DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A fake video that ricocheted across the internet claiming tensions between France and the United Arab Emirates after Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's detention in Paris likely came from Russia, an analysis by The Associated Press shows, despite Moscow's efforts to maintain crucial ties to the UAE.
It remains unclear why Russian operatives would choose to publish such a video falsely claiming the Emirates halted a French arms sale, which appears to be the first noticeable effort by Moscow to target the UAE with a disinformation campaign. The Emirates remains one of the few locations to still have direct flights to Moscow, while Russian money has flooded into Dubai's booming real estate market since President Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
France, however, remains one of the key backers of Ukraine and its President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the war grinds on. Meanwhile, Russia likely remains highly interested in what happens to Telegram, an app believed to be used widely by its military in the war and one that's also been used by activists in the past. And the move comes amid concerns in the United States over Russia, Iran and China interfering in the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Russia's Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
The fake video began circulating online Aug. 27, bearing the logos of the Qatar-based satellite news network Al Jazeera and attempting to copy the channel's style. It falsely claimed the Emirati government had halted a previously announced purchase of 80 Rafale fighter jets from France worth 16 billion euros ($18 billion) at the time, the largest-ever French weapons contract for export. It also sought to link Dubai's ruler and his crown prince son to the decision, as Durov holds an Emirati passport and has lived in Dubai.
Such a decision, however, was never made. The UAE and France maintain close relations, with the French military operating a naval base in the country. French warplanes and personnel also are stationed in a major facility outside the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi.
Reached for comment, Al Jazeera told the AP that the footage was “fake and we refute this attribution to the media network.” The network never aired any such claim when reporting on Durov’s detention as well, according to an AP check. On the social platform X, a note later appended by the company to some posts with the video identified it as “manipulated media.”
The video also appeared to seek to exploit the low-level suspicion still gripping the Gulf Arab states following the yearslong Qatar diplomatic crisis by falsely attributing it to the news network. State-funded Al Jazeera has drawn criticism in the past from Gulf nations over its coverage of the 2011 Arab Spring, from the United States for airing videos from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and most recently in Israel, where authorities closed its operation over its coverage of the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The social media account that first spread the video did not respond to questions from the AP and later deleted its post. That account linked to another on the Telegram message app that repeatedly shared graphic images of dead Ukrainian soldiers and pro-Russian messages.
Such accounts have proliferated since the war began and bear the hallmark of past Russian disinformation campaigns.
In Ukraine, the Center for Countering Disinformation in Kyiv, a government project there focused on countering such Russian campaigns, told the AP that the account engaged in “systematic cross-quoting and reposting of content” associated with Russian state media and its government.
That indicates the account “is aimed at an international audience for the purpose of informational influence,” the center said. It “probably belongs to the Russian network of subversive information activities abroad.”
Other experts assessed the video to be likely Russian disinformation.
The Emirati government declined to comment. The French Embassy in Abu Dhabi did not respond to AP's request to comment.
Durov is now free on 5 million euros bail after being questioned by French authorities and preliminarily charged for allegedly allowing Telegram to be used for criminal activity. He has disputed the charges and promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app.
Despite the video being flagged as fake online, captions and versions of the video continue to circulate, showing the challenge of trying to refute such messages. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov just attended a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Saudi Arabia attended by the UAE. Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have mediated prisoner exchanges amid the war.
Given those close ties, the UAE likely will or has reached out quietly to Moscow over the video, said Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute who has long studied the region.
“It may be that this is a part of the Russian playbook which is to seek to create wedges between political and security partners, in a bid to create divisions and sow uncertainty," Ulrichsen said.
“The importance of the UAE to Russia post-2022 does make it unusual, but it may be that the campaign is aimed primarily at France and that any impact on the UAE’s image and reputation is a secondary issue as far as those behind the video are concerned.”
Associated Press writer Volodymr Yurchuk in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
FILE - United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron pose for photographers ahead of their working dinner at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Thursday, May 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea blew up the northern parts of inter-Korean roads no longer in use on Tuesday, South Korea said, after the rivals exchanged threats of destruction amid rising animosities over North Korea’s claim that South Korea flew drones over its capital.
The roads’ demolition is a display of North Korea’s growing loathing of South Korea’s conservative government, as its leader Kim Jong Un has vowed to sever relations with South Korea and abandon the goal of achieving peaceful Korean unification.
Observers say it’s still unlikely for Kim to launch preemptive, large-scale attacks on South Korea, because that would certainly invite massive retaliation by the more superior South Korea-U.S. force that will pose a threat to his survival.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff also said South Korea's military fired within southern sections of the border in response to the explosions. Its statement did not give details on the firing. It could have been an attempt to avert cross-border fire by North Korea. It wasn't immediately known whether North Korea has made any response.
South Korea’s military said it is bolstering its readiness and surveillance posture in coordination with the United States.
Video provided by South Korea’s military showed a cloud of white and gray smoke emerging from the explosion at a road near the border town of Kaesong and North Korea sending trucks and excavators to clear out the debris. Another video showed smoke emerging from a coastal road near the Korea’s eastern border.
North Korea has a history of staging choreographed events to destroy facilities on its soil as a political message.
In 2020, North Korea blew up an empty, South Korean-built liaison office building just north of the border in retaliation for South Korean civilian leafleting campaigns. In 2018, North Korea demolished tunnels at its nuclear testing site at the start of nuclear diplomacy with the U.S. In 2008, North Korea blew up a cooling tower at its main nuclear complex when earlier disarmament-for-aid negotiations with the U.S. and others were alive.
Destroying the roads would be in line with leader Kim Jong Un’s order in January to eliminate the goal of a peaceful Korean unification, formally designate South Korea as the country’s “invariable principal enemy” and define the North’s sovereign, territorial sphere. Kim’s order stunned many outside North Korea watchers because it seemed to break from his predecessors’ long-cherished dreams of unifying the Korean Peninsula on the North’s terms.
Experts say Kim likely aims to diminish South Korea’s voice in the regional nuclear standoff and seek direct dealings with the U.S. They say Kim also likely hopes to diminish South Korean cultural influence and bolster his rule at home.
North Korea has accused South Korea of infiltrating drones to drop propaganda leaflets over Pyongyang three times this month and threatened to respond with force if it happened again. South Korea has refused to confirm whether it sent drones but warned North Korea would face the end of its regime if the safety of South Korean citizens is threatened.
North Korea put frontline artillery and other army units on standby to launch strikes on South Korea, if drones from South Korea are found over North Korea again. The North Korean Defense Ministry said that the entire South Korean territory “might turn into piles of ashes” following the North’s powerful attack.
North Korea's state media reported earlier Tuesday that Kim Jong Un called a meeting with his top military and security officials the previous day. During the meeting, Kim described the alleged South Korean drone flights as the “enemy’s serious provocation” and laid out unspecified tasks related to “immediate military action” and the operation of his “war deterrent” for defending the country’s sovereignty, the North's Korean Central News Agency said.
During the previous era of inter-Korean detente in the 2000s, the two Koreas reconnected two road routes and two rail tracks across their heavily fortified border. But their operations later were suspended one by one as the Koreas wrangled over North Korea’s nuclear program and other issues.
Last week, North Korea said it would permanently block its border with South Korea and build front-line defense structures to cope with “confrontational hysteria” by South Korean and U.S. forces. South Korean officials said North Korea had already been adding anti-tank barriers and laying mines along the border since earlier this year. They said North Korea has also planted mines and removed lamps along its sections of the inter-Korean roads and taken out ties on the northern side of the railways.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have sharply increased in recent years, with North Korea performing a run of provocative missile tests and South Korea and the U.S. expanding their military drills
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A visitor walks near a wire fence decorated with ribbons written with messages wishing for the reunification of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A TV screen reports North Korea has blown up parts of northern side of inter-Korean roads during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A visitor walks near a wire fence decorated with ribbons written with messages wishing for the reunification of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A visitor walks by a map of railroad and road between two Koreas cities, South's Munsan and North's Kaesong, at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Barricades are placed near the Unification Bridge, which leads to the Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
Barricades are placed near the Unification Bridge, which leads to the Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)
A TV screen reports North Korea has blown up parts of northern side of inter-Korean roads during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen reports North Korea has blown up parts of northern side of inter-Korean roads during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. The sign on the screen reads, "North-South Gyeongui and Donghae roads line connection section." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen reports North Korea has blown up parts of northern side of inter-Korean roads during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. The sign on the screen reads, "North-South Gyeongui and Donghae roads line connection section." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen reports North Korea has blown up parts of northern side of inter-Korean roads during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. The sign on the screen reads, "North-South Gyeongui and Donghae roads line connection section." (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A TV screen reports North Korea has blown up parts of northern side of inter-Korean roads during a news program at Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean visitors look at a map which shows a border area of two Koreas with a railroad line between Munsan city in south and Kaesong in north, at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Barricades are placed near the Unification Bridge, which leads to the Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in Paju, South Korea, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A North Korean soldier stands guard at the North's military guard post as a North Korean flag flutters in the wind, as seen from Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
South Korean army soldiers patrol along the barbed-wire fence in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
