ULYANOVSK, March 21. /TASS/. The United States and its allies are conducting an all-out information campaign the purpose of which is to discredit Russia and to ruin its statehood, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said at a meeting in Ulyanovsk on Tuesday.
"The US-led collective West has launched a large-scale information campaign with the aim to discredit our country and liquidate Russian statehood," he said.
As Patrushev said, the growing external information and ideological impact on Russian society is aimed at "destroying Russia’s basic ideological and moral values and family traditions, reformatting historical memory, splitting society along ethnic, cultural and religious lines, as well as inciting terrorism and extremism."
This agenda, he stressed, is supported by certain extremist pseudo-political structures, whose leaders abroad call for a change in the political system and the dismembering of the country. Foreign non-governmental non-profit organizations, as well as West-controlled media structures, are actively involved in manipulating the public mind, Patrushev said.
"With the general supervision of foreign secret services, protest and separatist sentiments are being fueled. The organizers of protest demonstrations, using anonymous messaging systems (Telegram, WhatsApp), are exerting intensive attempts in a bid to destabilize the situation in Russia’s regions," he warned.
Patrushev said that foreign propaganda centers "are building up a network of controlled journalists and so-called bloggers, whose main efforts are focused on organizing information campaigns that denigrate Russia."
On West’s falsehoods about special operation in Ukraine
"The events associated with the special military operation in Ukraine are used as the main occasion for stirring panic and shaking loose the socio-political situation and undermining popular trust towards the country's leadership. Falsehoods about progress in the special military operation are being circulated," he said.
Patrushev pointed to attempts to spread calls via the Internet for sabotage, attacks on military and administrative facilities, and transport and social infrastructure facilities.