. ISSN 2073-8536 – via eLibrary.ru.
  29. "Russian TV Inadvertently Demonstrates MH17 Wasn't Shot Down by Aircraft Cannon Fire". bellingcat. 11 October 2014. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  30. "Summary of attacks on media". RSF. 31 August 2015. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  31. Elise Thomas (28 March 2021). "The Long Tail of Influence Operations: A Case Study on News Front". Institute for Strategic Dialogue. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  32. "Facebook removes Russian propaganda outlet in Ukraine". DFRLab. 9 May 2020. Retrieved 22 September 2021.
  33. "YouTube заблокировал каналы ANNA‑News, News Front и "Крым 24"" [YouTube has blocked channels ANNA-News, News Front and Crimea 24]. MediaZona (in Russian). 20 May 2020. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
  34. "YouTube has removed three Russian propaganda channels". Ukraine Today. 20 May 2020.
  35. "Atlantic Council's DFRLab independent analysis of networks removed by Facebook in Russia, Georgia, and Myanmar". Atlantic Council. 5 May 2020. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  36. "Summary of attacks on media". Refworld.org. Reporters Without Borders. 19 June 2015. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  37. "Separatists in east Ukraine 'sentence' blogger to 14 years in captivity". Committee to Protect Journalists. 6 September 2017. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  38. "Russia and the Separatists in Eastern Ukraine" (PDF). Refworld.org. Kyiv/Brussels. 5 February 2016. p. 6. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  39. "Zelensky ordered to block web resources of Rostelecom and other Russian companies". Novye Izvestia. 23 August 2021. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  40. Venkina, Ekaterina (23 August 2021). "Зеленский подписал указ о блокировке "Ростелекома"" [Zelensky signed a decree to block Rostelecom]. Deutsche Welle (in Russian). Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  41. Allen, T.S.; Moore, A.J. (2018). "Victory without Casualties: Russia's Information Operations" (PDF). Parameters 48. 1: 67.
  42. Andresen, Pascal (2015). "Kapitel 8 Im Kampf unterm Kreuz – Zur Rolle und Bedeutung christlicher Milizen im Syrienkonflikt" [Chapter 8 In the fight under the cross - On the role and importance of Christian militias in the Syrian conflict]. Jahrbuch Terrorismus (in German). Verlag Barbara Budrich. 7: 142. ISSN 2512-6040. JSTOR 24916731 – via JSTOR.
  43. Hunin, V. Ye. (2020). "Problems of ensuring the security of competitive intelligence activities in the context of an aggravation of information and psychological confrontation". Donetsk National University (in Ukrainian) (3): 78–85. doi:10.31558/2519-2949.2020.3.10. eISSN 2519-2957. ISSN 2519-2949.
  44. Valter, Stéphane (2018). Hinnebusch, Raymond; Imady, Omar (eds.). The Syrian Uprising : Domestic Origins and Early Trajectory. Milton: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-38760-6. OCLC 1031340162.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
  45. Mackey, Robert (7 June 2014). "Russian State Media Focuses Attacks on Kerry's Spokeswoman". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2 February 2021. Among the Russian accounts promoting the idea that Ms. Psaki had lost her job was that of ANNA, an obscure news agency based in Abkhazia ...
  46. Blyzniuk, Andriy (2015). "Пропаганда та контрпропаганда в умовах сучасної гібридної війни" [Propaganda and counterpropaganda in terms of the modern hybrid war] (PDF). Scientific Notes of the Institute of Journalism (in Ukrainian) (60): 52 – via Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine.
  47. "White Helmets collaborating with terrorists? We sort fact from fiction (Part 2)". France 24. 11 May 2018. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
  48. Nilsen, Thomas (9 March 2017). "Russian state news agency misuses Barents Observer in fake news story". The Independent Barents Observer. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  49. Romanyuk, Vika (5 March 2017). "Fake: Europe Accuses Ukraine of Increasing Radioactivity". StopFake. Retrieved 14 September 2021.
  50. Nayyem, Mustafa; Zalishchuk, Svitlana (29 March 2017). "Statement of Mustafa Nayyem and Svitlana Zalishchuk Members of the Parliament of Ukraine before the Subcommittee on Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs of the Senate Committee on Appropriations" (PDF). United States Senate Committee on Appropriations. Retrieved 13 September 2021.
  51. "Частную компанию "Туран", воюющую в Сирии, выдумал журналист: расследование Conflict Intelligence Team" [The private company "Turan", fighting in Syria, was made up by a journalist: an investigation by the Conflict Intelligence Team]. Meduza (in Russian). 9 January 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  52. Krutov, Mark (9 January 2018). "Россиянин в Сирии. Сам себе ЧВК" [Russian in Syria. Own PMC]. ru.krymr.com (in Russian). Retrieved 5 July 2021.
  53. "Частную компанию "Туран", воюющую в Сирии, выдумал журналист: расследование Conflict Intelligence Team" [The private company "Turan", fighting in Syria, was made up by a journalist: an investigation by the Conflict Intelligence Team]. Meduza (in Russian). 9 January 2018. Retrieved 5 July 2021. Soon after the publication of the CIT investigation, ANNA News began removing Oleg Blokhin's materials from its website. Meanwhile, Znak.com contacted Blokhin, and he called the investigation into the Turan PMC "fake and delusional." "Why, in principle, the appearance of Turan was associated with me, I do not know. The investigation is based only on some gossip and guesswork ... I would advise those people who are engaged in such investigations to carefully check the information and not speculate on assumptions. Because the output may turn out to be such a fake, nonsense, "he said.
  54. "Журналист Олег Блохин назвал фейком информацию о придуманной им ЧВК, воюющей в Сирии" [Journalist Oleg Blokhin called the information about the PMC fighting in Syria invented by him fake]. Znak.com (in Russian). 9 January 2018. Retrieved 9 January 2018. ... Расследование [CIT] основано только на каких-то сплетнях и догадках. Якобы я похож на человека в униформе с шевроном этой ЧВК. Ну и что? Потом там показан неизвестный человек возле БТРа, у которого замазано лицо. И по этому фото тоже делаются какие-то выводы, но не представлено никаких более-менее конкретных фактов. А то, что якобы проводимые операции „ЧВК Туран" проходили в тех местах Сирии, где был я… Ну что ж, я могу сказать только одно: я был в Сирии везде.
  55. "CIT назвала мистификацией «спецназ СССР» в Сирии" [CIT called the "USSR Special Forces" in Syria a hoax]. RBC (in Russian). 9 January 2018. Retrieved 9 January 2018. Ни от меня, ни от ANNA News никогда в жизни не выходила информация о «Туране». Я не комментирую вообще [информацию, которая] касается каких-либо российских подразделений в Сирии. Что касается фотографии с Калашниковым, непонятно, о чем она говорит и при чем здесь ЧВК «Туран» ...
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