By: PETRIT SARACINI
For more than a decade, several individuals, researchers and organizations in the country have been talking about the organized presence of Russian propaganda and disinformation in the country and their harmful impact on security, trust in institutions, the disruption of interethnic relations, undermining Euro-Atlantic integration, spreading hatred and inciting violence…
We wrote dozens of reports, hundreds of articles in which we exposed the orchestrated spread of disinformation, pointed to specific actors…
The result was most often – ignoring, ridicule, and often attacks against those of us who warned – not only from those who love Russia more than their own country and its progress toward Europe, but also from many people in the media, institutions and the public.
Today everyone, including those who mocked and ignored us, is reporting on the National Security Agency’s operation to uncover the Russian propaganda network through which a series of criminal offences were committed. Many are doing so not because they want to, but because they have to.
For the few of us who have been talking about this for years while we were ignored, mocked and attacked – well, this is a personal satisfaction, after more than a decade of defamation, insults and harassment, not to mention the time lost for the country and the damage caused.
So, there are Russian propaganda and disinformation networks in Macedonia after all. And this tangle is finally beginning to unravel. Let us see whether the institutions will have the courage, perseverance and consistency, to unravel it without selectivity and thoroughly – all the way to the end!
The author is president of the Institute for Media and Analytics IMA
