North Macedonia may not be the first country that comes to mind when discussing Russian propaganda. Despite this, the small Balkan state continues to grapple with consistent efforts by the Kremlin to influence domestic politics. Such campaigns are ultimately designed to challenge the nation’s continued desire to further integrate with the West through EU membership.

Supporting democracy does not come cheap, but then again freedom is also costly. In Kherson, Bakhmut and Zaporizhzhia the cost is in human lives. In Europe it is in the ever-rising electricity and utility bills. For North Macedonia, a small country in the middle of the Western Balkans, prices are not the only problem. The youngest member so far of NATO, for the past several months especially, has faced textbook hybrid attacks intended to create fear, panic and distrust in state institutions.

In the era of social divisions, public disputes and widespread polarisation of views, one phenomenon seems indisputable – social media has become an important element of life both in the private and public spheres. Understanding the peculiarities of these tools has also become an important social and business skill. Yet should social media management be considered a political and military competence as well? The Russian war in Ukraine suggests a positive answer. The terms “like”, “share”, “click”, “comment”, “tweet” or “swipe” have begun to have serious consequences and are – literally – a weapon of mass (media) destruction.

In today’s world, intelligence and information are inextricably and even more connected; the doctrine views intelligence as information that a state finds essential in making a decision.

Since the beginning of the protests the presence of the Russian media and its “journalists” in Belarus has significantly increased.

Russian disinformation activities in Georgia, a front-runner in the Eastern Partnership, illustrates how Russian propaganda works on a variety of levels. Understanding the Georgian case may provide an insight into how to counter such hybrid activities in the country and elsewhere in the West.

Today, no one argues with the fact that Russian propaganda is a global challenge. Over the past few years we have witnessed how well-structured disinformation campaigns can be used as a tool for achieving certain strategic goals: to shape public opinion, increase political polarisation, influence elections, demonise opponents, undermine state security, boost nihilism and cripple democracy. As the Soviet-born British journalist, author and TV producer Peter Pomerantsev wrote: “The Kremlin weaponises information!”

Interview by She’s In Russia, co-hosted by Olivia Capozzalo and Smith Freeman.

Since 2013, Russian media has been disseminating anti-Ukrainian propaganda which would enable and explain Russian intervention in Donbas. If the region is ever reintegrated into Ukraine, the Ukrainian government and people will need a lot of work and effort to reverse the negative image of the country in the minds of Donbas people.

A review of How Propaganda Works . By: Jason Stanley, Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, USA, 2015.

In order to understand the wide-reaching implications of post-truth, one should first look at its sources. Alternative facts and post-truth have been used by governments, such as that of Russia, in the strategic shaping of national identity. In the initial hours and days after unexpected events, elite-level individuals play a decisive role in framing the mainstream interpretations despite the utter lack of concrete information. Even after further information comes out, the wider public will perceive it in the context of previously constructed narratives. In terms of social media, Twitter acts as ground zero for shaping interpretations due to its immediacy and the limited size of its posts.

Within the last several years, Russia’s information techniques and their application in Europe and elsewhere have been the focus of research of many scholars in defense, security and other areas of study. A lot of these scholars have considered the improvement and relative success of their application as part of the supposedly emerged hybrid warfare doctrine. However, a closer look at Russia’s recently displayed informational capabilities in Europe points to the presence of Soviet-inherited practices of information operations, which were used by the USSR against the West after the Second World War. Among these practices applied by the USSR and later inherited by Russia are so-called “active measures.” Recently, they have been used by the Kremlin in the Ukraine crisis as well as Europe, where it has worked on sowing discord and creating a sense of disunity among EU and NATO member states.

Propaganda comes with a lot of myths and delusions, as the term has been widely overused in the past. Usually linked to rigid principles and a core ideology, it might seem inappropriate or inconsistent to use it nowadays, since we are overwhelmed by all kinds of theories, from the most conspiratorial to the more credible ones. Yet, we should not avoid the topic. As we are witnessing a new global-scale competition in the media sector, propaganda seems to be appearing once again. Western democracies, the cradle of countless independent newspapers, are witnessing a general crisis of confidence, general transition to the Internet and a declining quality of journalism.In light of such a crisis, at the opposite end of the spectrum, a new model of journalism is emerging. This model is characterised by a vertical chain of command, similar to military organisations, and an ambiguous attitude to the truth. The competition seems unequal; the latter type is becoming increasingly widespread and the traditional model of journalism, based upon a long tradition trust between the author and the reader, is gradually losing ground.