Brad Smith, president of the Semafor company, speaking at the World Economic Summit of the Semafor news agency Microsoft has warned that Russian agentsboth from the country’s intelligence services and from the mercenary group Wagner, are trying to do this infiltrate online gaming communities. The manager was referring to a security analysis carried out by Microsoft itself.

Brad Smith said they have from Microsoft “He advised governments on this. It’s the Wagner Group, it’s Russian intelligence, and they’re using some of that [las comunidades en torno a los juegos] to circulate information. That’s what happened here. This included a Discord channel around Minecraft and more [comunidades]”.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine definitively ended up returning the world to what many believed to be the Cold War, when hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union reached such extremes that many predicted World War III. out by both powers. Three decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States, which expanded its influence in Eastern Europe, and Russia, which shrank with the collapse of the Soviet Union, ended with the explosion of tragedy in Ukraine.

The current Russian government, led by Vladimir Putin, has a staunch ally in the Wagner Group, a private mercenary company. Brad Smith went further in his statements when he said yes is the Wagner Group “regarded as a de facto unit of the Ministry of Defense or the Russian military intelligence agency GRU”. The acronym GRU is still used to denote the Main Directorate of the High General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, although it has been officially deprecated since 2010.

Smith emphasized the importance of limiting disruption Russian agents in gaming communities because they can spread propaganda and false information related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although on the other hand he acknowledged that it is not the most pressing in terms of the war. “It’s not like playing Call of Duty causes death in the real world, that’s video games” Smith said, perhaps trying to prevent the resurgence of certain black legends that have always accompanied video games.

president of microsoft @BradSmi says the Wagner Group and Russian intelligence are working to infiltrate gaming communities to use them “as a place to get information into circulation.” pic.twitter.com/F7CCmaqOvu

— Semaphore (@semaphor) April 12, 2023

There is no denying that combating propaganda and misinformation is important, but it would also be important to highlight the blatant Atlanticist propaganda spread by many Western media that sells us a vision of the world taken from Marvel comics. This does not diminish in the slightest the gravity of the atrocity committed by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

Brad Smith’s words at the Semafor event came shortly after Jack Douglas Teixeira leaked the classified Pentagon Papers.. In these documents, which were distributed through media such as Discord, Twitter, 4Char and Telegram, there is information about the possible deployment of NATO special forces in Ukraine, about the operations of the Wagner Group in Africa, Israel, South Korea and the Emirates. United Arab Emirates.