Ms Keit Pentus-Rosimannus:

I thank all of the witnesses for an excellent start to the meeting. My first question is to Mr. Ben Nimmo. I admire his dedication and his previous work in the Atlantic Council's DFRLab. I echo Mr. Nimmo's comment that disinformation operations are not some sort of innocent, so-called meddling. Rather, they are blatant attacks against the core of democratic states. In Russia, as we know, they are part of the military doctrine. They are used as weaponry tools, and should be treated as such. Hence, a proper co-ordinated international response is definitely needed. It is something we have been missing thus far.

There have been recent examples of how Russia-backed influence networks and the manipulation techniques were used in Africa. They did not use faked profiles created in the St. Petersburg troll factory on that occasion: they hired locals. They basically bought their locals' profiles. I ask Mr. Nimmo to comment on whether this is something we can expect in upcoming big elections and to elaborate on the next things we should be waiting for?