Strategic Communications Task Force

The East StratCom Task Force, an operational working group on strategic communications, is an expert group created by the European Foreign Policy Service (EEAS) in April 2015 based on a decision taken at a European Union meeting on March 19–20, 2015, on the need to “counter ongoing disinformation campaigns from Russia ” ^[1] . The service is designed to support the delegations of the European Union in Azerbaijan , Armenia , Belarus , Georgia , Moldova , Russia and Ukraine . Since August 2015, the British diplomat Giles Portman has been at the head of the service . ^[2] It is alleged that the group includes four full-time employees of the EEAS and five experts in the field of communications and Russian studies delegated by the governments of the countries: Great Britain , Denmark , Latvia , Czech Republic and Estonia ^[3] ; About 400 journalists and experts from its target countries collaborate with the group ^[4] .

According to the website of the operational working group, its tasks include actively explaining key aspects of the European Union’s policy, creating its positive image and countering misinformation ^[5] . The group publishes the weekly newsletter “Disinformation Overview” ^[6] and edits the official Russian-language website of the EEAS ^[7] .

"European" information special forces "" called the task force of the Russian media ^[8] . A number of Western experts, however, expressed cautious skepticism about the capabilities of the new body ^{[3] [9]} .

In March 2018, the lower house of the Dutch parliament called for the abolition of the working group, after it designated a number of Dutch media materials as misinformation. Relevant materials were removed from the portal of the working group after the Dutch media appealed to the court ^{[10] [11]} . In April 2018, PACE reiterated its support for the decision to create a group ^[12] .