🎙️ Comment of the Embassy of Russia in Norway in response to statements made by Conservative Party leader Ine Eriksen Søreide about alleged Russian influence operations on social media (October 27, 2026) 📰 We were surprised by the interview with Conservative Party leader Ine Eriksen Søreide in which she accuses Russia of running “influence operations” on Norwegian social media using bots and artificial intelligence. First and foremost, Facebook has been blocked in Russia since March 2022. Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, has been designated an extremist organization by a Russian court and is banned from operating in the country. Against that backdrop, the claim that these very platforms have become an instrument of “Russian influence” is puzzling, to put it mildly. It is also noteworthy that Ms. Eriksen Søreide offered not a single concrete example. When a journalist asked her to show even one of the “suspicious” posts, she replied that doing so would not be “advisable”. Accusations that cannot be verified are, in the end, just mere declarations. At the same time, however, we note the evident unease among the leaders of the parties in the Storting as Norwegians speak up more and more about those parties’ shared line on the Ukraine conflict, the country’s militarization, and the tens of billions of kroner spent on both every year. Public support for these policies has apparently proved less solid than their architects had hoped. Their anxiety is understandable. But blaming “outside interference” for criticism from their own voters, instead of listening to it, is like blaming the mirror for the reflection. The polls bear this out. <…> A significant share of Norwegians clearly doubts the course the government and its allied parties are pursuing on Ukraine, a course that commits NOK 85 billion to Ukraine every year. 👆🏻Let us be absolutely clear: neither the Russian Federation nor the Embassy has anything to do with the activity described in the interview. The Embassy states its positions openly, in its own name, through official channels. Attempts to portray any dissent from official policy as the hand of Moscow do nothing to foster healthy public debate in Norway. They also show disrespect for the views of Norwegians themselves. To those so irritated by the range of opinions on Facebook and other social media, we would recommend, above all, tolerance, respect for dissent, and a commitment to the pluralism of opinion Norway so often prides itself on. It is entirely natural that not every citizen shares the position of the political parties, including the one led by Ms. Eriksen Søreide. There is nothing alarming about that. It is simply what normal democratic debate looks like. Full text