Navigating the professional terminology and jargon of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) can sometimes be confusing, so we have prepared a handy glossary of key terms and concepts for the FIMI galaxy. The 3rd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) Threats offers a wealth of insights into information manipulation operations. EUvsDiSiNFO series of deep-dive articles peeks behind the curtain and introduces a novel analytical approach to exposing FIMI. It also zeroes in on the architecture of Russian FIMI operations, using the analogy of an iceberg, to show that a large part of this manipulative architecture is hidden below the surface. The Report also zooms out to analyse the scope of the manipulative networks and the interrelationships within them, in what we call the FIMI galaxy. What is misinformation and how is it different from disin-formation? Well, for the European Union, misinfor-mation is false or misleading content that is shared without any malicious or harmful intent. Don’t be deceived ! […]
Behind every Russian missile is a barrage of lies. Another European election targeted by the Kremlin manipulations. As Russia’s missiles continue to rain down on Ukrainian cities, the Kremlin’s propaganda machine churns out cynical cookie-cutter denials in an attempt to dismiss civilian massacres in Ukraine. Meanwhile, we are witnessing a familiar pro-Kremlin information manipulation campaign targeting upco-ming Poland’s presidential elections in May. These coordinated campaigns reveal the true nature of the Kremlin’s playbook. Russia’s ballistic missile strike on Sumy’s city centre on 13 April that killed at least 35 civilians, including two children, and wounded 117 others during Palm Sunday religious celebrations was not an isolated incident, or a mistake, but part of a deliberate pattern. As the horrific tales out of Sumy began reaching international audiences, Moscow’s propagandists immediately started to spread varied lies: that Russia had targeted a meeting of Ukrainian military commanders, a medal ceremony, or a meeting between Ukrainian and Western forces. They followed the same pattern of lies as they did after striking a restaurant in Kryvyi Rih on 5 April. […]
The Kremlin exports ‘Russian culture’ to expand its soft power, but under the veneer of culture it hides imperialistic exceptionalism, absorbing other cultures as Russia’s own, appropriating artists form subjugated peoples and eroding their national identity. Clichés about countries, their cultures, and their histories influence the way we see and judge the world. For that reason, soft power is globally important. Yet, history is more complex than clichés. For example, Russian culture is part of European culture. But it is also the product of an empire composed of multiple influences and talented people of many nationalities, not just Russian. The myth of the Russian soul is still strong in Western countries despite being a blurry and at times specious concept. For example, the 2009 US film Cold Souls(opens in a new tab) purported to describe how large, expressive Russian souls are different from small Western souls. In this telling, a Russian soul is pure, with an infinite capacity to suffer and experience feelings fully. But under the veneer of seeming moral depth and poetic pining, the idea of the ‘Russian soul’ also hides a facet of toxic, imperialistic exceptionalism. […]
A l’heure où l’hyperpuissance américaine vacille, et sème le chaos dans l’économie mondiale, il peut être utile de revenir à l’inspirateur de l’impérialisme américain et au conseiller du président McKinley. l’amiral Alfred Thayer Mahan. C’est ce que fait l’amiral Girard dans l’article qui suit dont la rédaction est antérieure à la réélection de Donald Trump. Il montre que l’actuelle politique américaine a des racines lointaines et une continuité qui sont souvent méconnues, notamment pour son tropisme asiatique. […]
La grandeur de l’Allemagne est d’honorer celles et ceux qu’elle a jadis martyrisés. Dans les centaines de camps de déportation où des millions d’êtres humains avaient été traités comme du bétail par les nazis, des commémorations ont été célébrées pour le 80ème anniversaire de leur délivrance. […]
Russia’s FIMI operations in Africa are not fleeting campaigns but an embedded, adaptive and persistent feature of the information environment. Russia aims to reshape public perception, undermine Western influence, and advance its own long-term, geopolitical objectives on the continent. Africa has increasingly become a geopolitical battleground, and nowhere is this clearer than in the information space. Recent findings in the 3rd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) Threats show that Russia, in particular, has significantly expanded its FIMI operations across the continent, employing a long-term, multi-layered strategy that embeds itself within the region’s information landscape. In 2022, following the EU’s suspension of state-controlled RT and Sputnik, Russia executed a strategic pivot. Not forgetting Europe, it redirected its manipulative firepower, and adapted its tactics, to deepen its influence in Africa, capitalising on regional political shifts and positioning itself as a counterforce to the West. […]
Check out the real reason why Russia was not invited to the Auschwitz commemoration. And no, the West has not turned ‘Nazi’. Not so long ago, on 27 January 2025, the world commemorated 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army in 1945. There was no Russian delegation present at the event. Why? Because since Russia’s unprovoked and illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum has refused to invite the aggressor to the annual commemoration, denouncing Russia’s war against Ukraine as a ‘barbaric act. The Kremlin and its mouthpieces have, as usual, made up an explanation for Russia’s absence from the Auschwitz commemoration: Western Russophobia and historical revisionism, and the revival of Nazism in the EU and Ukraine. In fact, Moscow has been using the ‘Nazi brush’ throughout the war to smear anyone standing up to Russian imperialism. Lately, Russia has used the same tactic to belittle and ridicule the European Union in the context of negotiating peace in Ukraine. […]
In the murky landscape of disinformation, few narratives have proven as stubbornly persistent as the claim that NATO expansion provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. This myth, recycled and rebranded by Kremlin apologists, shifts blame for Russia’s aggression onto the West – ignoring history and facts. It’s time to call this narrative what it is: a convenient distortion designed to justify an unjustifiable war. To truly understand this war, look not at NATO’s decisions, but at Vladimir Putin’s own words. In his infamous July 2021 essay and February 2022 speech, Putin dismissed Ukrainian sovereignty and framed the country as a historical part of Russia. His motivations aren’t defensive – they’re imperial. The invasion was about reasserting control over a former Soviet republic, crushing a thriving democracy on Russia’s border, and signalling to other post-Soviet states that turning westward comes with consequences. Putin doesn’t fear NATO. He fears democracy. That’s the real threat to the Kremlin’s power. […]
Moldova has been used as a testing and development ground for Russian FIMI operations for a long time. We take a look at some of the more distinct features of these experiments from last year’s campaign. Last year’s combination of a presidential election and an EU referendum offered Russia an opportunity it could not afford to ignore, as we examined here and here. Russia certainly did not restrain itself when it came to funding or other resources. In the 3rd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) Threats, we took a closer look at the role of FIMI as part of a much wider influence campaign targeting Moldova in 2024. Leading up to the election, Russia increased the intensity of its FIMI operations against Moldova. Combining existing infrastructure with newly developed assets, Russia tried to undermine the EU enlargement process and weaken support for President Maia Sandu. EUvsDiSiNFO highlight four main ingredients from the Russian FIMI cocktail. This time the Kremlin decided to be much more transparent, combining both covert and overt channels. […]
Navigating the professional terminology and jargon of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) can sometimes be confusing, so we have prepared a handy glossary of key terms and concepts for the FIMI galaxy. The 3rd EEAS Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) Threats offers a wealth of insights into information manipulation operations. EUvsDiSiNFO series of deep-dive articles peeks behind the curtain and introduces a novel analytical approach to exposing FIMI. It also zeroes in on the architecture of Russian FIMI operations, using the analogy of an iceberg, to show that a large part of this manipulative architecture is hidden below the surface. The Report also zooms out to analyse the scope of the manipulative networks and the interrelationships within them, in what we call the FIMI galaxy. What is misinformation and how is it different from disin-formation? Well, for the European Union, misinfor-mation is false or misleading content that is shared without any malicious or harmful intent. Don’t be deceived ! […]
A l’heure où l’hyperpuissance américaine vacille, et sème le chaos dans l’économie mondiale, il peut être utile de revenir à l’inspirateur de l’impérialisme américain et au conseiller du président McKinley. l’amiral Alfred Thayer Mahan. C’est ce que fait l’amiral Girard dans l’article qui suit dont la rédaction est antérieure à la réélection de Donald Trump. Il montre que l’actuelle politique américaine a des racines lointaines et une continuité qui sont souvent méconnues, notamment pour son tropisme asiatique. […]
« The interests of Russian oligarchs converge with those of Big Tech magnates. Putin and the major oligarchs, both Russian and American, believe themselves to be above the law. Putin’s con-tempt for the law goes so far that he calls into question the very notion of the state, precisely because a state is based on a legal framework and has borders, which he dislikes. Trumpism aims to replace the state with a Putin-style ‘vertical power structure’, in which officials are chosen for their loyalty rather than their compe-tence. The dismantling of the state is accompanied by deregulation, which benefits the big oligarchs who aspire to become masters of financial flows. This is why Kremlin strategists understood very early on what services Western libertarians could provide them,‘ writes Françoise Thom in Le Monde, adding: ’Douguin’s ideas have permeated Putin’s regime and inspired the policy of destroying the United States that has been implemented for the past 20 years. The aim is to inflict on the United States the same blows that it allegedly dealt to the USSR under Gorbachev, depriving it of its allies, unilaterally disarming it, ruining its economy and bringing it to the brink of civil war and dis-mantlement. Everything that the Trump administration is currently doing. » […]
Lors de la présidence Trump I, les esprits éclairés se partageaient en deux camps : ceux qui pensaient, non sans raison, que Donald était plus ou moins déficient dans de trop nombreux domaines et ceux qui penchaient pour un personnage avide, sans scrupules et foncièrement méchant dont la seule motivation était « le fric ». En fait les deux camps avaient raison. Trump II nous montre chaque jour qu’il est capable d’être grossier et malhonnête intellectuellement — il ment presque avec autant d’aplomb que Poutine — mais aussi persévérant pour détruire les structures sur lesquelles s’appuie un État de droit pour mieux faciliter les magouilles en tous genre de ses milliardaires affidés. Un des premiers objectifs de Musk a été de supprimer la commission d’enquête des marchés, l’ISC, une institution financière chargé de surveiller la régularité du marché boursier, pour ne prendre qu’un exemple. Et on a vu le résultat il y a quelques jours avec une opération de délits d’initiés comme on n’en avait jamais vu. […]
Des nombreux décrets pris par le Président Donald Trump dés son accession à la présidence, il y a un qui a surpris les historiens. Un décret visant à renommer une montagne d’Alaska qui, sous Obama avait retrouvé son nom autochtone de Denali, en mont McKinley du nom de William McKinley, le modèle pour ne pas dire l’inspirateur imaginaire de Donald Trump. Si certains savent que l’ancien représentant de l’Ohio s’est fait connaître au Congrès en faisant voter en 1890 le « McKinley Tariff », des droits de douane moyens de 38 % à près de 50 %. Élu 25e président des États-Unis, chantre déclaré du protec-tionnisme, McKinley fit voter une Loi en 1897 qui allait encore beaucoup plus loin. Le résultat se solda par un désastre économique qui devait entraîner une déroute historique des Républicains aux élections de 1890 ! McKinley avait également lorgné sur le Canada, pendant en faire le 51e État : résultat, le Canada s’est rapproché de la Grande-Bretagne ! Quentin Dickinson revient sur un personnage qui était sur le plan personnel tout le contraire de Donald Trump ! […]
« Les intérêts des oligarques russes convergent avec ceux des magnats de la Big Tech. Poutine et les grands oligarques, russes et américains, se croient au-dessus des lois. Le mépris du droit va si loin chez Poutine qu’il en vient à mettre en cause la notion d’État, justement parce qu’un État repose sur une charpente juridique et qu’il a des frontières, ce qui lui déplaît. Le trumpisme vise à remplacer l’État par une « verticale de pouvoir » à la Poutine, dans laquelle servent des fonctionnaires choisis pour leur loyauté et non pour leur compétence. Le démantèlement de l’État s’accompagne d’une dérégulation dont profitent les grands oligarques ambi-tionnant de se rendre maîtres des flux financiers. C’est pourquoi les stratèges du Kremlin ont très tôt compris quels services pouvaient leur rendre les libertariens occid-entaux … Les thèses douguiniennes ont percolé dans le régime poutinien, et ont inspiré la politique de destruction des États-Unis mise en œuvre depuis 20 ans… Tout ce qu’est en train de réaliser l’adminis-tration Trump.» […]
Samuel Huntington conclut, en 2004, son livre magistral sur l’identité des États-Unis en envisageant leur avenir sous la forme de trois hypothèses. Soit l’Amérique s’ouvre au monde et l’Amérique devient le monde, soit l’Amérique va vers le monde et le monde devient l’Amérique, soit, plus probable, l’Amérique se recentre sur son identité originelle, se ferme vis-à-vis de l’extérieur, revient d’une façon ou une autre à ses valeurs fondatrices, celles du protestantisme contes-tataire, isolationniste et messianique des pères fondateurs. Ce qui est en train d’advenir semble bien correspondre à cette dernière vision envisagée il y a plus de vingt années par le célèbre professeur. Elle manifeste, par-delà l’arrogance des nouveaux diri-geants américains, la réaction à un sentiment de vulnérabilité et de faiblesse de l’hyperpuissance face à l’évolution du monde, la nostalgie d’un temps et d’un monde révolus. S’il s’agit bien de retrouver une grandeur passée, c’est que la situation actuelle est mauvaise : perte des valeurs morales et religieuses, désindustrialisation, surendettement, trajectoire bud-gétaire insoutenable. […]
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