By EUvsDisinfo
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 Poland’s upcoming presidential elections in May. These coordinated campaigns reveal the true nature of the Kremlin’s playbook.
Deliberate, not a mistake
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 – an attack that killed 20 people, including nine children, and wounded more than 70.
Disinformation in support of a terror campaign
These cynical, made-up military justifications for killing innocent civilians follow a cookie cutter approach: attack civilian infrastructure, deny responsibility, and then fabricate a story of military targets that were supposedly present.
However, the evidence tells a different story. UN Human Rights Office investigators, international media, and security footage have repeatedly debunked Russia’s claims. Since the full-scale invasion of 2022, Russia has systematically targeted theatres, hospitals, schools, energy facilities, and residential buildings across Ukraine. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Russian officials responsible for strikes against civilian infrastructure, recognising these as war crimes.
These attacks are not mistakes or anomalies. They represent a deliberate terror campaign against Ukrainian civilians, following the same pattern of attack, denial, and relentless spread of disinformation that has become the Kremlin’s staple.
Poland’s upcoming presidential elections in the crosshairs
On 9 April, a coordinated foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) campaign targeting Poland’s upcoming presidential elections emerged on social media. Two deceptive videos falsely impersonating respected news outlets, TVP World and Gazeta Wyborcza, claimed that Polish security agencies wanted to postpone the 18 May elections due to terror threats, with one of the videos specifically linking these alleged threats to migration.
The operation bears all the hallmarks of Russia’s ‘Matryoshka’ FIMI campaign, tied closely to the Doppelganger campaign that we have covered many times before. Within just ten minutes of posting, approximately 90 inauthentic accounts systematically amplified the content, generating over 100,000 views. The videos were later cross-posted to BlueSky, a recently introduced tactic, with tags attempting to draw Western media attention.
Follow the patterns
From a technical perspective, the operation uses a two-tier approach with ‘seeder’ accounts posting the original content and ‘amplifier’, or ‘quoter’, accounts rapidly spreading it through coordinated resharing, and by commenting and sharing references to inauthentic websites underneath legitimate media posts. Both are well-known tactics of Russian FIMI campaigns.
This manipulative behaviour follows a well-documented pattern of election interference: fear-mongering, relentless smearing of political figures, and unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud. Similar tactics were deployed in connection with the Polish elections back in 2023, the recent elections in Germany (see also here), and the European Parliamentary elections last summer.
The patterns are there for all to see. Don’t be deceived.
Also spotted on EUvsDisinfo’s radar this week:
- Pro-Kremlin outlets are at it yet again, alleging that Russia is ‘fighting global satanism’, falsely framing the war against Ukraine as a continuation of the Soviet fight in WWII. As Russia prepares for the 80th Victory Day anniversary on 9 May, this propaganda has intensified, drawing manufactured parallels between today’s unjustified full-scale invasion and the ‘Great Patriotic War’. Disinformation narratives such as this exploit historical memory to justify unprovoked aggression while casting Russia as a defender of traditional values against a supposedly immoral West. By invoking ‘satanism’ and religious imagery, pro-Kremlin propaganda aims to dehumanise Ukrainians and portray Russia’s illegal war as a ‘righteous crusade’. It also aims at rallying domestic support and dividing international opinion by reframing Russia’s war of aggression in more apocalyptic terms.
- Russian state-controlled mouthpiece Sputnik is falsely claiming that Ukraine’s Kursk incursion somehow ‘wasted 7.8 billion dollars of Western taxpayers’ money’ by allegedly losing a whopping 5,500 units of Western-supplied military equipment. These bloated and impressive-sounding figures exist only in the imagination of Sputnik propagandists as they try to undermine international support for Ukraine by portraying military aid as a wasteful investment.
In reality, according to the independent Oryx OSINT project, which meticulously tracks equipment losses through verified open-source data, Ukraine had lost approximately 870 pieces of equipment during the Kursk operation, a fraction of the claimed figure. Moreover, these losses included equipment from Soviet-era arsenals, not solely Western weapons systems supplied by Ukraine’s international supporters. This deliberate exaggeration is another example of a broader Kremlin strategy to erode Western resolve in supporting Ukraine by targeting Western taxpayers’ concerns and creating the false impression that aid to Ukraine is going to waste. Such numerical manipulation is a classic disinformation tactic designed to appear credible while greatly distorting the actual situation on the ground. - Pro-Kremlin outlets continue attacking EU High Representative Kaja Kallas with false assertions that she issued a ‘Russophobic ultimatum’ disrespecting WWII heroes by discouraging EU leaders from attending Russia’s 80th Victory Day celebrations. This manufactured outrage deliberately distorts HRVP Kallas’ actual statement, which simply expressed the EU’s position that leaders should not attend Moscow’s commemorations while Russia wages a full-scale war against Ukraine. Instead, Kallas supported Ukraine’s invitation for EU leaders to visit Kyiv on 9 May to show solidarity.
This disinformation exemplifies the Kremlin’s strategy of weaponising history, particularly around WWII, to attack critics and justify current aggression. Pro-Kremlin propaganda seeks to monopolise historical interpretation and shield Russia’s on-going war of aggression from criticism. Such narratives also aim to delegitimise the EU’s leadership while promoting the false claim that only Russia’s revised version of history is legitimate.
By EUvsDisinfo
