With broader hybrid threats crossing different domains, the European External Action Service (EEAS) and the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) publish today a joint report on the relation between cybersecurity and FIMI to better understand and adapt to the evolving threat landscape. The report puts forward and tests an analytical approach to describe the creation and […]
Throwing mud at everyone and hoping some of it sticks
Since 24 February of this year, Russia has gone all out in using its diplomatic network to push its disinformation narratives across different social media platforms. For example, last week the EU launched the European Union Military Assistance Mission (EUMAM) in support of Ukraine. The aim of the mission is to boost the military capabilities […]
Smoke, mirrors and gas: the Kremlin deflects blame for the energy crisis
The phrase ‘smoke and mirrors’ refers to a 19th-century illusion that magicians used to project an image in the air. Since then, it has come to mean chicanery and deception. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Russian state and pro-Kremlin outlets have been active in spreading disinformation related to energy – […]
Pro-Kremlin Propaganda running out of Gas
This week, the Kremlin finally showed its cards when spokesperson Dmitry Peskov admitted the obvious. Namely, that Russia’s gas supplies to the EU have been and will stay on hold not because of supposed maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, but because gas is a tool of political blackmail in the Kremlin’s toolbox of […]
Key Narratives in Pro-Kremlin Disinformation: ‘The Hahaganda’
A defining feature of pro-Kremlin disinformation is its repetitiveness. For all the outrageous claims they make, pro-Kremlin outlets often sound like a broken record sticking to just a handful of basic messages for domestic and international audiences. This is not by accident or oversight, it is by design: repetition makes lies sound more believable. Pro-Kremlin […]
Kremlin’s Never-Ending Thirst for Death and Devastation
Pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets continue to call immense human suffering liberation and the ruins temporarily fallen into Russian hands tokens of glorious victory. Similarly, without any hesitation, Kremlin spin-doctors turn a terror strike against a shopping mall with Soviet-era cruise missiles loaded with one-ton warheads a surgical precision attack against a justified military target. Russian mouthpieces […]
Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation
Commission welcomes the publication of the strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation. The 34 signatories, such as platforms, tech companies and civil society followed the 2021 Commission Guidance and took into account the lessons learnt from the COVID19 crisis and Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine. The reinforced Code builds on the first Code of Practice of 2018, which […]
Kremlin Hate Speech Incites War Crimes in Ukraine
After years of collecting, analysing and archiving examples of Russian disinformation on the EUvsDisinfo platform, they have come to expect a certain degree of bombast and unpredictability from pro-Kremlin disinformation outlets. Sure, the overall course of disinformation and propaganda is clear, with the same narratives playing out time and time again, like a broken record. […]
Disinformation Fuelling Food Insecurity
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has repercussions far outside Ukraine’s borders. Three months into Russia’s senseless and brutal aggression, the United Nations World Food Programm (UNWFP) is warning about a global hunger crisis and looming threat of famine – fallout from the war. Known as the breadbasket of Europe, Ukraine has long been one of the world’s top […]