EADaily; a worker bee in the Kremlin’s information war

The Russian news agency EurAsia Daily, abbreviated EADaily, was founded in 2015. It states that its main activity is to give an objective overview of politics and social processes in Eurasia. The editorial office is based in Moscow, with correspondents and observers in several of Russia’s neighboring countries: Armenia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, as well as in Russia’s dependent regions such as Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria.

The agency has no correspondent in Estonia. The news is collected from the Russian-language media in Estonia (ERR, Postimees, Delfi), as well as from local Kremlin propaganda publications such as Baltnews.

The agency publishes its news on its website eadaily.com

Eadaily.com fills the roll of an intermediary in the three-story structure of the Kremlin’s media machine.

Level I is picking sites that pick up local topics of interest to Kremlin propaganda. For example, Baltnews or Eesti Sputnik, which has now ceased operations.

Level II, intermediary sites, which collect such topics and distribute them to large Russian publications. As an example, in addition to EADaily, Regnum.

Level III is the amplifiers that channel the mediated news to a large audience. These include the most read portals in Russia and the most watched TV channels.

What does EADaily write about Estonia?
The agency often publishes stories about Estonia, but they clearly are not objective. Topics that match the Kremlin’s narratives are picked up. EADaily gives the impression that Estonia is a Russophobic Nazi state.

Some examples from last week. The November 27 news on Martin Helme had the headline of, “The leader of the Estonian Nazis was elected the most influential person in the country”. The news of November 25 was titled “Estonia has a new Minister of Education. The Russians are terrified. ” Links to the news can be found on the Propamon webpage.

Due to this style, it is no wonder that EADaily is considered as having a big role in the launching of anti-Estonian propaganda attacks. For example, the amplification of Mart Helme’s words in October and the referral in September of boat refugees escaping Soviet terror in WWII as Nazis can be highlighted. The arrival of masks in Estonia in the Spring was also presented as Russian humanitarian aid. All references to EADaily-related propaganda attacks can be found here.

Estonia is not the only nation troubled by the agency’s information attacks. The Belarusian publication Belsat has ranked the five most serious fake news items against their country, several of which bear the name EADaily.

Key people involved in EADaily
Boris Sorkin is the owner and co-founder of the agency. He was also one of the founders of Regnum, one of the most hateful anti-Estonian news agencies. He is associated with several media outlets and soft power funds in Russia.

Vigen Akopyan is the owner of the agency and former editor-in-chief. Until 2014, he was Regnum’s editor-in-chief and left after the agency was acquired by Gazprom Media. Ukraine has entered his name on the Mirotvorets webpage, which lists participants in the information war against Ukraine.

The head of the agency is Alexei Jakovlev and the editor-in-chief is former Regnum journalist Alexei Demin.

We moved EADaily to Propastop’s black list
The black list brings together a group of media publications hostile to Estonia, the content of which cannot be considered as balanced press. In the case of the Russian media, the criteria for inclusion on the list is the content of the publications, the connection of important people with the Kremlin’s system of power, as well as the restrictions imposed on them by Estonian allies.

The main reason for moving EADaily onto the black list is because of the agency’s content and editing style. A strong argument for the move is also the close connection with Regnum, where several people in key positions are associated with the Kremlin, such as the editor-in-chief, Modest Kolerov.

We call for the publications on the black list not to be quoted or for the news published there not to be cited without a clear overview of the propagandistic nature of the publication. We also encourage Estonian companies to stop buying ads with sites on the black list.

Pictures: screenshots. Blacklist image: Propastop.