Disinformation Crash Course 2#: The Targets

Have you ever found yourself lured into a political conversation by a relative at a family gathering? They ask you for your thoughts on a particular narrative that you know to be disinformation.

You’re fully aware of their opinion, because you’ve previously attempted a calm debate to no avail. Nevertheless, your uncle swears he’s not looking for a fight. So, you take the bait and tell him something he doesn’t want to hear.

The “conversation” ends with you questioning why you even bothered taking a degree in international relations. Although this article cannot answer such queries, what it can do is to help you understand why disinformation seems to work so well on people.

This requires a deep dive into the psychology of a country and its communities. By understanding national memory and lived experiences, you may start to get a better idea of why some choose to align with certain narratives.

This is the second blog post in the Disinformation Crash Course series in which we will examine how, why and who the Kremlin has targeted with its discourse, specifically since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. We also venture beyond the Eastern Neighbourhood to examine how Russia wins over people outside the immediate post-Soviet periphery. 

Brothers in disinformation

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow has found fertile ground for disinformation narratives in Balkan countries like Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia (specifically Republika Srpska). Susceptibility starts in this corner of Europe due to a common cultural identity with Russia – all speak a Slavic language, write in the Cyrillic alphabet and share the Orthodox faith. Many in these countries therefore look to Russia as their ‘older brother’ or ‘defender’ of their values. This is a particularly pertinent subject in Bulgaria, where Russia is often seen as the nation’s ‘liberator’ from 500 years of harsh Ottoman domination. However, this is only a predisposition on an emotional level.

Russian media branches such as RT Balkan and Sputnik have found ways to evade sanctions, and continue to act as instruments of anti-Western narrative dissemination among Serbian speakers. Anti-Ukrainian discourse is also promoted directly through pro-Kremlin political parties in the target countries. At the start of the war, it was identified that Moscow was paying Bulgarian politicians, journalists and public figures $2,000 per month to propagate these narratives. In Belgrade, there was even a demonstration of 5,000 people championed by right-wing organisations and attended by political figures in support of Russia (despite its military aggression). 

Local Orthodox media channels often parrot their Russian counterparts, who present the invasion as a religious struggle in which Ukraine is “an inseparable component of the historical and spiritual Russian world”, effectively denying its civilisational autonomy.  

Soviet nostalgia

‘Life was better under Communism.’ Any child whose family grew up in a satellite state or the USSR has heard this at least once. However, this conviction, albeit unbalanced, is not necessarily a rejection of democracy. It points to a deep-seated trauma of losing guaranteed jobs, free healthcare childcare and education, being left instead with unemployment, inflation, lost life savings and organised crime in the 90s. People’s disillusionment is still often exploited to keep ex-Soviet countries in Russia’s perceived geopolitical sphere.

Politicians in Moldova focus on the USSR’s “modernising character and technological achievements” and even promise reforms reminiscent of that time in order to gain votes in elections. In countries like Georgia and Belarus, where the state promotes Russian interests, the Soviet Union’s human rights abuses are omitted from political discourse. 

Belarusian identity is converged with a Soviet one to the expense of its own local traditions (e.g., banning the 1918 national flag), which are often labelled as extremist. Even in Azerbaijani school history textbooks, the period 1956-1982 is reduced to “an era of economic development and social prosperity”, creating a positive bias in youths who never experienced the reality of the regime.  

Although national holidays such as Victory Day are a way for Soviet sentimentalists to commemorate their soldiers’ sacrifice against the Nazis, since Euromaidan, such celebrations have turned overtly pro-Russian and anti-European. Commemoration becomes a platform for grievances as well as a tool for disinformation. 

Russophone minorities

The Russian-speaking communities in ex-Soviet countries may be different in their ethnic makeup, but their linguistic commonality makes them prime targets for disinformation campaigns. This is the case for the Baltics (especially Latvia) and Moldova (whose Russophone minority is made up of Bulgarians, Gagauz and Russians alike). There are many in these communities who lack the knowledge of their host country’s language, meaning that they are often poorly integrated in society and live in a “Russian information sphere”.

Their engagement in mainstream political discourse is through Kremlin-aligned media channels in Russian, which (not always, but often) present their countries as failed states ridden with Nazism and Russophobia. This was amplified during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In doing so, Russia further exploits the ethnic rifts in Latvian and Moldovan society to destabilise ruling governments and facilitate pro-Russian shifts in internal politics. So, when channels like Rossija RTR, Rossija 24 and TV Centr International were banned as “[threats] to national security”, this was a prime opportunity for the Kremlin to label the Latvian government as Russophobic.

In addition, software-generated Kremlin bot accounts engage with disinformation posts on Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, VKontake, Telegram and Whatsapp, creating additional traffic around pro-Russian narratives. Disinformation can also be disseminated on a grassroots level through Facebook groups whose members are aligned with Kremlin rhetoric.

The effects of this disinformation campaign have indeed bled into perceptions of the full-scale invasion, with almost 35% of Russophones in Moldova viewing Moscow’s military aggression as Russia defending the Donbas from Ukrainian attacks and NATO presence, or an operation to liberate Ukraine from Nazis.

The way that identity politics is exploited by Russian irredentist ambitions through disinformation all seems so logical. We see how one thing leads to another. The way we remember history and how it influences political affiliation today. But at what point do people choose to put on the rose-tinted glasses?

It can be such a relief meeting people abroad with whom you have cultural similarities. You finally have someone with whom to celebrate Christmas on 7 January and you can speak to each other in a common language without anyone else on the bus understanding you. However, shouldn’t these common values bring people together in solidarity as opposed to antagonising other nations and fuelling oppression?

And certainly, the 1990s were indeed a deeply traumatic period for many post-Communist countries. The supermarkets were empty, gangs fought under people’s windows, the elderly came home from the bank in tears having just found out that their life’s savings had gone down by two zeros… Instead of allowing citizens in elections to be won over out of fearmongering, shouldn’t trust be gained through promising a better and more dignified future as opposed to rubbing salt in the wounds of the past?

Russophones, whether they be from the Baltics or Moldova, may very well help to heal the fractures in civil society exacerbated by divisive Kremlin disinformation. Equipped with reliable news channels and sources of information to consequently encourage greater civic and linguistic integration, they have as much right to a European future built on peace and transparency. 

External links and sources:

Russia’s Propaganda Impact on the Eastern European Countries: Case of Bulgaria (in “Імідж України: соціально-політичні репрезентації і мовне віддзеркалення воєнних реалій у зарубіжних і вітчизняних мас-медіа”), Grabina G. https://onu.edu.ua/pub/bank/userfiles/files/news/podii/imidzh_ukrainy_06-11_Print.pdf 

Russian Influence and Disinformation Operations in the Balkans, Vibor Cipan and David Kirichenko https://repository.digital.georgetown.edu/downloads/ef0091ad-1f10-4c72-a6e1-763d1098ddcb 

Spread of the Russian Propaganda on Western Balkans – Case Study in Serbia, Ilija Zivotic and Darko Obradovic https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Blerta-Ahmedi/publication/370592664_INCRIMINATION_AND_DETECTION_OF_FORGERY_OF_DOCUMENTS/links/64583d494af788735263404e/INCRIMINATION-AND-DETECTION-OF-FORGERY-OF-DOCUMENTS.pdf#page=173 

Digital Orthodoxy and Political Populism in Eastern Europe: How Orthodox Media Facilitate Political Mobilization, Dmytro Garaschuk and Oleh Sokolovskyi https://eprints.zu.edu.ua/44966/1/1.pdf

The Communist Legacy as a Factor Shaping Belarusian Political Culture and National Identity, Valeryia Niamkovich https://mysl.lazarski.pl/mysl/en/article/view/2195

Between the Borders of Time: Memory of the Soviet Past through the Lens of the Present, Nino Natroshvili https://tatk.elte.hu/dstore/document/215996/antro-polus-2023-1-2.pdf#page=28

Remembering Lived Past: History and Memory in Post-Stalin Azerbaijan, Shalala Mammadova https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00220094231209239 

Nostalgic Voting? Explaining the Electoral Support for the Political Left in Post-Soviet Moldova, Ion Marandici https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15387216.2021.1918565 

Victory Day or Europe Day? The Politics of Memory in Moldova in the Shadow of Russia’s War in Ukraine, Katerina Fuksova  https://journals.unibuc.ro/index.php/sprps/en/article/view/114 

The Baltic Experience in Countering Contemporary Russian Disinformation, Aleksandra Kuczyńska-Zonik https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003190363-30/baltic-experience-countering-contemporary-russian-disinformation-aleksandra-kuczy%C5%84ska-zonik

Assessing the Impact of Disinformation on Minority Communities in Moldova, Joseph Matveyenko https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/fh-pb_19-Disinformation-Moldova-Minorities_Eng-v2.pdf

Socio-Political Survey June 2023 Republic of Moldova, WatchDog.MD https://watchdog.md/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/ENG_Survey-nr.4-WD_CBS-AXA_full-version_June-2023-1-1_compressed.pdf