Issue 2/2023 of New Eastern Europe is now available.

It has been almost a decade since Russia’s information operations became widely recognised as a means by which Moscow can reach out to influence western democracies. And throughout almost all of that period, one question that has consistently been raised is whether or not these information operations work.

In addition to high-profile interventions of Russian disinformation, such as attempts to influence elections in the United States, there are multiple other targeted campaigns in which Russia has sought to bring about specific outcomes in target countries. This has all been happening alongside long-running operations designed simply to degrade a particular country’s societal cohesion or trust in institutions.

A conversation with Mattia Caniglia, Roman Osadchuk and Ruslan Trad, disinformation experts with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Laboratory (DFRLab). Interviewers: Maciej Makulski and Adam Reichardt

Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression continues to make headlines around the world. However, what has not been discussed to any great extent is the fight against disinformation and collaborators on the home front. With no end in sight to the fighting, it is clear that such espionage could prove pivotal to the war’s outcome.

More than a year into Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine, the fight with Moscow’s propaganda is entering another important stage. Despite all the efforts of Ukraine’s special and secret services, there are still some pro-Russian Ukrainians or Russian citizens themselves who are spies, trying to provide essential information to the Russian Federal Security Service.

Identifying, analysing and countering foreign information interference and manipulation is one of the biggest challenges that the West will face for the foreseeable future. While it may be considered late, a lot has been done in this field both at the EU and international level. However, as the results of recent IRI research show, the need for further action is still clear.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24th 2022, the International Republican Institute (IRI)’s Beacon Project has been conducting analyses of online media data from multiple Central and Eastern European countries in order to track aspects of key narratives that have the potential to erode support for Ukraine.

While in the region Czechia can be considered a positive case in resisting authoritarian influence, it has been far from perfect, especially when considering its recent turbulence. Nevertheless, there are now a lot of practices countering malign influence – including that of China – in Czechia that could serve as examples for both the region and the wider EU.

Since February 24th 2022, the whole of Europe and the world have been witnessing a new phase in the Russian aggression against Ukraine, which has reshaped the European – and to a large extent also the global – security order. Issues such as the shelling of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, often described as “nuclear blackmail”, frightened the global community into fearing a repeat of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe in the Soviet Union.

De facto pro-Russian communities are clearly consolidating in the context of the upcoming Polish parliamentary elections. The groups in question are made up of people who have contacts with entities linked to the Russian state. We can assume that the Russian Federation not only supports such groups through the Polish-language sources it runs, but also has influence on the activity of some of the people operating within these communities.

By mid-2022, the first activities of those promoting pro-Russian statements in the Polish information sphere were clearly perceptible, indicating the growing consolidation of a broad pro-Russian community with political ambitions. The start of 2023, especially the first weeks of the year, only further showed this to be the trend.

A conversation with Agnieszka Legucka, an analyst with the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Interviewer: Maciej Makulski

MACIEJ MAKULSKI: Do you see a qualitative difference in Russia’s information war strategy in recent times, especially since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Or is it rather more of the same?

AGNIESZKA LEGUCKA: We are definitely in an information war. On the one hand Russia has been challenged by several blockades, especially in the European Union, of its so called media like RT, Sputnik, or 60 минут (60 minutes, a TV show broadcasted on the state-owned Channel One Russia – editor’s note). On the other hand, Russia has adapted to this new situation by moving to the “underground”, as seen through closed Facebook groups. Russian trolls have started to be much more active in several different countries. There is evidence that the trolls are very active in countries such as Hungary and Germany, which might be seen as weak spots.

An interview with Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe. Interviewers: Adam Reichardt and Agnieszka Widłaszewska

The crucial factor in Russia’s war against Ukraine is how to help Kyiv defend itself and win? There should be a straightforward answer: as Europeans, we should do everything in our power to assist the Ukrainians in stopping the Russian war of conquest and that Ukraine should decide the conditions of victory and the subsequent peace. Yet, unfortunately, there still is no consensus among the western partners of Ukraine on the war’s endgame.

It has been more than one year since Russia launched its full-scale invasion and over nine years since Moscow started its war in Ukraine. After the 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea, the Euro-Atlantic community made several attempts to recalibrate its security and defence policies. However, it was only after the shock of February 24th 2022 and its aftermath that most western states and societies experienced a rude awakening.

Iran is one of the largest and most influential countries in the Middle East. Given the protests of recent months and Iranian involvement in the Russian war in Ukraine, it is necessary to bring Iran back into the spotlight of geopolitical analysis.

Since mid-September 2022, people in Iran have been demonstrating against the regime. The protests were triggered by the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Jina Mahsa Amini. She was arrested by Iran's morality police for allegedly violating Islamic dress codes and died in police custody. The incident sparked mass protests across the country.

Putinism has been built as a model of the Russian state envisioned for decades, if not centuries. In this way, Putinism has ended history for all who are subordinate to it.

“The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century,” said Vladimir Putin in 2005. These infamous words were a sign that a political change had taken place in Russia. It marked a departure from the not so successful attempts at democracy building in the 1990s towards the path of authoritarianism. In that very same speech, however, Putin also declared the responsibility of the Russian Federation to protect Russian-speaking populations outside Russia, which was later used as the key argument to start aggression against Ukraine.