I thank you for the question, Mr. Fergus.
In our view, the tipping point was 2007, when massive cyber-attacks were conducted against Estonia. Estonia was one of the first European countries to switch to all-digital for its government. In 2007, Russian hackers coordinated and attacked Estonian institutions, making the country almost ungovernable for a while. In our view, this date marked the beginning of hybrid warfare and massive virtual attacks.
Then, on social networks, there was a gradual evolution of Russian propaganda. In 2012 or 2013, with the creation of the Internet Research Agency, in St. Petersburg, it became massive and, above all, structured and thought out in a systematic way. These are the two dates that marked Russia's tipping point in the hybrid war against our democracies.
I insist on one thing: the analysis of these campaigns is fundamental to understanding the situation. When one is a European, Canadian or American democratic leader, it is difficult to understand that political leaders can have as their objective not to defend their interests to the maximum, but to sow chaos in other countries. One understands this by pragmatically studying different campaigns that have been conducted.
In France, for example, there were campaigns on the issue of police violence. Russian agents explained that the police were committing violence and railed against police violence, while the same troll farms in St. Petersburg encouraged the police to shoot into the crowd. The two poles are always fed simultaneously.
The contradiction in this kind of campaign is not a problem; it is the campaign itself.