Russia will likely try to prevent the approval of the security cooperation agreement between the US and the Czech Republic, Czech Security Information Service Director Michal Koudelka said at a conference in the lower chamber of the Czech parliament on Monday.
The defence agreement, which should strengthen the two countries cooperation, was recently signed by defence ministers of the US and the Czech Republic in Washington. However, it still needs the approval of the Czech parliament.
“It can be assumed that the Russians will use all their means, including hard disinformation, even of a personal or even intimate nature, a fifth column in our country and so on, to prevent the approval of this agreement,” Koudelka said.
As the Czech News Agency reported, Koudelka is convinced that it is necessary to distinguish between normal political debate, which belongs to democracy, and disinformation attacks by pro-Russian actors against the treaty.
Several other European states have also signed a bilateral security cooperation agreement with the US. For example, in Slovakia, the deal became a target of a disinformation campaign and sparked harsh criticism from the opposition parties and the public.
Koudelka warned against such type of disinformation, which can lower the moral and psychological spirit of the public and break the unity of NATO. In his view, one can expect increasingly sophisticated disinformation dissemination in the future. He warned that it would consist of the improvement and better availability of technologies, especially artificial intelligence-generated text.
“The Russians can monitor our telephone communications. They have sufficient technical means to do so, located in the premises of the Russian Embassy in Prague,” Koudelka emphasised.
(Aneta Zachová | EURACTIV.cz)
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