I posted about the riots in France yesterday. Saying that:
“You have the right to protest.
You have the right to be angry.
You have the right to demand change.
You do NOT have the right to burn, loot or attack people.”
What happened in the comments was disturbing.
Racism. Hatred. Attacks on entire communities. People openly trying to divide France and Europe.
And it made me wonder.
How much of this anger is genuine? And how much is being deliberately amplified?
We know Russia has conducted influence operations designed to exploit divisions in European democracies.
And here’s the clever part.
Russia doesn’t need to invent racism.
It doesn’t need to organise riots.
It doesn’t need to create political divisions.
It just needs to make existing divisions worse.
Turn French citizens against each other.
Turn Europeans against each other.
Make everyone distrust the police, the government, the media and democratic institutions.
And watch us do the rest.
Am I saying the accounts commenting on my post were Russian bots?
Maybe. But I have no evidence of that.
But we should all be asking who benefits when our conversations become increasingly hateful.
Because you don’t have to be a Russian agent to amplify Russian propaganda.
You just have to stop questioning what you’re sharing.
The easiest way to weaken a democracy is to convince its citizens to turn against each other.
And judging by some of the comments yesterday, we have a problem.
Russian Kosmos 2612 and ICEYE-X36 (providing Ukraine military support) are now in perfect sync with each other. The Russian military satellite is intentionally stalking and tracking the Western radar satellite. Keeping a satellite "bumper-to-bumper" in this manner allows Russia to intercept or jam data transmissions, physically inspect Western technology, or quickly pivot to execute a kinetic or non-kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) attack with very little warning or fuel expenditure.
Kosmos 2612 executed a series of highly precise, fuel-heavy maneuvers to force itself into a "coplanar" orbit—matching ICEYE-X36's exact altitude (~555 km), speed, and inclination (~97.8°). The ICEYE-X36 satellite is giving the Ukraine military support.