Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes on Tuesday accused Russia of using “fake news” to sow confusion in Europe about the threat that refugees might pose there, and even to confuse people about how a civilian airliner was shot down over Ukraine in 2014.
“Fake news is created all across European countries,” Rhodes told reporters at the Foreign Press Center on Tuesday when asked about Russia.
“There have been plenty of reports… that are intended to promote… seed doubt and division inside of Europe, to elevate the concerns about refugees,” he said. “Fake stories about what refugees are doing in Europe, crimes that they’re committing.”
“There is direct funding and support for political parties of a particular bent in European countries. This is all plain for people to see,” he added.
“We respect that Russia will have its own interests,” Rhodes added. “The basic problem is, we’re not operating even from a position of trying to establish any facts for how we address issues.”
He said the 2014 shoot down of an unarmed civilian airplane over Ukraine was another example of Russia trying to confuse people.
“A civilian airliner is shot down over Ukraine, and on the one hand, we have… professionals painstakingly recreating the entire airplane, and doing a lengthy investigation to arrive at a fact-based conclusion, as against just all types of different theories and information being put out by Russia about what happened,” he said. “And that plays out time and again.”
The issue of Russia and “fake news” came up earlier Tuesday, when the U.S. representative to the United Nations Samantha Power noted that Russia argued the UN was using “fake news” to criticize Russia’s military support of Syria.
Rhodes himself has been in trouble with the press for admitting in a New York Times Magazine interview that officials created an “echo chamber” with inexperienced reporters in order to help sell the Iran nuclear deal.
“They were saying things that validated what we had given them to say,” he said of how the White House team worked the press.
