Integrity Initiative links from around 40 countries and some Atlantic Council links – Content

Here you find an overview of the content in our list of Integrity Initiative links from 36 countries and some Atlantic Council links. The list is compiled by Activist for peace, Sweden, January 5, 2019 and it contains four parts. Each part is linked from this blogpost. You find that the headings below are clickable.

Screenprint of UK Column: “What is the Integrity Iniative? A short briefing paper.”, December 2018.

Each part with links includes mainly unique texts. Reposted and republished text have been avoided; unless there is a specific interest in terms of additional comments, languages or countries.

When the title is easy readable in the end of the link it is sometimes not stated in the heading. Sometimes, you also have to click on the link to check the date when the text was published.

Note that we have not made any assessment concerning trustworthiness. You have to use your own judgement; preferably by assessing the content rather than the sender. All texts have been included based on that they have some substance and that we have not missed any text. One exception is many Russian sources since we have not been able to assess them quickly.

At the moment, we have no intention to update this list. We can reconsider this if we are offered help in this work. If you want to contribute, you can contact us through our website (see above).

Content – Part 1 of 4

• Basic information 
• Integrity Initiative: official site, statements and leaked material
• Atlantic Council: Kremlin’s Trojan Horses publications
• Sources connecting Integrity Initiative and Atlantic Council

Content – Part 2 of 4: Selected UK and UK Integrity Initiative links

• Selected Integrity Initiative links
  • 5 best Integrity Initiative main stream press stories 
  • 20 best critical Integrity Initiative stories
• Integrity Initiative, comments, UK
  • UK press
  • UK parliamentary debate (December 12, 2018)
  • UK parliamentarians (Labour MPs)
  • UK sources via foreign media
  • UK online media
  • UK Twitter

Content – Part 3 of 4: Integrity Initiative, links sorted by countries or group of countries

Countries from and groups of countries A-U (List of countries and number of entries)

• Azerbaijan 1
• Australia 1
• Austria 1
• Bulgaria 1
• Canada 6
• China/Hongkong 1
• Czechia 1
• EU/Europe 3
• Finland 1
• France 1
• Germany 10
• Ghana 1
• Greece 1
• India 1
• International 22
• Ireland 2
• Italy 2
• Kazakhstan 1
• Lithuania 1
• Netherlands 4
• New Zealand 1
• Norway 19
• Pakistan 2
• Poland 4
• Romania 2
• Russia (selected smaller part) 20 
• Serbia 1
• Slovakia 1
• Spain 10
• Sweden 11
• Switzerland 2
• Uganda 1
• Ukraine 2
• United Kingdom – See Part 2 of 4: Selected UK and UK Integrity Initiative links
• The United States 25

Content – Part 4 of 4: Atlantic Council Kremlin’s Trojan Horses projects

• Atlantic Council Kremlin’s Trojan Horses and other projects, selected comments.
  

Extra: Swedish Disinformation research controversy – links

To complement our compiled list of Integrity Initiative links from around 40 countries and some Atlantic Council links, Activists for peace (In Swedish: Aktivister för fred) has chosen to publish a  an extensive compilation of links in relation to a related scandal that took place last (2017) in Sweden.

“In early December 2018, Tord Björk from Activists for Peace was once more the target of a smear campaign. In a joint effort by Stockholm Free World Forum, an NGO paid by The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise to promote business interest in security affairs and Atlantic Council, the closer cooperation between environmental and peace movement and linkages to the Green Party was presented as a threat in the report Kremlin’s Trojan Horses 3.0. Tord Björk had written in an article in an environmental magazine that the referendum in Crimea in 2014 was a breach of international law but that a majority of the local population including the Ukrainians supports the outcome. The author of the report, Henrik Sundbom, a fellow at Stockholm Free World Forum, claimed that the article showed to much sympathy with the Russian Crimean narrative.

Last year a close cooperation partner to Henrik Sundbom , Martin Kragh, head of the Russia and Eurasian programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs and researcher at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University where he also is Research Director at the Uppsala Forum for Democracy, Peace, and Justice, together with the daily Expressen also started a smear campaign against Tord Björk and Ukrainabulletinen, the newsletter publicized by Activists for peace.“

Activists for peace in Make 2019 a year of peace!, January 5, 2019

Screenprint of the Institute of Statecraft’s homepage, December 2019.

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Integrity Initiative and the connection to Sweden and Atlantic Council

Activists for peace have noticed that the large debate concerning the semisecret Institute for Statecraft‘s Integrity Initiative’s state-funded anti-Russian disinformation project have caused attention in Sweden in a different manner compared to the reactions in other countries. One of the reasons is that commenting on Integrity Initiative coincided with a similar debate on a new Atlantic Council report called Kremlin’s Trojan Horses 3.0 which contains a chapter about Sweden. A member of the Green party and blogger have pointed at the close connection in content as well as institutional and personal links between the author of the Swedish chapter in the Atlantic Council report and the alleged Nordic/Swedish cluster leader for Integrity Initiative.

The Anonymous leak of documents, confirmed by Integrity Initiative as coming from their computers, has initiated a large debate in 24 countries so far. There is, without counting Russian sources, a lot more than 100 unique articles and other digital material commenting the leak. The debate has primarily been concerned with interpreting the leaked material and how the official Integrity Initiative twitter account has been used for tweets primarily accusing the Labour party for being a Kremlin tool.

The Swedish comments although few, differ profoundly from comments in other countries. One main reason is that the way Integrity Initiative prescribes how journalists and researchers are supposed to work together was already last year exposed in a scandal in Sweden. Then Martin Kragh, the head of Russian studies at Uppsala University – the largest academic institution of its kind in Sweden –  as well the head of the Russian and Eurasian program at Swedish Institute for International Affairs (UI), published an article in the Journal of Strategic studies together with Sebastian Ågren, also at UI with a MA in War Studies from King’s College London, UK.

The article ”Russia’s strategy for influence through public diplomacy and active measures: the Swedish case” drew strong criticism in the peace and environmental movement and among academicians and journalists. In total, the article is down loaded 36 000 times and has been mentioned in 100 primarily Swedish articles and radio programs.

In our next article, you can read more about the Swedish comments published in both a Center Party newspaper and a left wing weekly on Integrity Initiative, by an anti-imperialist blogger on Atlantic Council and by a Green blogger connecting Integrity Initiative and Atlantic Council.