There is a need to counter Russian lies in Eastern Europe

Observer/Guardian:

Russia’s sprawling propaganda network may have failed to persuade much of the world that Ukraine is run by Nazis, that Crimea was annexed in a popular uprisingand/or that Germany is a failed state. But the barrage of misinformation has convinced some American politicians that the propaganda network is the greatest threat to US security in Europe since the Soviet Union evaporated.

Leading members of Congress are pushing for the US to revive its own propaganda machine, largely dormant in eastern Europe since the end of the cold war, to counter the rapidly multiplying Russian media barrage, from TV channels and news websites to internet trolls and think tanks pushing the Kremlin line. “Russia has deployed an information army inside television, radio and newspapers throughout Europe,” congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, told a hearing on Kremlin propaganda. “Russia’s propaganda machine is in overdrive, working to subvert democratic stability and foment violence.”

Royce has warned that Russian propaganda “may be more dangerous than any military, because no artillery can stop their lies from spreading and undermining US security interests in Europe”.

Congressman Eliot Engel said the situation required “a robust response from us”. The state department has become so alarmed it appealed to major media companies, including Sony Pictures, for help in combating the Kremlin’s “skewed version of reality”. But there is division over a push by Royce and others in Congress for Voice of America to play a more overtly propagandist role.
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“Russian propaganda is sometimes so crazy, it says such impossible things, it doesn’t have the effect of making people believe them but it breaks down people’s defences,” said Kadri Liik, a Russia and eastern Europe expert on the European Council on Foreign Relations in London. “It’s not just lies, in the way of Soviet propaganda. It’s more sophisticated. A kind of violence against the mind.”
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The Russian Ministry of Truth is very adept at lying.  It would be a mistake to ignore it.  I would suggest the best course would be to hire Jon Stewart to mock it.  Perhaps he could at least help Eastern European comics come up with a routine to ridicule the Russian propaganda.   I think the Russian mind has a difficult time dealing with satire and mockery.