by Rym Momtaz*
Sinikukka Saari
Leading researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs
I fundamentally disagree with the claim that Russian information operations could be more detrimental to European security than its war in Ukraine. There, Russia is committing crimes against humanity, destroying lives and livelihoods, and challenging the very basis of the European order and the core principles of international law.
In comparison, Russia’s information operations operate on a completely different level. Their success is more a sign of our own weaknesses and societal vulnerabilities than of Russia’s all-mightiness in information warfare.
Most typically, Russia’s info ops take advantage of frictions already present in our societies. Moscow may have played its part in the unexpected election successes of the pro-Russian ultra-right and ultra-left in Europe, but Western societies have blundered the rest on their own. Groups that feel alienated from the political elite and less integrated into a society might find ultra-populists’ simplistic messages and conspiracy theories appealing.
That said, I would add that Russia’s most dangerous information operations are the ones that we don’t even notice. When Western decisionmakers are making matter-of-fact references to “mutual concessions” both Ukraine and Russia should make, many don’t even realise they are echoing the Kremlin’s narrative. Russia’s secret information weapon that we should all learn to recognize—and to consciously counter—is reflexive control.
Elie Tenenbaum
Director of the Security Studies Center at Institut Francais des Relations Internationales
In Russian strategic culture, warfare is understood as encompassing a very broad spectrum, ranging from low-profile covert operations to large-scale, high-intensity combat. This makes it challenging to assess the relative efficiency of information operations compared to conventional warfighting in Ukraine or clandestine activities in the cyber and seabed domains. All these elements are interconnected and mutually reinforcing.
For example, Russian disinformation campaigns in Georgia, Moldova, Romania, and Germany see their effects vastly augmented against the backdrop of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, its demonstrations of hard power, and its ominous nuclear rhetoric. Every kinetic action taken by Russia on and around the Ukrainian battlefield is also intended to serve as a non-kinetic warning to other states: “Don’t oppose us, or you’ll go through the same ordeal”.
Like most authoritarian regimes, Russia views any form of public dissent or discontent as a vulnerability, and any vulnerability as an opportunity to be exploited against its adversaries. In some countries—particularly in Central and Eastern Europe—fear of escalation and Russian aggression serves as a key tool to foster public dissent. In contrast, in Western countries like France, the UK, or even the United States, Russian subversion tends to operate more indirectly, seeking to inflame existing tensions, whether rooted in social and economic grievances or identity politics.
Raluca Csernatoni
Fellow at Carnegie Europe
Information operations are a significant weapon in Russia’s arsenal against Europe, which effectively leverage existing societal divides. But their potency depends on Europe’s resilience and responses to hybrid warfare.
Unlike kinetic attacks on critical infrastructure, disinformation and malign information influence pose a subtler yet more enduring hybrid threat: They erode trust in institutions, deepen societal fractures, and undermine democratic cohesion.
As we’re seeing in Romania, the country has been thrown into one of its deepest political crises since the fall of communism by the shock first-round victory of independent presidential candidate Calin Georgescu—a little-known sovereigntist and admirer of Putin.
While Russia’s or other malicious actors’ direct role is hard to characterize, it is clear that TikTok’s opaque, engagement-driven algorithm rapidly spread disinformation and tailored narratives that bolstered anti-NATO and pro-Russian sentiment, exploiting economic grievances and security fears. Although most parties campaigned on TikTok, Georgescu’s unprecedented traction raises questions about why the algorithm amplified his message over others’. This reflects broader strategies by Russia and China to foster polarization and weaken European democracies through social media platforms.
With millions of people relying on TikTok or other platforms for news, we must ask what exactly they are seeing and how this drives political nihilism, polarization, radicalization, or apathy.
Wojciech Kononczuk
Director of the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW)
Absolutely. Russia is waging war on both fronts, military and psychological, by trying to influence Western democratic societies. It did not start in 2022 but many years—even decades—ago. Russia has adopted, developed, and modernized the old Soviet methods of information diversion and propaganda operations, commonly known as active measures. It quickly learned, even pioneered, how to use new information technologies, especially social networks, effectively and innovatively. Moscow hopes that this will enable it to partially balance its many weaknesses with regard to the West. Russia has open access to our media space or has even hacked it. It therefore not only exploits our vulnerabilities but deepens them.
Western societies are still faced with the problem of recognizing this specific type of Russian war against them. A precise diagnosis has been worked out at expert level. So our problem is not a lack of knowledge about Russian info ops. They have been well identified and mapped. But we cannot just observe how the Russians influence our information space, polarize, create new dividing lines within societies, or try to influence election results to undermine our democracies. Our problem is the lack of political will to call a spade a spade and respond. This must change.
Nora Muller
Executive director for International Affairs at the Korber-Stiftung
Bruno Kahl, president of the German Federal Intelligence Service, recently warned that Russian hybrid activities in Europe had reached an unprecedented scale. Operations in the information space form a central element of Moscow’s so-called “new generation warfare.” The aim of these operations is to weaken the adversary from within. Tensions and conflicts within society provide a perfect gateway, and vulnerabilities are exploited in a targeted manner.
With regard to Germany, a worrying discrepancy can be observed: On the one hand, the Federal Republic—especially as the second largest supporter of Ukraine after the United States—is a central target for Russian attempts to exert influence. On the other hand, the degree of resilience at various levels of German society is surprisingly low. The willingness of parts of the (political) public to adopt Russian narratives should worry anyone who cares about the stability of liberal democracy in the EU’s largest member state.
So what should be done? First and foremost, politicians should not shy away from giving the population a clear message about the hybrid threat situation. Not new, but still true: The Zeitenwende does not begin in the arsenals of the Bundeswehr, but in the minds of the citizens.
Dimitar Bechev
Senior fellow at Carnegie Europe
Russian information operations are all the rage again. From Moldova to France and from the German state of Brandenburg to Georgia, politicians parroting the Kremlin’s talking points have done well in elections. Romania may pick Calin Georgescu, a maverick lashing out at Western support for Ukraine, as its next president.
Commentators typically see Russian President Vladimir Putin’s long hand behind all that. Yet in fairness the rise of demagogues owes more to country-specific factors rather than Kremlin’s scheming. Sure, Russian info warriors are keen to exploit any domestic social and political cleavages to undercut the West and its allies on the ground. However, these internal divisions do not appear out of thin air. Nor would they evaporate if Moscow weren’t there to stir the pot.
Some countries are more vulnerable than others. Watch Moldova which is gearing up for a critical general elections in the coming summer. Russia’s fellow travellers and proxies can well gain an upper hand, not without help from Moscow-linked info ops.
Monika Sus
Professor at the Polish Academy of Sciences
When the impact of Russian information operations is compared to direct military actions like the invasion of Ukraine, it is evident that both pose significant threats. Still, they operate on different levels of European cohesion and security. While not posing a physical threat to European security, Russian info ops are uniquely insidious as they exploit societal fissures, weaken democratic processes, and amplify divisive narratives within and between nations. In a way, they can be more dangerous than military aggression, as they create a long-term erosion of trust in democratic institutions and permanently destabilize entire regions.
By falsifying the websites of well-known and reputable news sources, and targeting electoral systems and public opinion, Russian info ops can effectively alter political outcomes in favor of anti-EU or pro-Russian sentiments. We have ample evidence of such operations in EU member states and EU neighbors, with elections in Eastern Germany and Georgia being two of the most recent examples.
Still, we lack adequate strategies to fight these info ops. It shows how multifaceted the Russian threat actually is: Europe must not only advance its defense capabilities but also simultaneously improve its cybersecurity mechanisms. Without the latter, the political and social support for the former is at risk.
Alessandro Accorsi
Senior analyst for social media and conflict at the International Crisis Group
Calling information operations Russia’s “most potent weapon” requires examining their effectiveness and limitations. Information operations are cost-effective and long-term tools. When deployed strategically, they are capable of amplifying existing grievances, sowing divisions in societies, and manipulating public opinion.
However, information operations are rarely effective on their own. To use the weapon analogy, they require a detonator, an explosive charge, and a delivery system—and only when the target conditions are ripe can they multiply the effects of the blast. Information operations only yield results when combined with other tools—economic leverage, military posturing, diplomatic pressure—and when societal conditions are favorable, allowing Russia to find allies on the ground with shared interests. Even though Russia targeted over twenty African countries with information operations, results were seen in only a few unstable or impoverished states.
In Europe, information operations amplify pre-existing societal issues such as economic stagnation, rising populism, and divisive cultural debates. However, would they have been as impactful if Europe’s economy was thriving, inflation low, and populist parties less influential? Likely not. Russia’s economic leverage and political alliances certainly contribute to these issues, alongside information operations. But information operations are a multiplier, not the main driver, of Europe’s challenges.
Roland Freudenstein
Director of the Free Russia Foundation’s Brussels office and cofounder of the Brussels Freedom Hub
No, they are part of an inseparable Kremlin Gesamtkonzept of open and hybrid aggression, to which the West struggles to find an adequate response in three dimensions: in recognizing the problem, in strengthening resilience and in deterrence or counterattack.
Info ops have long been underestimated, but they are only as effective as the weaknesses of free societies. These range from unequal economic growth to cancel culture and excessive political correctness. Democratic politics simply has to deliver more solid leadership and better results.
Free societies also have to develop better ways of detecting and preventing info attacks. This not only concerns better intelligence and social media regulation, but—more importantly—better media literacy and an active civil society, including media, think tanks, and foundations, that is supported by governments.
They also need to go on the counteroffensive. There’s no reason governments and NGOs should not counter dictators’ propaganda on their own turf. Pro-democracy Russians abroad can be better enabled to message home powerful antidotes to Kremlin propaganda. And as Putin doesn’t separate info ops from sabotage, the West must find ways to throw its own hacking and diversion into the mix. Sad to say, but this is now indispensable to the survival of freedom in Europe.
Sarah Bressan
Research fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute
Information operations are Russia’s most active and effective offensive tool against NATO—as long as the alliance’s deterrence against large-scale kinetic attacks is strong.
The Russian government is more ready to escalate its hybrid attacks on NATO than ever before, Bruno Kahl, head of Germany’s foreign intelligence service, said last week. An obvious, large-scale Russian attack would not only trigger mutual defense clauses but inspire people and countries to rally around the flag and close ranks—the opposite of Russia’s goals. See Ukraine’s astonishingly effective defense, Finland and Sweden joining NATO, and the EU funding Ukraine’s fight after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
In the information dimension, Russia does not face significant consequences for its covert—and increasingly overt—operations. It continues to damage democracy and cohesion without needing a sophisticated strategy. Able to rely on useful allies, from U.S. businessman Elon Musk to Romanian presidential candidate Calin Georgescu, amplifying lies, exploiting grievances, and sowing mistrust.
It hardly matters if these people coordinate their anti-democratic activities with Russia or not. If more of them get into positions of power, a new cohort of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban-style leaders will sell out Europe’s democratic achievements—or its cohesion and deterrence will have taken such a hit that the Kremlin can take what it wants.
Igor Gretskiy
Research fellow at the International Centre for Defence and Security, Tallinn
For Russia, information operations are a relatively inexpensive way to effectively pursue its foreign policy objectives. At present, the Kremlin is focused on disrupting foreign financial aid and arms supplies to Ukraine. In essence, Putin aims to isolate Ukraine, forcing it into a one-on-one confrontation to ultimately dismantle it.
Ukraine’s partners within the Ramstein group surpass Russia in military-industrial potential by more than twenty times. However, fully mobilizing this advantage in Ukraine’s favour largely depends on political will of the Western governments. Russian information operations are aimed at paralyzing that will. The Kremlin’s primary goal is to trap the West in a reactive stance, compelling political leaders to make decisions driven by fear and short-term political considerations rather than strategic security imperatives.
Moscow understands that public opinion plays a crucial role in Western political processes. Consequently, the Kremlin works to deepen internal divisions within Western societies, leveraging not only radical populist politicians but anyone who might serve its purposes. To counter Russian info ops, it is vital to engage consistently with the public, raising awareness of the security threats posed by Russia and underscoring the critical importance of European solidarity in securing Ukraine’s victory for a safer future.
Fabian Zuleeg
Chief executive at the European Policy Centre
Russia’s increasingly impactful information operations are part of Moscow’s covert war against liberal democracy, and they are only one weapon in its arsenal. This is both an external and an internal threat to democracy, aided and abetted by certain groups and governments within the EU—sometimes encouraged and financed by Russia. Non-state actors play a significant, if not predominant, role in such activities even if a government is ultimately behind it. The aim of these activities is to destabilize, undermine political support, and, ultimately, destroy democracy. And Russia is not the only country to carry our such operations against Europe.
Europe must do much more to build a Wehrhafte Demokratie, that is a democracy that can defend itself, countering such threats at home and abroad where autocratic systems aim to undermine democracy. These actions are connected to Europe’s biggest threat: Russia’s war against Ukraine. Unless Russia is stopped, the direct military threat against further parts of the neighborhood and, ultimately, NATO is going to increase. That implies countering information threats, building up our defense capabilities, and helping Ukraine to continue to defend itself—not imposing a ceasefire that undermines Ukraine’s and Europe’s security in the medium term.
*Editor in Chief, Strategic Europe
**first pulbished in: Carnegieendowment.org
By: N. Peter Kramer
