Last Week's Operations

Events last week illustrated how Russian political interference operations can be tailored to different national fault lines.

In Germany and France, Moscow has focused on electoral disinformation and attacks targeting specific politicians. In Poland and Spain, existing disputes over history and migration have been amplified to deepen political divisions among voters.

In poor little Moldova, Russia has the capacity to deploy much of its toolkit at once, using money, political proxies, even members of the local clergy, alongside disinformation and cyberattacks.

Switzerland offers the latest case study of an attempt to meddle in the middle of a live democratic vote. AI is also making these operations cheaper, faster and easier to localise.

This summary features reporting and analysis in English, Russian, Polish and German from Reuters, The Insider, Meduza, Euronews Polska and Blick, alongside research from the Brennan Center for Justice and an official warning from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution.

1. Poland: Moscow exploits the Volhynia dispute to deepen hostility towards Ukraine, Reuters, 14 August

Polish officials and researchers say online activity has risen sharply around the dispute between Warsaw and Kyiv over the Volhynia massacres, with anti-Ukrainian content in Polish increasing by more than 250 per cent after a fresh political row over the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia), a Ukrainian nationalist armed organisation active mainly during the Second World War and its aftermath.

In the Polish context, it is especially controversial because UPA units were involved in the mass killings of Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943–44. That history remains a sensitive issue in Polish-Ukrainian relations and is regularly exploited in Russian disinformation aimed at driving a wedge between Poland and Ukraine.