Russia, the Balkans and the European elections

A US-European coordination mechanism for the Western Balkans will specifically deal with the fight against information manipulation and propaganda orchestrated by Moscow. The conflict is particularly acute in the area through which Russian gas pipelines pass.

Sofia (AsiaNews) - The US State Department and the European Foreign Relations Service have announced the launch of an American-European coordination mechanism for the Western Balkans, which will specifically deal with the fight against Foreign Information, Manipulation and Interference (Fimi), dezinformatsija and propaganda orchestrated by Russia.

According to the statement, the Fimi aims to ‘strengthen the integrity of the information space’ in this particularly sensitive area.

The decision to take the initiative in this area is an attempt to curb outside intrusiveness in the face of major electoral appointments, such as the one for the European Parliament at the end of this week, at which there was a marked intensification of propaganda orchestrated by the Kremlin to try to divide the forces in the field and weaken the entire EU system.

Expressing the great unease of the European institutions, especially in the Balkans, was Bulgarian MEP Aleksandr Jordanov, according to whom ‘Russian agents hammer on the prediction that the EU will break up, that the countries that join it will lose their national sovereignty and that European values are alien to the traditions of the peoples, theses that resonate even within the parliament itself’.

Already at the end of April, the MEPs had passed a resolution ‘resolutely condemning’ the attempts to interfere in and sabotage European democratic processes, fuelled by Russia's support.

The parliament declared itself ‘appalled’ at the proven allegations of payments by some MEPs to disseminate Russian propaganda, and the fact that some of them participated in the activities of Kremlin-controlled media such as Voice of Europe, at the very time when Russia was multiplying its attacks on Ukraine.

In particular, the arrest of the assistant of the Alternative for Deutschland deputy, Maximilian Krah, on suspicion of receiving money from Moscow and of collaborating with the Chinese secret services caused a stir.

After this incident, the EuNews bulletin reported the fact that ‘while the European Union is raising the level of attention to the risks of disinformation and foreign interference on the eve of the European elections, some member states have still not implemented the measures approved two years ago against Russia and its propaganda channels such as Sputnik and RT, whose branches are still active in some European capitals. These materials are paradoxically available directly via the European Commission's press room in Brussels.

Despite the closure of Russian media in Europe, the dissemination of Kremlin propaganda ‘has never been so active’, EuNews points out, ‘both in the quantity and the quality of these campaigns’, as a senior EU official points out, showing that ‘we were not ready to respond adequately’.

The methods of disinformation are constantly being perfected, using ever more powerful and refined tools such as artificial intelligence, launching content crosswise on different platforms at the same time. This is Russia's ‘hybrid warfare’, sustained by hacking, espionage, propaganda and sabotage, all the way to attacks and assassinations.

As analyst Ivan Klyšč of the International Centre for Defence and Security in Estonia writes, ‘the fundamental aim of this war is to annihilate the strength of spirit in European societies, starting with the issue of support for Ukraine’.

These are real acts of war, which shatter the boundaries between war and peace, creating the dilemma of how to react. Many European governments are trying to adopt appropriate strategies, and in Balkan countries such as Bulgaria the opposition is particularly acute, as it is also the area through which Russian gas pipelines to Europe pass, and as the former prime minister of Sofia, Nikolaj Denkov, puts it, ‘on this battlefield the Europeans must decide to attack’.

• Russia
• Moscow
• European Union
• Bulgaria
• hybrid warfare
• dezinformatsija