DISINFORMATION

World conflict, nuclear war and totalitarianism in the EU. Disinformers continue their attacks on the West and Ukraine

Infosecurity.sk presents an overview of disinformation trends that have been on the rise in the last two weeks:

• The disinformation ecosystem has returned to glorifying Russia and discrediting attacks on Ukraine. In particular, the so-called victory plan for Ukraine, which was presented by President Zelensky, has become a target.
• The Ukrainian proposal was manipulatively presented by disinformation agents as an escalation of tensions or a straightforward plan to start the World War III. Among other things, they also sounded the alarm of a nuclear conflict. Once again, disinformers sought to undermine trust and support for Ukraine. The attacks on President Zelensky, whom they described as a psychopath or a 'drugged head', served as a vehicle.
• The European Union (EU) institutions also faced attacks and lies from disinformation agents. The EU was described as weak and incompetent in dealing with the migration crisis and border protection. The issue of migration has been used by several actors for misleading dramatisation. In addition, disinformation campaigners called for closer cooperation between the patriotic parties in the EU, scaremongering about liberalism and LGBTI propaganda.

Phantasmagoria about the plan for global conflict

After weeks spent by the disinformation ecosystem to spread narratives attacking LGBTI+ minorities, this time it has turned its attention to tried and tested disciplines - the glorification of the Russian Federation and the dissemination of narratives designed to disparage Ukraine. In addition to the so-called victory plan, a draft of which was presented by Ukrainian President V. Zelensky on 16 October 2024, disinformers have also focused on discrediting Western support for Ukraine.

President Zelensky's draft victory plan has been attacked by a number of disinformation actors. In particular, members of the far-right Republika and SMER-SD parties were active. Ľuboš Blaha (SMER-SD) on the Telegram presented Zelensky's proposal as a purposeful effort to provoke a world conflict or a nuclear war. The fourth point of the plan, which speaks about the use of Ukraine's strategic and economic potential, was discredited by the MEP as an effort to "turn [Ukraine] into a servile colony." With both statements, Blaha picked up on the well-established motifs of Russian propaganda - war scaremongering and building an image of Ukraine as a servant of the West.

There was also no shortage of narratives that legitimised the Russian war. Blaha holds the Ukrainian president responsible for the loss of lives: "He wanted to put on a show and wanted to be considered a Hollywood hero" and "tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people died because of him." In this way, the MEP quite manipulatively distorts reality - not once does he mention the responsibility of Russia, which attacked Ukraine. On the contrary, he presents the Kremlin as the inevitable victor of the war, with whom it is necessary to have good relations.

Another member of the SMER-SD party took a similar approach. Marián Kéry focused mainly on the first point of the victory plan – Zelensky's call for Ukraine's entry into NATO was used by the Slovak MP to further legitimise Russian aggression. In particular, he instrumentalised the sense of threat that the Russians were supposed to feel, which was caused by "NATO's constant push towards Russia's borders". Among other things, Kéry thereby argues in favour of the violation of international law and the military occupation of part of Ukrainian territory. Finally, Kéry adds conspiratorially that if "anyone is comfortable with this war, apart from the Russian Federation, it is the US and NATO". Former politician Anna Belousovová adopts similar optics. The recently unsuccessful candidate for MEP for the Republika has described the winning plan as US efforts to "provoke a war between Europe and Russia".

Milan Uhrík (Republika) presented Zelensky's proposal as "a madman's plan for World War III". The chairman of the far-right Republika party also expressed his fears about the start of a world conflict and nuclear weapons in another post. Minister of the Environment Tomáš Taraba (SNS) took a similar view, and suggested that the proposal should be renamed "a plan to drag everyone into war". Eduard Chmelár, a former adviser to the prime minister, in his post tries to discredit Zelensky's plan as "wishful thinking born in someone's drugged head." We offer a closer analysis of this content in the top posts section below.

In another post, Chmelár tried to revitalise the narratives of Western-organised coups in countries that refused to submit to the International Monetary Fund, World Bank or NATO dictates. He also uses the piece to glorify the BRICS, which, in contrast to Western institutions, is supposedly not in a defeatist mood. According to Chmelár, the BRICS summit was the event of the month, the significance of which "the liberal media and other instruments of Western propaganda seek to downplay".

Uncritical adoption of Russian propaganda content is also a specific discipline in the Slovak disinformation ecosystem. In recent weeks, the Facebook page Slovanský výbor (Slavic Committee) in particular has distinguished itself in this area. It continuously shares older or more recent statements by the Russian president, who continues to try to legitimise his own aggression in Ukraine. This includes, for example, narratives that suggest that Russia is in fact fighting NATO in Ukraine. Alternatively, it involves sharing statements that, paradoxically, glorify not only the power but also the 'humanity' of Russia's approach (e.g. to civilians), as presented in the video by the Kremlin's long-time useful idiot Steven Seagal.

In addition, the bag has been torn open with politicians who willingly visit Moscow and spread messages of Russian propaganda from there. The visit of György Gyimesi (a member of the Aliancia-Szövetség party) a few weeks ago (which we reported on here) inspired MEP Ľuboš Blaha (SMER-SD), but also Pavol Slota (DOMOV-Národná strana).

Blaha used his visit to lavishly produce propaganda content on Telegram. In particular, his statements about the ineffectiveness of sanctions, about the flourishing prosperity in Russia or European resolutions, which the MEP described as fascist, dominated. Although Blaha tried to present his visit to Moscow as an attempt at peaceful dialogue, according to the information available, he did not meet any Russian government politicians. Even in the context of his apology for so-called Western Russophobia and his thanks for liberation from Nazism, it can be said that the MEP's activities primarily served the interests of Kremlin propaganda – both in Russia and in Europe.

Since the posts, which contained narratives about the so-called victory plan proposed by Ukrainian President V. Zelensky's proposal, were dominant in the Slovak information space in the last two weeks, we also took a look at them through the analytical tool Gerulata Juno. Using it, we analysed the most popular posts on Slovak Facebook that contained the keywords "Zelensky", "victory" or "plan". We excluded from the list those posts that did not contain problematic narratives. We then evaluated the posts based on the total number of interactions (the sum of all reactions, comments, and shares).

The post with the most interactions belongs to Milan Uhrík, the chairman of the far-right Republika movement. In it, the MEP directly refers to the so-called victory plan of Ukraine as a "crazy plan for a third world war". In addition to scaremongering about a world conflict right at the beginning of his video, Uhrík also returns to tried and tested narratives that seek to justify Russian aggression by blaming NATO for an expansion that threatens Russia. Ukraine's demand for the ability to attack Russian territory is presented by Uhrík as "attacking Russia out of revenge" – thus ignoring the strategic framework of the war and continuing to propagate narratives that seek to delegitimize Ukraine's defensive efforts. These, according to Uhrik, are supposed to be coming from a leadership that is "fanatical about the war they would like to drag everyone into."

The second post was again published to Milan Uhrík. It is a recording of his speech in the European Parliament. This time, he lashed out at the 35-billion package that the EU approved for Ukraine on 22 October 2024. Uhrík continued his long-standing rhetoric rejecting any aid to Ukraine. This time he justifies his opinion manipulatively by claiming that President Zelensky is "the exact opposite of democracy" - referring to corruption and the fact that elections were not held. However, Uhrík fails to mention that in the case of the aforementioned 35-billion-dollar package, it is not direct financial support, but a loan which is conditional to Ukraine's permanent commitment to maintaining effective democratic mechanisms, respect for human rights and other political conditions. The MEP has also deliberately added references to the World War III or Ukraine's dreams of a nuclear weapon. In doing so, he deliberately ignored a statement by the Ukrainian President, who denied that Ukraine was trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

Tomáš Taraba (SNS) joined the topic with the third post. The Minister of the Environment rejected Zelensky's plan through a short statement on the social network. Following the example of other actors in the disinformation ecosystem, Taraba tried to delegitimise the proposal, which he would like to rename "a plan to drag everyone into a war". In doing so, he picked up on the aforementioned narratives that brand any mention of Ukraine's Euro-Atlantic integration in line with Russian propaganda as a reason to unleash a world conflict.

The next post in the list was published by Tibor Gašpar (MP, SMER-SD). It is a recording of the MP in the discussion show Saturday Dialogues. At the end of the compilation, Gašpar also deals with the topic of the war in Ukraine. He described Zelensky's plan as foolish - supposedly it is only going to contribute to the escalation of tensions. Gašpar, like others, threatened that the plan would drag NATO member states into the war. At the same time, he highly manipulatively equated the entire Russian aggression with the Ukrainian foray in the Kursk region – according to Gašpar, it is said to be the equivalent of a violation of territorial integrity. This was, at the very least, yet another effort by the member of SMER-SD party to discredit the options and tools that Ukraine is using to legitimately protect its territory.

The last place belongs to Eduard Chmelár's post. The dubious analyst, who until recently was also an adviser to Prime Minister Robert Fico, scares his audience by saying that "the world is on the threshold of a huge catastrophe with irreversible consequences". Despite the fact that Chmelár's post mentions the conflict hotspots in the world in a relevant way, he starts to use emotionally tinged and manipulative language when it comes to Ukraine - he calls Zelensky's plan an insane proposal that was conceived in a "drugged head". This follows the narratives of (also) Russian propaganda, which have long sought to discredit the head of Ukraine and present him as a drug addict. The piece also presents the fifth point of the proposal in a highly manipulative way. The latter is originally intended for the post-war period and proposes to replace part of the US military in Europe with Ukrainian soldiers after the war. However, Chmelár presents it as saying that "we (meaning NATO troops) should replace the Ukrainian soldiers because they are already exhausted." By completely distorting reality, he is setting the stage for further scaremongering about world conflict. Chmelár goes on to say that the plan is neither peaceful nor victorious in his view - following the example of others, he describes it as "the proposal of a total psychopath for a third world war".

Old familiar threats: migration and liberal policies pose a danger to the EU

Disinformation actors have again published posts attacking the European Union and spreading false narratives. The topics they exploited ranged from corruption, migration and support for Ukraine to the so-called traditional family.

Prime Minister Robert Fico criticised the EU for underestimating the migration crisis. In a speech, which he subsequently published as a Facebook post, he claimed that his words, which he has repeated regularly since the start of the migration crisis in 2015, had come true. In that period, he supposedly presented the need to protect the EU's external borders and to reject quotas for the redistribution of migrants in terms of shared responsibility. However, according to Fico, the Union has acted irrationally in recent years, taking cumbersome decisions and underestimating the threats posed by mass migration to the member states.

The Prime Minister also used the topic to once again spread lies about European support for Ukraine. He claimed, for example, that "the EU can find billions immediately for senseless killing and weapons, but it takes years to solve the migration crisis". In addition, he stated in his speech that the EU, which spends so much money on aid to Ukraine, aims "to bring the Russian Federation to its knees by any means necessary". The Prime Minister sought to create an image of an incompetent and weak EU which allocates budgetary resources for inappropriate purposes and thus puts member states in direct danger. Fico made no mention of the fact that decisions on important issues are the result of joint negotiations involving representatives of the member states.

The image of a weak and incompetent Union was also painted by the leader of the Republika and MEP Milan Uhrík. In a Facebook video, which was also shared by his party colleague Mazurek, he praised the letter of thanks and support addressed to him by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In the letter, he was to thank Uhrík for his support for Hungary during the 9 October 2024 plenary session, during which Orbán presented the priorities of the Hungarian presidency. In the letter, Orbán stressed that Europe is in trouble, facing a migration crisis, a threat to Schengen and weak competitiveness.

Uhrík tried to interpret Orbán's letter as proof that the members of the Republika and other far-right MEPs, who have formed the Europe of Sovereign Nations faction in the European Parliament (EP), are not isolated in the institution, but are working hard to build mutual contacts and strengthen cooperation. This joining of forces is, in his view, aimed at protecting against the liberals' malignant policies and stopping the progressives, which is essential "otherwise they will destroy not only Slovakia but also the whole of Europe".

In the context of the war in Ukraine, false calls for peace and claims that Western military support for Ukraine is unnecessarily exacerbating the conflict were again present. This narrative was presented by Milan Mazurek, MEP for the far-right Republika, together with the non-attached Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun (far-right Confederation party). In a post to the joint video, Mazurek stated that the politicians reject "the thieving and warlike policy of the current European Union, which leads to endless bloodshed and hopelessness". Mazurek offered the audience a black-and-white picture, arguing that civilisation stands on one side and World War III on the other.

In the video, the two MEPs claimed that the EP had voted to "steal foreign money". Allegedly, the EP is planning to steal Russian assets, Russian financial resources, which will then be used to buy more weapons for Ukraine. The MEPs were probably reacting to the possibility of using the extra proceeds from the immobilised assets of the Russian central bank for the benefit of Ukraine. The proposal for 90% of the proceeds to be used for the purchase of arms for Ukraine and the remaining 10% to be transferred to the EU budget and used for the reconstruction of Ukraine through the European Peace Facility was put forward by the European Commission back in March this year. The Slovak Ministry of Foreign and European affairs agreed to the proposal.

Following the topic, Mazurek did not forget to disparage officials in the European institutions, whom he referred to as bureaucrats "who very easily send people to their deaths from the cafeteria". Grzegorz Braun also appeared in the video alongside Mazurek. He said that "our American, Anglo-Saxon or Jewish comrades who are trying to drag the Central European nations further into this war will one day leave us alone with this chaos, and someone will have to pay".

Another of the topics that served for repeated attacks against the EU during the period under review was the issue of protection of the LGBTI+ community. MEP and leader of the Republika movement Milan Uhrík, in a speech in the EP, praised Georgia for "rejecting modern rainbow nonsense and branding political Soros' NGOs, which draw money from abroad, as foreign agents". He praised the conservative party's Georgian Dream law, adopted in early October 2024, which restricted the rights of LGBTI+ people, for example by banning pride parades and censoring books and films.

A member of the Republika party criticised the attitude of the EP, which adopted a condemnatory resolution against Georgia, which Mazurek said was a brazen attempt to "impose its progressive views on everyone, everywhere". Speaking in the EP, he reiterated the toxic, deceptive narratives about harmful gender ideology and the need to protect the so-called traditional family. In addition, he erroneously linked the LGBTI+ community to paedophilia and sought to demonise and ridicule the community by claiming that it included "artificially invented genders". Speaking in the EP, Mazurek said he congratulated Georgia for passing the law "because it protects the normal family".

The MEP was misleading about the fact that in the case of Georgia, it is the same law on foreign agents as, for example, the USA or Israel have. In fact, the Georgian legislation is closer to the Hungarian or Russian version. The Georgian law targets NGOs and independent media, which are more than 20% funded by foreign donors. Such entities have to be registered as 'organisations carrying the interests of a foreign power', which ultimately labels them negatively and subjects them to the processes of monitoring their activities by the Ministry of Justice.

In addition to the aforementioned rhetoric about the need to protect the 'traditional family', Mazurek also attacked the EU and the EP through the topic of alleged Orwellian censorship. He was misleading and deliberately dramatic when, in a speech to the EP, he claimed that the EU was heading towards totalitarianism. In a Facebook post, he added that it was a situation straight out of Orwell's book: "No more patriotic views on the internet, because truth is the new 'extremism'." He was reacting to a debate in the EP on streamlining the system for reporting hate speech in the online space, which leads to the polarisation and radicalisation of society.

Mazurek did not give any further details about the debate in the plenary of the EP, but he tried to distort it, arguing that the real extremists are those who are pushing the Green Deal in the EP and thus destroying the living standards in the member states, or those who are "bringing millions of illegal immigrants to Europe". He concluded his speech by saying that patriotic politicians want to protect their countries and their people. In order to achieve this goal, he said, it was necessary to get rid of the people who are currently in charge of the European Commission. Following these words, he was told by the Chair of the meeting to use respectful and appropriate language. This was interpreted by the representative of the Republika party as an attempt to silence and intimidate him.

Project Infosecurity.sk organized by Adapt Institute, which is supported by the Prague office of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, continuously monitors the activities of both Slovak and foreign disinformation actors, but focuses mainly on the former. The project activities are built upon daily monitoring of emerging disinformation, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories in the online information space. This approach allows the analysts to identify disinformation posts and narratives that resonated with the public the most, as well as to find out where they originated, and how they spread and evolved on social media. The report takes the form of a bi-weekly summary of arising trends in the spread of malicious information content online. Based on that, Infosecurity.sk can inform the public about emerging and current trends in the field of disinformation, manipulation, and propaganda.