Instruments of influence in Italy and Europe
hybrid warfare resilience information manipulation
Prof. Nataliia Kryvda
Professor at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (KNU),
Academic Director of Edinburgh Business School in Ukraine,
HEAD of the Supervisory Board of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation
The architecture of influence is more important than any single fake.
Russian propaganda in Europe is not one channel, one lie, or one narrative. It is an ecosystem that uses democratic openness against democratic resilience.
The goal is not merely persuasion. The mechanism is fragmentation.
The target is trust: in facts, institutions, alliances and moral judgement.
Not necessarily to make Europe pro-Russian, but to make Europe less coherent. …to seed doubt, fatigue, moral symmetry, mistrust of the European Union, NATO, national governments or mainstream media.
Doubt Fatigue Moral symmetry Cynicism Political hesitation
The battlefield is cognitive before it becomes electoral or geopolitical.
Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference as a wider policy frame.
Disinformation
False or misleading information used intentionally.
FIMI
Coordinated manipulation and interference by foreign actors.
Hybrid warfare
Military and non-military tools combined to destabilise societies.
Analytical shift
From isolated falsehoods to organised interference in the public sphere.
1. State media, proxy media and sanctions evasion
2. The pseudo-expert as local intermediary 3. Culture as soft propaganda 4. Localization of narratives
War fatigue and moral symmetry
Digital networks, AI and information overload
The anti-censorship frame 8. Political function
• EU restricted access to RT, other Russian state-controlled media following the fullscale invasion of Ukraine
• Kremlin-linked narratives adapted.
• The model is not linear but ecological: state media becomes proxy media; proxy media becomes ‘independent’ commentary; commentary is then amplified through local communities and social platforms.
A democratic, open environment with multiple entry points.
• Not “Italy is pro-Russian.” Rather: Italy is a plural, open society where Russian narratives search for available cultural and political entry points.
• Сultural familiarity with Russia.
• Television debate culture and “both sides” formats.
• Local civic groups and anti-system networks.
• War fatigue, economic anxiety and peace rhetoric.
• High symbolic value of culture and heritage.
Films, exhibitions, concerts, “peace” discussions and cultural days may create ambiguity: “everything is complicated”, “there are two truths”, “culture is beyond politics”.
When an aggressor speaks through culture, it does not end the war; it changes the stage.
Russia — visibility as normalisation. Ukraine — invisibility as testimony.
The issue is not whether art should exist. The issue is whether a state-aggressor can use cultural prestige to re-enter the European symbolic order while war continues.
The struggle is not only for territory, but for the right to be seen truthfully in world culture.
The Ukrainian response can be read as an ethics of memory rather than counterpropaganda. By commemorating Ukrainian artists whose lives and work were destroyed by the war, the project reverses the visual economy of the Biennale: Russia seeks visibility as normalisation; Ukraine uses invisibility as testimony.
From staged reconstruction to sanctions evasion.
Modena / Mariupol, 2024 — A city destroyed by Russia was reframed as a story of “rebirth”. Propaganda does not always deny destruction; sometimes it displays reconstruction to erase responsibility.
RT Doc / billboards / screenings — When an official channel is blocked, propaganda becomes a documentary brand, a billboard campaign, a local screening, a debate or a Telegram link.
Mechanism: destruction → staged rebirth.
Mechanism: sanctioned media → cultural branding.
Voice of Europe — Media platform linked to pro-Kremlin narratives and alleged political influence before EU elections.
Pravfond / Euromore — Legal, “compatriot” and alternativemedia infrastructure used as a shell for manipulation.
The political objective is to make support for Ukraine more costly and European unity more fragile. FE. ‘the Zakharova case’
new problem is speed, scale and
1. AI does not invent propaganda from nothing – it makes it cheaper, faster, more scalable and more emotionally precise. 2. Synthetic images and videos. 3. Mass-produced pseudo-news. 4. Fake “witness” material.
Requests to fact-check false claims.
Overloading journalists and democratic institutions.
Operation Overload / Matryoshka: disinformation by exhausting verification.
Not only fact-checking: resilience of judgement.
The democratic answer is not propaganda against propaganda. It is the defence of public reason.
“Nobody is right. Nothing is true. Everyone is guilty. So why should we care?”
This is the strategic endpoint of Russian propaganda: not persuasion, but demoralisation.
For verification and further reading.
1. NATO: Countering hybrid threats; approach to counter information threats. https://www.nato.int/en/what-we-do/deterrence-anddefence/countering-hybrid-threats
2. EEAS: 2024 Report on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/2024-reporteeas-activities-counter-foreign-information-manipulation-and-interference-fimi_en
3. Reuters / AP: Venice Biennale 2026 and Russian Pavilion controversy. https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/russian-return-biennalerattles-venice-ahead-opening-2026-05-05/
4. Reuters: Modena / Mariupol event, January 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italian-city-halts-event-appearingpromote-russian-war-ukraine-2024-01-09/
5. RSF and ISD: RT Doc and sanctions evasion in Italy. https://rsf.org/en/slow-down-propaganda-ahead-rt-s-documentary-channeltakes-over-italian-billboards
6. European Parliament and Reuters: Voice of Europe case, 2024. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-sanctions-voiceeurope-related-businessmen-czech-ministry-says-2024-05-27/
7. Reuters / Council of the EU: Pravfond and Euromore sanctions, 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/eu-imposes-sanctions-tworussian-entities-it-says-are-linked-disinformation-2026-04-21/
8. VIGINUM: Matryoshka / Operation Overload report, 2024. https://www.sgdsn.gouv.fr/files/files/20240611_NP_SGDSN_VIGINUM_Matriochka_EN_VF.pdf