Cross-Border Radicalization: Examining Russia’s Multi-Faceted Disinformation Efforts in Germany and the Czech Republic
Mentor
Liliia Sablina is currently completing her doctoral degree in Political Science at the Central European University in Vienna. Her research focuses on the right-wing mobilization of Russian-speaking groups in Germany. She is an author of multiple academic publications on the topic, including articles in prestigious academic journals such as Nations and Nationalism. She is also a former research fellow at the Zentrum für Osteuropa und Internationale Studien (ZOiS) in Germany, and the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) in Norway.
Project Description
Who, how, and why facilitates the pro-Russian mobilization in European democracies amidst the full-scale invasion of Ukraine? The proposed project intends to shed light on these questions by investigating a multi-layered disinformation campaign initiated by Russia to facilitate the de-democratization from within in the countries of the European Union. Contrary to other approaches, this project suggests going beyond merely social media and fake news analysis, but reconstructing how the pro-Russian narratives are facilitated on the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels.
Russia, as an authoritarian state, increasingly uses digital means to facilitate its survival. While many autocrats choose to control online behavior domestically through repression and co-optation, mobilization is crucial in the transnational context, as autocratic governments need external audiences to legitimize their arguments both domestically and abroad. Digital tools are among the few means autocrats can fully utilize to mobilize transnational migrants, diasporas, or perceived ‘co-ethnics’. Spreading disinformation campaigns not only facilitates distrust in local governments but also homogenizes particular rhetoric among recipients of the disinformation.
The project aims to analyze the multi-layered character of the Russian disinformation campaign in Germany and the Czech Republic. These cases have been chosen based on the most-different-system design. Although both countries have completely different structures of Russian-language networks, in both cases, a significant increase in Russian disinformation campaigns targeting the countries, the rise of far-right parties aiming for pro-Kremlin cooperation, and significant usage of social media for the distribution of disinformation and radicalization of citizens in support of Russia have been observed.
The study intended to conduct a nuanced multi-tiered analysis to unravel the complex web of local engagement with Russian disinformation campaigns. This included:
- Macro-level analysis: Exploring how both the Czech Republic and Germany are framed in the public discourse of the Russian state after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The lab participants analyzed the rhetoric produced by Russia’s state-owned media outlets like MIA Rossiya Segodnya.
- Meso-level analysis: Analyzing organizations and political parties leaning toward pro-Russian positions. By using secondary literature and analyzing current political situations, students mapped out the network of pro-Russian actors in both countries.
- Micro-level analysis: Monitoring pro-Russian Telegram channels and Facebook groups to understand the spread of messaging, identify key players, and link it to broader Russian narratives. This level of analysis provides a profound understanding of both the disinformation campaign narratives and the reactions of “ordinary people” or “users” to the disinformation campaign.
Upon completion, students involved have honed open-source intelligence (OSINT) capabilities and disinformation monitoring techniques, as well as learned hands-on methods such as scraping, qualitative social media analysis, and process tracing. They gained experience in detecting the intricate connections between various levels of Russian authoritarian engagement with ‘compatriots’.