ICDS Chief Executive Dmitri Teperik participated in the adversarial intent symposium “Putin’s Russia: The weaponization of society”, held in Kingston, Canada on 10-12 October 2017 and organised by the Royal Military College of Canada in collaboration with Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) and NATO SAS-117 research task group.
The symposium tackled the topics of Russia’s proxies, cyber influence activities by external actors, role of culture and citizenship in weaponization of society, weaponization of organized crime, private sector and other non-state assets, secession movements, characterizing and countering Russian information activities and others. Dmitri Teperik made a presentation on analysis of Russian-language public posts and profiles in social media in Estonia. The study is conducted by the National Centre of Defence & Security Awareness. The main conclusion of the study is that Russian-language social media networks are being actively used for generating and distributing hostile narratives and toxic disinformation.