Kadyrov people launch disinformation war with oppositional Telegram channel

Authorities of Chechnya are trying to undermine the credibility of the messages posted by the oppositional "1Adat"* channel, that is why they refute its information and may deliberately misinform its authors, the human rights defenders interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

Chechen authorities could have organized the disinformation of the authors of the Telegram channel in order to try to undermine its credibility, Oleg Orlov, a board member of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial"**, believes. "From their viewpoint, it's quite reasonable to compromise the channel through such provocations. They make use of two tools at once: instant refutations and disinformation of the channel to undermine its credibility," he said.

Ruslan Kutaev, the president of the "Assembly of Caucasian Nations", also believes that Chechen authorities monitor the channel's content. "In the case of this channel, they react quite sharply to everything, trying to make refutations. This is such a purposeful work. There are people who have clear instructions to seek videos with refutations from citizens about whom information is published," Mr Kutaev told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

*In July 2021, the Zavodskoy District Court of Grozny satisfied the claim of the prosecutor's office and found a number of publications of the "1Adat" Telegram channel as extremist; and also recognized the Internet resources of the "1Adat" movement as prohibited.

**The organization has been put by the Russian Ministry of Justice into the register of non-commercial organizations performing the functions of a foreign agent; on December 29, 2021, the Moscow City Court ruled to liquidate it.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on February 17, 2022 at 00:17 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.