The European Union's anti-disinformation team last month exposed a Russian-language video on YouTube that claimed citizens were fleeing a dictatorship in EU member Poland and seeking refuge in Belarus, a close ally of Moscow.
The story repeats the pro-Kremlin narrative that Warsaw has aggressive militaristic intentions and democratic failures in Poland and the wider EU, said the team known as Stratcom.
Stratcom, as reported by Reuters, also said it was part of a wider Russian disinformation campaign that Europe is trying to combat ahead of the June 6-9 European Parliament elections.
The footage fits a pattern: Russian-linked sites take pro-Kremlin content from state-controlled media and pro-Kremlin social media accounts, repackage it, including translation, and distribute it through new channels targeting audiences in the EU, European officials told Reuters. .
Over the past ten years, Russia has been the target of numerous accusations of conducting disinformation campaigns targeting elections in the US, Europe and Britain, although Moscow denies using disinformation to influence public opinion.
A 2023 US intelligence assessment said Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state media to undermine public confidence in the integrity of elections around the world.
European capitals warn of the pre-election growth of disinformation, but its impact is difficult to assess.
"Spreading operations by Russia, China and other actors, including domestic groups, have the potential to disrupt the online narrative around the EU elections," Jack Stubbs, chief intelligence officer at the social media analysis firm Grafika, told the British agency. network.
"We've seen evidence to suggest that even the people running the operations can't tell with certainty whether they're having an impact."
The Stratcom team, which has 40 members and a budget of 15 million euros, is on the front lines of Brussels' fight against disinformation. However, the 27-member bloc does not have enough resources for that fight, said two EU officials.
"We cannot organize an offensive from Brussels," said Peter Stano, spokesman for the diplomatic service of the European Commission, adding that such activity should take place at the level of member states.
Most, though not all, EU members are fighting their own battle against disinformation, but resources vary and experts say European efforts are uneven.
As a result, mainstream parties are vulnerable to disinformation campaigns that fuel resentment by fueling voter discontent and bolstering support for nationalist parties in France, Germany and elsewhere.
According to the EU's second annual report on disinformation, published last year, Poland and Germany are the most targeted countries within the EU. France and Serbia, which is not a member of the EU, are also among the main targets.
Moscow claims that the West is waging an information war that includes false claims aimed at destroying Russia's reputation and portraying it as an enemy.
Officials in Russia argue that the West has become so intolerant that it refuses to accept any position that contradicts the prevailing dominant narrative.
The French Minister for European Affairs, Jean-Noel Barot, told a local newspaper in April that his country was "infested" with Russian disinformation.
Attacks on France include the creation of a fake French government website that claims 200 citizens have been drafted to fight in Ukraine, as well as causing panic over a mite epidemic in Paris.
"Not a week goes by without France being the target of coordinated and deliberate maneuvers to disrupt the public debate on interference in the campaign for the European elections," Barot said.
Microsoft announced yesterday that the Olympic Games in Paris are also being targeted by misinformation.
"Most worrying is the misinformation spread by pro-Russian actors trying to present themselves as militant organizations and falsify threats in the context of the conflict between Israel and Hamas," the company said.
Tomaž Klon, the Polish government's commissioner for combating international disinformation, told Reuters that blocking websites does not produce results because it is like squeezing a balloon and it bursts somewhere else.
Efforts to combat disinformation vary across Europe.
France has tasked Viginum, its 42-member foreign disinformation watchdog, with monitoring Russian-linked social media accounts and uncovering influence operations. Spain has a working group that uses instruments developed by Europol to coordinate the national response.
The Italian political opposition has drawn up a bill that includes the creation of a unit dedicated to exposing disinformation. Slovakia, whose government has been the target of accusations that it is pro-Russia, has largely suppressed a unit it says is staffed by "activist officials" tasked with making sure "there is only one right opinion".
"In general, the reaction is very uneven," Valentin Chatalet, a researcher at the Atlantic Council's digital forensics laboratory, told Reuters.
In a sign that Europe intends to tackle the problem more forcefully, EU members last month suspended four Russian media entities, including the Czech-registered Voice of Europe portal, calling them propaganda networks linked to the Kremlin.
The Kremlin has announced that there will be consequences for Western journalists in Moscow.
The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) requires big tech companies to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content. Generative Artificial Intelligence has enabled foreign actors to spread misinformation faster and easier, EU officials said.
“Before, with trolls and bots, there was usually a person behind it. Now, with AI, everything has multiplied", said Stano.
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