The Swedish edition of SVT, in cooperation with the Dossier Center, received documents from Russian special services that describe influence operations directed against European countries. As stated in these documents, they are inspired by the "success" of the action, during which Rasmus Paludan, a Swedish citizen, burned the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm, which slowed down the process of his country's accession to NATO.
One of the documents describes the scenario of the operation, during which, with the help of “locals or migrants”, it will be possible to incite conflicts by distributing a video with the burning of the Turkish flag or insults against Erdogan.
Another document describes an action that took place in Paris on March 5, 2023. During it, "protesters" gave Nazi salutes in front of banners with the Ukrainian flag and inscriptions directed against Erdogan. The document also contains about 60 links to social media accounts where videos of this information campaign were posted.
In the course of their own investigation, SVT journalists found at least ten such staged actions on the Internet, held from December 2022 to the present, criticizing the EU, NATO and Ukraine.
For example, in February, people were photographed in Paris holding placards that read “NATO, stop bombing Donetsk!”, “Don’t give weapons to Ukraine! Zelensky is bombing Donetsk and Luhansk” and “EU and America! Stop funding the war in Ukraine! At the same time, picketers with identical slogans were seen in Madrid, Brussels and The Hague.
SVT journalists got through to one of the protesters. He denied any involvement in it and assured that his Facebook profile, where photos from the picket were posted, had been hacked. However, after the end of the conversation, the man deleted his profile on the social network.
On January 21, Swedish citizen Rasmus Paludan burned a Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. He repeated this action on January 27 in Copenhagen (Denmark), saying that he "does not accept interference" by Recep Tayyip Erdogan "in the affairs of freedom of speech in Denmark and Sweden." On May 4, Swedish authorities arrested Paludan in absentia.
