Russian attempts at interference can be observed all over the world. They are part of the Kremlin’s foreign policy to gain more influence worldwide and to make as many countries Russian-friendly as possible. The ultimate goal of this foreign policy is probably to upset the unipolar US-dominated world order. We are now at the point where Russian President Vladimir Putin declared at the 2024 Valdai Forum that the old world order is over and we are moving towards a new one.
The world’s attention was drawn – not for the first time — to Russian influence in 2016 when internal emails from the Democratic Party were leaked on Wikileaks before the US presidential election. The leaks were linked to Russian hackers, but the Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in the incident.
However, similar attempts to exert influence did not start then. There have probably always been attempts at interference by all the great powers, and the Soviets were fond of using similar techniques. The US presidential election in 2016 was an important moment to draw the world’s attention to this danger, which still looms today. As social media and online news portals increasingly replace traditional media, the potential for interference is also growing. As we closed in on 2024, which could also be called a “global” election year, it is time to look back at the extent of Russian attempts to interfere in the politics of the post-Soviet region and how this can be prevented in the future.
The post-Soviet space, due to its geography and history, is particularly vulnerable as it is part of the sphere of interest of the former Russian/Soviet empire. These countries developed for many years as part of the former Russian/Soviet empire and then became independent. Not in all cases, as Poland and Hungary have been able to develop independently throughout history.
In any case, the democratic systems in these countries are very young and therefore more vulnerable. Societies in this region do not have the organically developed democratic culture of Western European countries. Russian attempts to influence them are aimed at spreading an alternative, anti-liberal ideology that undermines the confidence of the people in the post-Soviet region in their own democratic, pro-EU political systems. The elderly part of the population grew up in the Soviet Union, and it is easy for Russian propaganda to play on Soviet nostalgia, to make the population believe that everything was better and easier then.
There is a Russian term which was created after the fall of the Soviet Union: ‘Near Abroad’ meaning the countries and territories that were part of the former Soviet Union and only became independent with its break-up. From a Russian perspective, these countries form a kind of buffer zone around mainland Russia, and their integration into the West is dangerous for Russia, as they can provide an alternative example to autocracy for the Russians. The word ‘near‘ implies that these territories are not completely foreign in the Russian mind, i.e. completely independent of Russia. Near-abroad is explicitly exposed to various Russian influences for this reason. Such near-abroad countries are Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and Ukraine.
The various attempts of Russian influence are of different natures, in the US mainly through Kremlin narratives and fake news spread on social media platforms (e.g. news spread on doppelgänger sites, a strategy which was uncovered by the CIA in the autumn). A similar strategy is also present in Europe, e.g. the far-right portal Voice of Europe was shut down by the Czech authorities as it was found that European politicians were funded through the news site to spread the Kremlin’s narrative.
Russian disinformation in the online space can take many forms – including the distribution of AI-generated videos, and of course, alongside fake profiles, there are also Russian propaganda sites, which the EU is trying to ban, such as RT. The Kremlin is trying to provoke political crises in Western Europe – more on the origins of this tactic later – by many more methods, including the involvement of individuals funded by organizations linked to the Russian state to carry out sabotage attacks (people have been arrested in Germany, Sweden and in the UK for this).
In the post-Soviet region, it is more likely to be through the support of politicians and campaigns, exploiting economic dependencies (although this was more prevalent before 2022), that countries in the region do not pursue anti-Russian policies that would integrate them with the Western world. This type of interfering strategies include funding economic “gigaprojects” such as the Paks 2 nuclear plant investment in Hungary, which is financed by Russia. The Hungarian government reached an agreement with the Russian state back in 2013. In 2014, PM Orbán was re-elected.
Georgia
The Georgian election was perhaps one of the most striking successes of Russian interference. The people of Georgia, a small country neighboring Russia with two territories under Russian occupation since 2008, appear to be having to abandon their expectations of EU membership as the Georgian Dream Party, in power since 2012, has taken an increasingly strident anti-Western stance, adopting a Russian-style law in 2024 that makes opposition politics and civil society more difficult.
The October 2024 elections were rigged according to the opposition, and there was a very high level of Russian influence. International investigations have also confirmed that there was likely fraud – not surprising, given that 80% of Georgian society would support EU accession – which the winning party has frozen until 2028. The escalating conflict between the pro-Russian government and the pro-EU population is culminating in increasingly violent street protests.
Moldova
In Moldova, the authorities have warned that Russia spent about €100 million (about $109.2 million) to undermine the election and referendum to amend the Moldovan constitution to include EU accession as a goal. A Kremlin spokesperson denied that they would interfere in these upcoming events. In reality, Russian propaganda outlets in the country have played on Moldovans’ anti-LGBTQ sentiment and fears that EU accession would lead to Romania annexing the country. The Russian Orthodox Church also plays a major role in spreading the Russian narrative, as it has close links with both the Kremlin and the Moldovan Orthodox Church (as well as with the Georgian Orthodox Church). For this reason, the Russian Church can become a mouthpiece for Russian values and the alternative world order.
In 2022, Moldova was granted candidate status for EU membership, but the situation in the internationally unrecognized breakaway region of Transnistria could make accession difficult. The status of the pro-Russian Transnistrian region, on the other hand, has become questionable after the end of 2024, as the gas import contract between Ukraine and Russia, which supplied the breakaway region with Russian gas, expired at the end of 2024.
Moreover, Russia refuses to supply natural gas to the region, citing its huge debt. This has caused quite a lot of discontent among the Transnistrian population, as it could cut off heating, hot water, and even electricity to residential buildings – this could be a big blow to the Transnistrian government’s popularity. The lack of gas imports also affects the electricity supply in Moldova, as it was purchased from the Cuciurgan power plant in the breakaway territory, which was powered by Russian gas. The energy crisis in the Transnistrian region could be a potential opportunity for Moldova to reintegrate the region, but the crisis affects the whole country as well.
Reintegration is difficult for a number of reasons: firstly, there is no alternative political force in the breakaway region that could replace the pro-Russian government, and secondly, there is great fear of possible Russian intervention (the chances of which are quite low, as there is no land route connecting Russian forces fighting in Ukraine to the region), and also, reintegration would increase the pro-Russian population in Moldova, which would make it more difficult for pro-Western political forces to win future elections, as the Moldovan population is already split roughly equally.
The instability of the situation could, in fact, provide a breeding ground for future Russian disinformation campaigns in the country, which could be aimed at exploiting the energy crisis to create a wider social and political crisis that could guarantee the rise in power of a pro-Russian political force in Moldova.
Armenia
Armenia is an example worth mentioning because of its geopolitical position. The small country is located between Turkey and Azerbaijan, traditionally Russia was its main trading partner, but the country is moving closer to the Western world and accession to the EU has also been considered. Armenia’s relations with Russia deteriorated after the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2024.
Russia had maintained order in the region with peacekeepers under the CSTO, but in 2024, perhaps following a backroom deal with Azerbaijan, it allowed Azeri forces to occupy the area (which triggered the exodus of 100,000 Armenians). Russia made this decision perhaps because Armenia is pursuing an increasingly pro-Western policy, or perhaps because Russia does not have sufficient resources for peacekeeping in the region, as all its energy is going into the conflict in Ukraine. Russia sees Baku as a more important trade and transport partner. As a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenia froze its CSTO membership, expressing its concern that its national security is not guaranteed in a security framework dominated by Russia.
It is rather contradictory that the Russian narrative is that the US and the collective West are seeking to weaken Russia, but practice shows that if Russia cannot guarantee security in the Eurasian region within the framework of the CSTO, and the region becomes unstable, this will affect US defense capabilities. So, the USA has no interest in an unstable Russia, which is unable to provide regional security, as it would be a burden on the US security policy.
Causes and Countermeasures
What we can see is that Russia is aiming to keep the countries of the post-Soviet space in its sphere of interest. This can be either a consequence of economic and military policy considerations or of the basic logic of Russian political thinking – with its fundamentally imperial structures, in which the great powers have a kind of right to determine the affairs of the surrounding smaller states. In Georgia with the help of the pro-Russian Georgian Dream Party, in Moldova using the breakaway region, and in Armenia, the extent to which Russia will let the state out of its sphere of interest is questionable.
Russia’s disinformation campaigns, propaganda, support for political parties, and exploitation of energy dependency systems all serve the purpose of enabling Russia to effectively influence the foreign policy orientation of neighboring states. But that is not the end of the story, Russian attempts at influence are present in various forms almost everywhere in the world. One article is of course not enough to summarise and analyze this effectively.
All these attempts at influence are aimed at destabilizing the given state, and thus the civil sphere and democratic functionality, because by creating uncertainty and chaos, it is more likely to influence the internal politics, elections, and parties of a country. However, the effectiveness of the method depends on many variables, such as bias, prejudice, etc. in society. These disinformation campaigns are not always fully successful, or at least their measurement is difficult: after 2014, this Russian strategy to make a large part of the population pro-Russian was increasingly present in Eastern Ukraine.
Vladislav Surkov, whose name is associated with one of the early political theoretic concepts of the Putin regime, sovereign democracy – the phrase actually means nothing, it distracts attention from the emerging authoritarian tendency by creating a conceptual blur – was supposedly responsible for the operation. Surkov may have been long gone from the political arena since 2020, but the chaos creation strategy he devised is still one of the defining tools of post-truth politics in the country.
On the other hand, if we assume that attempts at influence can still achieve their goal and even decide an otherwise democratic election, the question arises: how can we counter this? Russian propaganda and disinformation spread fast and can transform itself quickly. A publication from the US Army War College states that it can be countered by the rapid declassification of classified information. However, it is then very important to consider whether the disclosure of that information poses any security risk. The rationale behind this is that the publication of the truth serves the interests of the Western world, rather than undermining it.
Another important strategy could be to set up media in the countries of the post-Soviet region that can actively and effectively refute the dissemination of Russian propaganda, such as the Ukraїner project in Ukraine. However, the states and governments of the post-Soviet region will have to compete with Russian attempts to influence the political and economic spheres not only online but also in the real world – and this is doomed to questionable success in the absence of independent internal resources and democratic international support.
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