As the war in Ukraine grinds into its fourth year, European leaders can do little more than sit and wait to learn what U.S. President Donald Trump’s supposed plan is to end the conflict, or whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will respond to Trump’s recent threat of tariffs and sanctions.
Few believe Putin will call time on Russian hostility to the West, which is why many officials have argued that 2025 will see a dramatic escalation in the Kremlin’s propaganda war.
As the war in Ukraine grinds into its fourth year, European leaders can do little more than sit and wait to learn what U.S. President Donald Trump’s supposed plan is to end the conflict, or whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will respond to Trump’s recent threat of tariffs and sanctions.
Few believe Putin will call time on Russian hostility to the West, which is why many officials have argued that 2025 will see a dramatic escalation in the Kremlin’s propaganda war.
“Putin doesn’t have the intent or capacity to use conventional threats against the West, but he can still use unconventional or ‘hybrid warfare to seek to divide the West, especially in Europe,” said John Foreman, the United Kingdom’s former defense attaché to Moscow and Kyiv.
Between a rise in populism, distrust between nations, and economic uncertainty across the continent, it’s a sunny forecast for a disruptor like Putin. “Putin might look at Europe and see cracks in unity that he can stick in a crowbar and pull open,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank.
Why, given all the problems he has on his plate, might Putin want to spread disunity in Europe? “The West is far more powerful than Russia, whatever metric you use,” Galeotti said. “If you can paralyze countries politically, you drastically diminish their ability to do things like provide support for Ukraine or coordinate policy against Russia.”
The Kremlin has a long history of using hybrid warfare tactics to disrupt European politics. Whether it’s Russian-sponsored hackers going after government databases or disinformation drives, the aim is the same: to spread doubt and discredit the governments in charge of Russia’s adversaries.
This year could be a blockbuster one for European politics. France is stumbling from crisis to crisis after President Emmanuel Macron’s snap election over the summer backfired—all to the benefit of Marine Le Pen, a far-right Putin ally. Germany will hold federal elections in February, where clashes over immigration could see the far-right Alternative for Germany party finish in second place—a big deal in a country that has coalition governments. The far-right, pro-Kremlin Freedom Party has just formed a government in Austria. And in the U.K., immigration will dominate high-profile local elections set to take place in May.
Political turmoil in Europe has left citizens receptive to Russian disinformation. And there will be plenty of opportunities in 2025 for Russia’s troll armies to get stuck in.
In 2024, after the second round of Romania’s presidential election was controversially canceled, websites associated with the Kremlin published multiple articles with wild claims, ranging from the European Union interfering in Romanian elections to the events in Romania being part of another coup by the United States.
In reality, the elections were canceled after Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the first round’s results due to allegations of significant Russian interference. It just so happens that the winner of that first found was Calin Georgescu, a far-right independent candidate who had vowed to end aid to Ukraine.
A quick scan of the EU’s disinformation tracker, EUvsDisinfo, shows that Romania is hardly the only case.
Russia also stands accused of similar interference in Moldova’s presidential election, which the pro-EU, anti-Kremlin candidate won by a whisker last November, and Georgia’s election, in which the pro-Russia Georgian Dream party won—resulting in country-wide protests.
Elections are naturally vulnerable to interference in the digital age. European officials are increasingly concerned about what tricks the Kremlin might pull when Moldova goes to the polls later in 2025, this time for parliamentary elections.
Moldova is important because of the role it plays in the tug-of-war between Russia and the West. Moldovan territory includes Transnistria, a separatist region internationally recognized as being under Russian occupation.
NATO officials are particularly concerned with how the Kremlin might react to news that Transnistria’s government, which is sympathetic to Moscow, will refuse EU gas this winter. The EU made provisions to provide non-Russian gas to countries after a five-year deal between Russia and Ukraine expired; the deal had allowed the transit of Russian gas to EU states though Ukraine.
European officials fear that Russia, which has weaponized energy in the past, will use the energy crisis to “blame Ukraine and Moldova” as citizens in Transnistria “freeze their tits off,” as one NATO official said.
An EU source working on Russian disinformation said that they had already seen instances of Russia using the gas shortages as a propaganda tool in European countries.
The criticisms Russia might aim at Ukraine and Moldova are obvious: Ukraine cut off the supply, while Moldova has hitched itself ideologically to the EU, leaving Transnistria on its own.
Wider criticism of the EU could follow if gas prices increase significantly after relatively mild winters have prevented dramatic spikes since the start of the war in 2022. There are already a handful of European leaders who are sympathetic to Putin and have dragged their feet on supporting Ukraine—notably Slovakia and Hungary.
Indeed, Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico shocked his European counterparts when he traveled unexpectedly to Moscow last December to talk about gas. “The way it was spun in Russian media wasn’t even, ‘Look, we have friends in Europe,’ but ‘look at the power our gas has, dragging European leaders to beg with us,’” an EU source said.
In theory, this disinformation could lead to leaders demanding the EU make exceptions to Russian gas, critical to its economy. It could make leaders think twice before giving more support to Ukraine. Or it might bolster Russia’s voice as Putin prepares to negotiate a deal with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The conditions for disinformation to thrive in Europe in the coming years are almost perfect. The continent’s politics are divided and have no single policy priority. Countries are concerned about everything from inflation to migration, and they are increasingly in search of radical solutions.
Meanwhile, U.S. tech giants like Meta and X are removing moderation policies that regulate content, meaning lies that stoke these fires could become more common.
One man stands to gain from all this. If Putin can use the next few years to disrupt and confuse the West, it could make his monomaniacal vision for the future of eastern Europe easier to achieve.
The post Russia Is Spinning Up a New Barrage of Lies in Europe appeared first on Foreign Policy.
