IRKUTSK, September 16Pranksters Vovan and Lexus, during the panel discussion “Information Wars”, which took place in Irkutsk as part of the documentary film festival “RT.Doc: Time of Heroes”, said that the creation of fakes about Russia has been placed at the state level in Ukraine, “divorce” is used by scammers not only for the purpose of seizing money, but also for organizing terrorist attacks.
Many young people came to the meeting with Alexey Stolyarov (Lexus) and Vladimir Kuznetsov (Vovan), who were interested in the topic of organizing information wars and creating fakes in the modern world, in particular those directed against Russia from Ukraine.
“»Information wars, from the point of view of the Ukrainian army, have been placed at the state level. The so-called TsIPsO and the SBU use methods of “divorcing” people. Those same scammers, posing as either the Sberbank security service or investigators, they are not just trying to take money from people now. They also force them to perform certain actions, in the form of setting fire to a military registration and enlistment office or a relay cabinet. This is not a private initiative, this is an absolutely centralized, streamlined state activity,» Stolyarov said.
Previously, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs spoke about the new tactics of scammers from Ukraine. Against the backdrop of increasing arson of military registration and enlistment offices, the department stated that swindlers, using various methods of influence on deceived citizens, ultimately put forward the same demands: to set fire to military, transport or banking infrastructure.
In addition, Vovan and Lexus, answering questions, talked about the influence of neural networks on the course of information wars, about the selection of characters for pranks, about preparing for dialogue and about what Internet users need to do to distinguish reliable information from fake . Vladimir Kuznetsov also shared plans to create a four-part feature film based on a script written by pranksters.
The first international documentary film festival «RT.Doc: Time of Heroes» is taking place in Irkutsk. It opened on Friday at the Youth House with a screening of the film “Wives” by Aigul Erbulova. On the second day of the festival, the audience was presented with films by Arthur Khodyrev “Treble Clef”, Ekaterina Kitatseva “Power”, Artem Somov “Military Correspondents”, French documentary filmmaker Anne-Laure Bonnel “Donbass-2022” and other films. Also on Saturday, a master class on social media content entitled “How to get a million likes by talking about your country” and a panel discussion “Information Wars” took place.
On Sunday, the Youth House will continue to show documentaries, and a round table “War and faith. How the Bible helps to understand what is happening” will take place with with the participation of Boris Korchevnikov.
All festival events are free. The festival is organized by the Directorate of Documentary Broadcasting of the RT TV channel.
The festival «RT.Doc: Time of Heroes» takes place in eight cities of Russia. It has already taken place in Moscow, Krasnodar, Kazan, and St. Petersburg. After Irkutsk, its viewers will be residents of Kursk, Volgograd and Grozny.