Russia launched a “fake news” campaign in a bid to spark renewed troubles in Northern Ireland, a US think-tank claimed yesterday.
Untrue social media rumours were spread by Kremlin’s “troll factory” – operated by henchmen of President Vladimir Putin – it was alleged.
Covert attempts to incite violence were said to involve bogus stories on Facebook , Twitter and Reddit.
In one, the Real IRA was alleged to be using Arabic speakers to cajole Islamic State jihadis displaced from Syria into coming to fight in Ireland.
Another was credited to made-up quotes by former Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson.
This reported falsely that Irish republicans aided the nerve agent poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.
The “troll campaign” is exposed by forensic researchers at the Atlantic Council, founded to improve links between the US, Britain and Europe.
The group told how last August a forged Russian email tried to show that the DUP wanted a united Ireland. It claimed party leader Arlene Foster told EU Brexit chief Michel Barnier she was “ready to leave the UK”.
One “fabrication” told of a “plot by Remainers” to assassinate pro-Brexit hardliner Boris Johnson . The Council said: “If only occasionally one of the Russians’ tales goes into wide circulation, they are achieving their aim.”
- Ex-Stormont MP Ivan Cooper, a founder of Northern Ireland’s civil rights movement, has died at 75 after long ill-health.
