‘Pro-Russian propaganda up’

SOCIAL MEDIA: FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT WAR IN UKRAINE

Promotes far-right, Kremlin-friendly parties ahead of vote for European parly.

As the European parliamentary elections in June move ever closer, experts warn that pro-Russian players are flooding social media with false claims about the war in Ukraine to boost support for farright and nationalist parties.

Pro-Russian accounts have been pumping out posts on Facebook, X and TikTok that depict Ukrainian refugees as violent criminals or claim that Kyiv’s government officials siphon off financial aid sent by the West to buy luxury yachts and villas for themselves. Another theme with particular potency in countries closest to the conflict is that refugees receive higher state benefits than locals.

The aim of such propaganda is to weaken the EU’s resolve and benefit anti-immigration parties like Germany’s AfD, France’s National Rally or the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, said Jakub Kalensky, an analyst at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats (Hybrid CoE) in Helsinki, Finland.

Such disinformation will “definitely play a role” in the 6-9 June vote, when more than 400 million Europeans choose a new five-year parliament, he said. “When you exaggerate the risk of Ukrainian immigrants, you boost anti-immigration parties,” said Kalensky.

“I’m convinced if it weren’t for the Russian propaganda, movements led by leaders like Marine Le Pen (in France), Geert Wilders (the Netherlands) or Robert Fico (Slovakia) would have significantly lower election results.”

Dietmar Pichler, disinformation analyst at the Centre for Digital Media Literacy in Vienna, Austria, believes anti-Ukraine disinformation is likely to intensify ahead of the June vote as Russia tries to promote Kremlin-friendly European parties.

He has identified two main topics that have already surfaced in EU campaigns – the sanctions against Russia and financial aid to Ukraine. “Actors aiming to halt this support for Ukraine are employing disinformation and Russian propaganda narratives to ‘justify’ this anti-Ukrainian position,” said Pichler. –