Rubin: Russian disinformation is coming to Serbia and Montenegro through RT and Sputnik

If you live in Montenegro, you can read Russian disinformation directly, in Serbian, coming through Serbia, said high-ranking State Department official James Rubin.

Speaking to Voice of America, he recalled that Serbia is the only place in the Balkans where the Russian state media RT and Sputnik still broadcast their programmes, and stressed that there are serbian versions of them.

“We need to make sure that RT and Sputnik cannot cause so much damage inside Montenegro”, Rubin said.

The United States is working with allies to detect and combat breaches of what a senior State Department official calls the “integrity of the information space.”

“Information manipulation is a major problem for the United States. It is a problem around the world. I think we have established that in some cases China will provide its news-gathering services free of charge to certain media outlets, but let’s say if you want to do that, you can’t use any other source of information,” he said.

He stressed that it is important to cite the source so that the marketplace of ideas can decide.

“We have no problem with China or Russia presenting their point of view, all countries present their point of view. It is important to cite the source, to be transparent, so that the marketplace of ideas can decide. The problem is if Chinese support is not transparent when it is behind the scenes. At the Centre for Global Engagement, we try to provide evidence for countries around the world when the integrity of their information space has been compromised. Just as territorial integrity must not be violated, the integrity of the information space must not be violated. And when it comes to that, we need to call in the Russians or the Chinese. China is spending billions of dollars on this project. We are probably a little behind in terms of their access to the rest of the world.”

Rubin said that the US had signed a memorandum of understanding with North Macedonia on cooperation in the fight against disinformation to see if the other country was willing to address the problem with the same urgency.

“We started with North Macedonia because it became clear during our trip there that they were concerned about their information space being violated. We discovered that Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik still existed in Serbia, so they were used to disrupt North Macedonia. We have agreed a Memorandum of Understanding with the government of North Macedonia. These memorandums establish the willingness of the other country to treat the problem with the same urgency that we are treating it. This is not a solution.”

On whether there will be similar agreements with other countries in the Balkans, Rubin said:

“We do not have a plan for Memorandum of Understanding, but we have similar intentions with other countries. In meetings with Bulgaria and Slovakia, both countries have expressed interest in working with us on capacity building, such as the Global Cooperation Centre. That is where I work and where we develop analytical tools for researching breaches of the information space. We want other countries to have similar tools. So we will help them technically, we will support them, so that we all have the same operational picture.”/VOA/