Kateryna Tryfonenko

Together with experts in combating disinformation, Sestry analysed the most common Russian narratives found in Ukraine, Poland, Germany and Europe in general. They examined how these messages are tailored for different audiences, the platforms where Russian propaganda is most frequently encountered, how to distinguish destructive content, and whether it achieves its goals.

Constructing Reality

Propaganda always strives to construct an alternative reality and aims to make it as simple as possible, explains Doctor of Political Science and Professor at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Lidiia Smola:

- Let me give an example: for weeks, the idea has been spreading that Trump will prohibit the supply of weapons to Ukraine. Moreover, Trump’s extravagant statements provide grounds for various interpretations. This narrative, this framework about a ban on weapons for Ukraine, is continuously supplemented with informational messages.

This starts to destabilise society, making people think: that is it - Trump will come, and it will all end for us

The fundamental goal of Russians, continues Lidiia Smola, is to divide and demoralise:

- To demoralise the part of Ukrainian society engaged in volunteering, making them think there is no point in doing so. To demoralise those on the frontline, to sow discord with messages such as: while you are at war, those in the rear are having fun. That is, to create conflict between those fighting and those in the rear, between those who left and those still in Ukraine.

Russia is not just active, it systematically analyses all the sensitive points in Ukraine

Propaganda for Poland

When it comes to Poland, the current primary goal of Russian propaganda is to instigate fear, negative emotions and disinformation, says Director of the «Democracy and Civil Society» programme at the Institute of Public Affairs (Instytut Spraw Publicznych), Sonia Horonziak:

- This is achieved mainly through the dissemination of fake news online, styled to resemble authentic press reports. These news items predominantly concern Poland’s involvement in the war in Ukraine, the border situation, and the country’s internal affairs.

The strategic goal of Russian propaganda in Poland is to create a situation where, if not pro-Russian, at least neutral attitudes towards Russia prevail, alongside anti-American and anti-European sentiments, notes Michał Marek, head of the external threats analysis group at the National Research Institute NASK:

- Russia’s main objective is to withdraw Poland from the European Union and NATO, to ensure the absence of troops and bases of our Western partners. However, on the way to this goal, they pursue smaller objectives. For instance, they fuel anti-Ukrainian sentiments to make Poland and its government reduce support for Ukraine.

Do they succeed in this? Michał Marek believes not entirely. But where they do succeed, in his opinion, is in inflaming the issues that irritate both Ukrainians and Poles the most.

Propaganda Techniques

«Stop Supporting Ukraine» - this has been Russia’s main narrative in Germany for some time, notes Lea Frühwirth, Senior Research Fellow at the German Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS):

- This can be presented in various forms: claims about the danger posed by Ukrainian refugees or assertions that continued support for Ukraine threatens the German economy. We also frequently observe content suggesting that supporting Ukraine places Germans under a direct threat of war.

Typical markers of pro-Russian content focus primarily on Ukraine, crafting a particular image of the conflict to dissuade people from supporting Ukraine, continues Lea Frühwirth. Another emphasis seems to be on attacks against the current German government, aligning with Russia’s goal of gradually destabilising the situation in Ukraine.

In recent weeks, Russia has applied a tactic in Ukraine’s information space which might be labelled as «mental fatigue». The idea is that a psychologically and emotionally drained Ukrainian society might eventually accept a frozen conflict and agree to territorial losses, notes Doctor of Political Science and Professor at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Lidiia Smola. Russian propaganda attempts to place all responsibility solely on the Ukrainian authorities. While there are indeed many questions to be asked of them, the lack of effective communication, coupled with the absence of public and transparent discussions on significant issues, creates a space for Russian propaganda to act, the expert continues:

- And Russia focuses on this. Had the system of strategic communication at the governmental level operated effectively, had the media endeavoured not just to quickly fill the information space with provocative and manipulative headlines but aimed to inform society thoughtfully, the situation could have been different. Another issue is the credibility of so-called experts.

Nowadays, anyone can call themselves an expert, which completely undermines the notion of expertise

In Polish information space, false and fake news is most commonly disseminated online, especially on major social media platforms and far-right internet portals, says Sonia Horonziak, Director of the «Democracy and Civil Society» programme at the Institute of Public Affairs (Instytut Spraw Publicznych). Often, this information immediately provokes strong emotions, portrays the Polish government in an extremely negative light, and highlights events that adversely affect Polish society:

- Disseminated messages often combine partially truthful information or images but provide them with false context. Thus, we see an authentic photograph associated with a completely different past event.

Moreover, the role of artificial intelligence in creating increasingly sophisticated fake images or videos depicting certain events or individuals, often from the political world, is growing

From a structural perspective, disinformation campaigns such as «Twin» are well-studied and usually follow the same pattern, making them relatively easy to identify, notes Lea Frühwirth, Senior Research Fellow at CeMAS:

- For example, if a self-proclaimed news site appeared in my feed, resembling a well-known German newspaper but disseminating only overtly pro-Russian material, I would automatically become cautious.

Channels of Influence

There are several channels of fake communication in general, continues Lea Frühwirth. The first is the attempt to fill the information space with disinformation on topics of interest to Russia. However, it appears they focus more on the quantity of these messages than on their quality:

- To be manipulative, this content does not even need to contain outright lies. Simply highlighting one aspect of a problem while ignoring others, or pretending to be German citizens expressing concern while actually being part of a bot network, is also misleading. On the other hand, there are local pro-Russian influencers who repeat typical Kremlin talking points. Usually, we cannot determine their motivation - they might be paid or genuinely believe in it.

The war against Ukraine is one of the topics used daily by creators of fake news. This is detailed in a report by SCIENCE+, the largest journalistic network combating disinformation in Central Europe. In 2024, no new key disinformation narratives emerged, instead, existing ones were adapted to current events. The report records manipulations around the threat of war with Russia, societal divisions over positions on Ukraine, and the myth of a conflict between «the West» and «the East». These narratives became part of widespread attacks on democratic elections in Slovakia, Bulgaria, Moldova and Romania.

Young people are most frequently targeted by disinformation. Most do not engage with traditional media and instead obtain information from unreliable influencers. This contributes to a tendency among the youth to support radical or populist politicians.

A striking example is Romania, where the Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of presidential elections after President Klaus Iohannis declassified intelligence data showing that Russia had organised thousands of social media accounts to promote the radical pro-Russian politician Călin Georgescu through platforms like TikTok and Telegram. In 2025, presidential elections will be held in Poland. Russia will undoubtedly seek to exert influence, says Michał Marek, head of the external threats analysis group at the National Research Institute NASK:

- But in our current situation in Poland, the Romanian scenario is unlikely. They will not succeed in seriously influencing these elections.

Pro-Russian agents might have an impact on parliamentary elections. However, when it comes to presidential elections, I would not overestimate their ability to exert influence

Tactics, markers, and effectiveness of propaganda

Propaganda typically evokes extreme emotions, explains Sonia Horonziak, Director of the «Democracy and Civil Society» programme at the Institute of Public Affairs (Instytut Spraw Publicznych):

- You should ask yourself why you have not heard this information on public television or radio. Secondly, you should verify this information through various official sources. Most often, such information is not confirmed in any way. Some social networks also add contextual information to certain content, which can influence its perception. It is always worth searching for additional context.

Among the popular tools of Russian propaganda are aggressive rhetoric, threats, intimidation and nuclear blackmail. During the so-called year-end summary, the Russian president reiterated the claim that there are no air defence systems capable of intercepting the «Orieshnik» missile. According to Putin, even the missile defence systems in Poland and Romania would not intercept this missile. However, there is a percentage of people in Poland under the influence of Russian propaganda who might take such threats seriously and perceive other Russian narratives as real, says Michał Marek, head of the external threats analysis group at the National Research Institute NASK:

- Overall, the Polish society does not seem to fear this. It is clear that for many Poles, the war in Europe is perceived as a reality - in Europe, meaning between NATO and Russia. But the threats themselves, the «Orieshnik» topic, are not a factor widely believed by us Poles. Russians have been trying to frighten us for years - with nuclear strikes, with claims we would freeze to death without Russian gas.

So new threats are mostly viewed as just another scare tactic. The effectiveness of such Russian propaganda, frankly speaking, is not very high

Critical thinking

Anyone can fall into the trap of propaganda, says Lea Frühwirth, Senior Research Fellow at the German Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS):

- Human information processing is imperfect. It is not a pleasant thought, but it is the first step to awareness. We all need to establish a basic level of awareness and critical thinking. I would recommend using reliable and authoritative media outlets that adhere to journalistic standards to stay informed about what is happening in the world. Social media, on the other hand, is an information sphere where we must be prepared to encounter misleading content. If you notice something suddenly causing you excessive emotions, it is worth taking a step back and evaluating rationally to avoid contributing to the spread of fake news.

Russian propaganda typically divides the world into «black» and «white», «us» and «them», attempting to impose this division on Ukrainians. A characteristic approach is the emotional pressure - all these visualisations, publications of videos showing killed Ukrainian soldiers, notes Lidiia Smola, Doctor of Political Science and Professor at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute:

- A marker of propaganda is that you are urged to act impulsively and emotionally. For example, you go to social media and see a photo of an unfamiliar person appealing emotionally, for instance, «like this post because I am going to the frontline». And such posts then garner thousands of likes. Why? Because people want to feel part of something important. However, how these pages are used later and what is disseminated through them is rarely considered.

That is why it is crucial to critically evaluate resources and not succumb to manipulative calls for immediate action

For Ukraine, the factor of despair, constantly fuelled by hostile propagandists, is also significant. This is the narrative of an unbeatable Russia, notes Lidiia Smola:

- It works through emotional swings: from a state of sharp excitement to depression, when people write: everything is lost, we cannot win, Russia is winning. In such cases, I always ask where Russia was in 2022 with all its powerful and prepared army, and where it is now.

This project is co-funded by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation under the «Support Ukraine» programme implemented by the «Education for Democracy» Foundation

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On June 20th the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published an annual report with positive feedback towards the European countries’ efforts in Ukrainian people protection. However, it encouraged them to provide proper protection and support to all seekers of refuge regardless of their ethnicity. Are Ukrainian refugees really more desirable in the EU than emigrants from other countries? Does the attitude towards Ukrainians change? Will they send Ukrainian men of conscription age home, and why, despite the scale of migration, they don’t consider the Ukrainian migrants a problem in the EU? Sestry asked a historian, lawyer and migration specialist about it

‍The EU never called it a crisis

From the perspective of EU residents, the situation that arose after the start of the full-scale war had an entirely different dimension compared to the migration crisis of 2015, as it did not concern African or Middle Eastern countries, but rather close neighbours, citizens of a country that had the status of an EU-associated country and openly declared its intentions to integrate into the European Union, explains Polish historian and political scientist Łukasz Adamski. Two main factors, from his words, were strong sympathy from Europeans, and Poles in particular, and the desire to help:
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- Something similar might have happened in the 1990s after the wars in the Balkans.

The first factor - is that this crisis came from Europe to Europe, the cultural similarity has become very important. The second factor - the lack of purely geographical barriers

Many Ukrainians went to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary - these countries have shared borders with Ukraine. When discussing past migration crises, there has always been a physical barrier - the Mediterranean Sea. And Turkey - a kind of buffer zone, a NATO country that separated Europe from lands where war was waging and where refugees were coming from.

When Ukrainians arrived in EU countries in large numbers at the beginning of the war, none of them called it a crisis. Similarly, such a definition has never been heard in the broader circles of the European Union, notes Başak Yavçan, head of research at the Migration Policy Group in Brussels.

- There can be many reasons for this. Political - EU’s active engagement in the conflict due to the Russian threat, social - acceptance of Ukrainian refugees’ cultural similarity, and also organisational - immediate growth of capacities and solidarity networks for better settlement of the refugees after arrival. And we see that crisis discourse only really appears when there is a management crisis.

Additionally, the reaction of countries that accepted Ukrainians showed what the EU is capable of when it is willing to do something. This has also affected the advancement of integration policies of the recipient countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Even though these countries have been accepting refugees very reluctantly in the past, they turned out to be quite hospitable towards refugees from Ukraine. This deserves praise but obviously leaves a lot to be desired. If such policies only apply to certain groups of people, they conflict with the equality principles and create double standards towards other groups.

Fascination with Ukrainians that is slowly fading

Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Commission provided Ukrainians with temporary protection - a unique legal mechanism that gives Ukrainians the rights to residence and employment, social services and freedom of travel within the EU. The Europeans have opened this mechanism for the first time for Ukrainians, and it was a very successful idea, says an immigration lawyer, officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksii Skorbach:

- If we are talking about the refugee status or additional protection that exists in Europe, then those are individual protection options. Meaning the person arrives individually, and their documents, story and country are inspected. And the individual has to undergo a slow and difficult process of explaining personally to foreign officials that they are being persecuted or are in danger at home.

All this is not needed for temporary protection. The sole objective situation in the country the person has fled from already proves the danger. And what is important, temporary protection is provided en masse, meaning one does not have to prove individual endangerment. In this way, countless formalities are put aside, as in such global catastrophes or occupation, the person is often not able to collect the necessary amount of documents or even take their belongings with them. This is why this mechanism is a huge advantage and is genuinely a sign of democracy since it is designed for large numbers of people forced to flee from objective threats.

Although temporary protection has its technicalities - primarily it does not provide subsequent legalisation in the residence country.

At the same time, the EU is interested in the most effective integration of Ukrainians possible. Here too there is a difference between the perception of Ukrainian citizens and emigrants from other countries, says Başak Yavçan, head of the Migration Policy Group in Brussels, referring to research data collected by their centre:

- Ukrainians are considered to be more integrated, their integration policies are more supported - and generally they are more supported. And their relationships with the community that accepted them are assessed as better compared to refugees from non-EU countries.

Although it is not only about Ukrainians themselves in this case, Başak Yavçan notes and reveals an interesting conclusion of her research:

The more effective the local integration policies are, the more favourable attitude towards refugees the people in the communities have

Therefor, the effective reaction mechanisms for refugees’ problems form an overall better attitude towards them.

At the beginning of the full-scale war, there was a massive wave of solidarity with Ukraine, it could even be labelled as Ukrainophilia, believes the Polish historian and politologist Łukasz Adamski. Everyone sympathised, everyone wanted to help. Now the understanding remains that people had to leave Ukraine due to Putin’s criminal war, and we need to help, but the longer the war continues, and the longer the Ukrainians stay abroad, the more mundane problems there are:
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- In Poland, for example, if you ask average Poles (and it is stated in various social surveys) they often say that they lack gratitude from Ukrainians and that they do not like the attitude of «You must do something for us, you must give us something». It is hard for me to judge how justified these claims are, but this general opinion comes from sociology.

The protection does not have retroactive effect

At the same time, Lukasz Adamski is convinced that despite all the similar sociological data and occasional public discontent, both the EU in general and Poland in particular have the resources and willingness to help Ukrainians if the security or energy situation worsens and the EU receives a new wave of migrants from Ukraine:
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- I try not to be overly optimistic, but it seems to me that there is a readiness to help here. Firstly, we all understand that it will not be a massive wave; even if it happens, it will be at the level of one, two, or three million Ukrainians, and both the EU and Poland can manage it. There is also a belief that the Ukrainian state will endure even under difficult conditions and that the Ukrainian population will be able to survive the winter. Moreover:

I would say that Ukrainians - are perfect migrants, and they do not create threats

In this context, in Łukasz Adamski’s opinion, it is rather Ukraine that is facing a threat, as a new wave of migration can undermine the inner Ukrainian endurance and add to the number of problems within - since someone has to work for the army to be able to fight.

Additionally, Ukraine has been urging EU countries for several months to consider ways to facilitate the return of Ukrainian men to their native land. Consultations regarding those who left illegally are ongoing, as stated by Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko, in an interview with Radio Liberty at the end of June.

Ukraine can make any appeals and proposals to the European Union, explaining that we lack people, however, there is international law that prohibits returning people to countries where events threatening their safety are taking place, emphasises Oleksii Skorbach, an immigration lawyer and officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

- Men of conscription age have a constitutional duty to defend their country, but this duty pertains to Ukraine. When it comes to another country, the question arises: why should that country decide for them how they should fulfil their constitutional duty to Ukraine?

There is a rule that you may choose not to provide protection from the outset, but if you have already granted it, it should not have retroactive effect. The cancellation of such protection could turn out to be a much bigger problem

Because all these people received temporary protection precisely because there is a danger in our country. The question is how to address this issue if the danger has not disappeared?
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