All posts by Federico Borgonovo

26Giu/23

PMC Wagner and Allied Mercenaries, Aftermath of the March by – Federico Borgonovo & Giulia Porrino

Communication, Intelligence, Security, Terrorism, , , ,

During the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, PMC Wagner exploited online and offline support of some military groups, including:

  • Española, a parallel battalion of Russian ultras led by Alexander Shum and with a special training centre near San Petersburg.
  • Rusich, a reconnaissance, sabotage and assault group, directly attached to the PMC Wagner.
  • Serb members, active since the deployment in Syria. Those are linked with several ultras’ communities.
  • Níðhöggr (Nidhogg), a little unit near to the Scandinavian right-wing militia funded by an actual Wagner member.  

All these units were orbiting around the PMC Wagner as embedded support groups. Starting from their online propaganda we theorized a pro-Wagner alliance system (figure 1).

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15Mar/23

Correlation Is Not Causation: Wagner e migranti come attori della guerra cognitiva – by Giulia Porrino

Communication, Intelligence, Migration, Terrorism, ,

Nella giornata di lunedì il Ministro della Difesa Guido Crosetto e il Ministro degli Affari Esteri Antonio Tajani hanno denunciato la presenza della PMC Wagner dietro l’aumento degli sbarchi sulle coste italiane, triplicati rispetto allo stesso periodo nel 2022. Secondo i Ministri si tratta di una strategia di guerra cognitiva che i mercenari russi stanno attuando per destabilizzare l’Europa. Non si è fatta attendere la risposta di Prigozhin (su Telegram), che ha negato di essere al corrente di quanto sta accadendo.

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13Feb/23

PMC Wagner Propaganda Ecosystem – by Giulia Porrino & Federico Borgonovo

Terrorism, , ,

The Wagner propaganda ecosystem is fragmented and made up of different actors that we have categorized. We identified a “top-down” propaganda architecture, composed of different materials disseminated by the leadership of the Wagner company, exploiting traditional media such as television, movies, events, and newspaper. Examples of this are the construction of the Wagner Center in St. Petersburg and movies produced by Aurum Production owned by Prigozhin.

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07Feb/23

Towards a more progressive approach to studying the Salafi-Jihadi movement – by Ali Fisher

Intelligence, Sociology, Technology, Terrorism, , , ,

The ongoing struggle against the Salafi-Jihadi movement will require reflection on multiple levels to achieve a genuinely progressive and evidence-based approach. This reflection will focus on developing an authentic understanding of:

  • Their core purpose – their theology expressed in hundreds of thousands of pages of text, along with days of audio and video content.
  • The strategic communication approaches which underpin their da’wa; the missionary work often referred to by Western research as recruitment or radicalization. Such understanding will include how Salafi-Jihadi groups exploit the internet for strategic communication.
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31Gen/23

Beyond Remembrance. Traces of anti-Semitism in the current communication spaces – by Giacomo Buoncompagni

Communication, Terrorism, ,

The examples of genocide or individual cases of hate crimes are rather recent episodes and mainly concern the re-emergence of attitudes of racism and xenophobia. Among the phenomena of hostility and aggression towards ‘others’, anti-Semitism is a particular phenomenon that has been growing in recent years throughout Europe. It is in fact an ancient hatred, the ‘longest’ in the history of mankind, expressed towards Jews as such (or as Jean-Paul Sartre already observed, often even in the absence of Jews), but which today takes on new faces and characters depending on the social, cultural, and political context in which we live. Especially in the period around 27 January each year, Remembrance Day, there are punctual acts of anti-Semitism, even in Italy.

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15Dic/22

New Threats from Wagner PMC by – Giulia Porrino & Federico Borgonovo

Security, Terrorism, ,

On 23 November, the European Parliament adopted the resolution defining Russia as a state sponsor and user of terrorist modalities[1]. At the same venue, MEPs asked the EU Council to include the Wagner group and the 141st Motorized Regiment of Chechen fighters, also known as “Kadyrovites”, in the list of terrorist organizations of the European Union, as well as other armed militias. Continue reading →

09Nov/22

TERRORGRAM: Status dashboard after HARD-RESET

Terrorism, ,
  1. Terrorgram status dashboard after the countermeasures implemented by Telegram, in response to the HARD-RESET publication. The dashboard is composed of 5 sections: 
  • Definition of Terrorgram and a visual insight of its main propaganda production
  • Social network analysis of the Terrorgram’s channels core (every channel is identified with a code)
  • Top domain shared inside the Terrogram 
  • Top domain shared inside the Terrogram with the timeline
  • Languages detection
Terrorgram status dashboardOpen interactive dashboard