Patrik Szicherle

The X platform (formerly Twitter) might not be the most popular platform in the CEE region, but posts regarding a European Parliament committee’s visit to Hungary in May 2023 gained attention nevertheless. An analysis revealed that the posts about the visit were targeted by suspected inauthentic accounts in an attempt to discredit any perceived opponent of the Hungarian ruling party.

The administrations of the “home” nations of these minorities, naturally, seek to protect them from real or perceived threats and secure the legal protection of their rights. These efforts are often interpreted by host nations as foreign interference in their affairs.

During the EP election campaign, Political Capital and its three partners found out that both official Kremlin-backed portals (RT and Sputnik) and local pro-Kremlin media supported the campaigns of Eurosceptic parties by only describing their policy recommendations positively and exaggerating their chances in the EP elections1. Eurosceptic groups failed to achieve any kind of breakthrough […]

The Kremlin has used massive disinformation efforts, among others, to interfere in democratic processes across the West in the past few years. Consequently, the 2019 EP elections were always treated as potential targets for Russia, which was acknowledged by European institutions well in advance.

713 articles shared on Facebook sites belonging to government-controlled media outlets and pro-Kremlin outlets indicate that the governing party’s EP campaign messages mainly attack the EU elite and the bloc’s institutional system through the dissemination of manipulative information concerning migration.