The Russian Federation's Strategic Influence Architecture in the West: Reflections on Propaganda, Disinformation, and Hybrid Influence Operations
The primary objective of Russian drone operations is to create a persistent sense of insecurity and fragility within Western societies, including Turkey, by disrupting air traffic at major European airports such as Copenhagen, Berlin, Frankfurt, Brussels and Oslo, without triggering NATO's collective defence mechanism (Article 5).
This article examines the Russian Federation's strategic influence operations targeting democratic systems in Western Europe and North America. It demonstrates that the Kremlin has moved away from its traditional pursuit of ‘Soft Power’ and adopted more aggressive ‘Sharp Power’ (Sharp Power) and low-threshold hybrid coercion techniques that manipulate the political, economic, and information environments of target societies. This architecture supports Moscow's three main strategic objectives: eroding Western support for Ukraine, creating distrust and division among NATO allies, and positioning itself as the pillar of a ‘Post-Western’ order by challenging international norms.
The Kremlin's strategy integrates large-scale disinformation campaigns financed through state media (Russia Today and Sputnik), illicit financial flows involving the funding of political parties in Europe, and cyber/physical sabotage operations targeting vital infrastructure. Through these tactics, Russia deepens existing fault lines in US and EU societies, such as anti-immigration sentiment or traditional values, using internal political issues as a tool for geopolitical coercion. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Russkiy Mir (Russian World) doctrine instrumentalise the diaspora and religious conservatism to spread pro-Kremlin narratives and lobby Western institutions.
The fundamental strategic implication is that Russia's influence efforts are part of a ‘Shadow War,’ a continuous war of attrition rather than isolated attacks. This situation reveals that the current anti-money laundering and cyber security architectures of Western democracies are inadequate against low-threshold hybrid threats such as the legitimisation of kleptocratic capital and coercive cyber operations. To increase resilience, integrated cyber-physical defence strategies and comprehensive legal reforms mandating transparency in political financing are vital.
Part I Conceptual Framework: The Erosion of Soft Power and the Rise of Hard Power
a) Russia's International Attractiveness Gap and the Limits of Traditional Soft Power
Soft Power was defined by international relations expert Joseph Nye Jr. in 1990 and essentially means ‘the ability to achieve one's objectives through attraction rather than coercion.’ When viewed within this traditional framework, Russia's situation appears markedly weak when compared to the strategies of former empires such as the United Kingdom and France, which gained global influence through institutions that promoted colonisation and cultural ties (e.g., the British Council, established in 1934). Perhaps the most overlooked symbol of the United Kingdom's soft power is the use of English as a common language (lingua franca) worldwide, which gives the United Kingdom a significant advantage on the global stage.
However, a research proposal prepared by Chatham House in the United Kingdom states that ‘the conventional wisdom is that Russia does not have soft power’. This is a direct consequence of the Russian Federation's inability to possess a global core based on universal democratic or cultural values necessary to influence Western societies through voluntary attraction. This strategic deficiency in traditional soft power has led the Kremlin towards alternative, more aggressive strategies aimed at establishing influence through manipulation and indirect coercion rather than attraction.
b) Sharp Power: Definition and Mechanisms of Manipulative Influence
The model developed by Russia to overcome its limitations in traditional soft power is based on manipulative influence operations called ‘Sharp Power’. This concept emphasises that authoritarian influence efforts are not merely soft, but rather possess a quality that ‘pierces, penetrates or perforates’ the information and political environments of target countries. Joseph Nye Jr. himself states that Sharp Power involves the manipulative use of information and, because it eliminates voluntary choice, actually becomes a coercive action.
Sharp Power develops most dangerously when influence is applied without transparency and control is exercised under the guise of cooperation. These operations are often presented as cultural diplomacy or intellectual exchange, but fundamentally conceal an instrumental logic. Even more concerning is the use of institutions traditionally associated with building Soft Power, such as universities, media organisations, and think tanks, as vessels for conveying Sharp Power messages. This creates ‘symbolic contamination,’ posing the risk of ‘symbolic occupation’ in Western democracies, where the dominant narrative is increasingly controlled from outside rather than from within. The fundamental goal of Sharp Power is not to ‘win hearts and minds’ but to influence target audiences by manipulating or distorting the information that reaches them.
c) Russia's Hybrid Strategic Goals: Coercion and Creating Division
Russia's strategic goals towards the West are multifaceted and consistent with the Kremlin's hybrid warfare doctrine. The fundamental aim is to weaken the West's global unity and its support for Ukraine. These objectives include influencing public opinion in Europe and the US to support Russian interests, forcing governments to restrict military aid to Ukraine, and, in particular, creating divisions among NATO allies.
Russia is compensating for its failure to achieve a quick victory in Ukraine or force political capitulation in Kyiv by spreading the battlefield into the daily lives of European societies. These operations are called the ‘Shadow War’ (Shadow War) and aim to create a constant sense of insecurity and fragility in the West without crossing the threshold that would trigger the collective defence mechanism (NATO Article 5). Furthermore, Moscow is positioning itself as the pillar of a ‘Post-Western’ order by challenging international norms and instrumentalising post-colonial discourse. This global narrative resonates in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, supporting disinformation efforts against the West on a global scale. Although Russia's strategy has destructive capacity, it is balanced by its structural weakness stemming from its inability to offer sustainable large-scale economic projects; Europe, meanwhile, continues to offer a long-term alternative thanks to its stability and appeal.
Part II Information Warfare Doctrine and Disinformation Operations
The cornerstone of Russia's influence strategy is information warfare, which is state-funded and used to achieve strategic objectives. This approach has been a mainstay of Russian strategy since the Cold War, with significant time and resources devoted to disinformation compared to other forms of espionage.
a) Architecture of the State Media Network: Funding and International Reach
The Kremlin's information operations are centred on international state media networks such as RT (Russia Today) and Rossiya Segodnya. The level of funding provided to these organisations confirms that disinformation is positioned as a primary strategic foreign policy tool. In 2019, it was reported that RT and Rossiya Segodnya received approximately $430 million to $440 million in funding from the federal budget. However, it has been noted that officials deliberately select and obscure budget figures, creating complexity. This budget of hundreds of millions of dollars supports ‘Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference’ (FIMI) operations conducted through a complex network of numerous brands, websites, and social media accounts. This complex structure makes it difficult to measure the international reach of Russia's information operations and serves the Kremlin's goal of maintaining plausible deniability for these activities.
b) Operational Tactics: Volume, Inconsistency and the Weaponisation of Social Media
Russia's approach to disinformation stands in sharp contrast to typical communication strategies in the West. Russian information campaigns show no commitment to consistency between narratives; instead, they focus on the volume and repetition of the message, aiming to ensure its acceptance through familiarity.
This doctrinal difference reflects Russia's goal of creating a ‘post-truth’ environment by eroding social trust and faith in institutions rather than persuading target audiences. Social media is seen as a low-cost, high-impact asymmetric warfare weapon in this strategy. Russia's use of social media outside the former Soviet Union increased significantly in 2014,
as a reaction to the West's response to the Ukraine conflict. Analyses by the RAND Corporation indicate that Russia finds these activities successful and that, despite Western countermeasures, the threat is likely to persist and potentially grow. Russia continues to develop more sophisticated tactics and techniques to counter Western awareness-raising efforts.
c) Critical Narrative Themes: Exploiting Fault Lines in the West
The primary goal of Russian disinformation is to distract, divide, and weaken systems by focusing on pre-existing cracks and polarisation within US and European societies. This tactic creates an effective channel of geopolitical coercion by blending Russia's foreign policy objectives with internal agendas in the West. For example, analyses have revealed that Russia actively supports anti-immigration themes in the US, aiming to weaken support for aid funds to Ukraine.
On an ideological level, pro-Kremlin narratives build bridges with conservative movements in the West, often using themes of anti-globalism, family values or traditional Christianity. This has become the most indirect and deniable form of political coercion for Russia. US Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats described Russian influence as ‘pervasive’ and stated that they expect Russia to ‘continue to exploit social and political fault lines in the US using propaganda, social media, fake identities, sympathetic spokespersons and other influence tools.’
d) Case Study: 2017 French Presidential Election (Macron Leaks)
The 2017 French presidential election is considered the clearest example of a failed attempt by a foreign entity to influence the electoral process. Russian interference targeted Emmanuel Macron's candidacy and involved a coordinated disinformation campaign consisting of rumours, fake news and even fake documents.21 In the final phase of the campaign, the leaking of 15 gigabytes (GB) of stolen data (including 21,075 emails) onto the internet was a combination of cyberattack and information operation. This leak was rapidly disseminated on Twitter by bot armies using the hashtag #MacronLeaks.
The failure of this initiative provided critical lessons for Western democracies. According to a CSIS (Centre for Strategic and International Studies) analysis, the success of Macron's campaign was linked to the ‘de-emphasising’ of the content, thanks to the absence of anything compromising in the leaked emails. This strengthened Macron's ‘clean’ image, and the disinformation failed to achieve its goal due to the disruption of the leak's dissemination phase. This case demonstrated that transparency and swift legal and political responses are critical to disrupting the chain of influence of Russia's cyber-information operations.
Part III Political Penetration and Illegal Financial Influence (Population)
A key component of Russia's influence strategy in the West is to influence political actors and institutions through illegal or unethical financial flows. This reflects the Kremlin's capacity to exert political pressure through loopholes in the legal system.
a) The Role of Illicit Financial Flows (IFF) and Kleptocratic Capital
Russia uses large-scale illicit financial flows (IFF) to influence Western European politics. The vast majority of these flows may not technically be considered illegal under Russian law due to the absence of independent judicial and prosecutorial bodies in Russia; however, they still constitute ‘legitimised’ and corrupt capital used for malign purposes. Such kleptocratic capital is used to influence political parties and the broader political structure in consolidated democracies such as the United Kingdom and North America.
UK-based analyses show that the current anti-money laundering architecture is inadequate to deal with such state-backed kleptocratic flows. Legislation relies heavily on self-regulation and due diligence rules, but these rules are not designed to target corrupt capital supporting the Russian state. Consequently, these legal loopholes constitute Russia's primary gateway for political influence.
b) Energy Lobbying and the Influence of EU Regulations
The energy sector is the primary lever of Russia's financial and political influence. Russian energy companies (Gazprom, Lukoil, Rosatom) have conducted intensive lobbying activities to shape EU regulatory processes in line with their own interests. According to a report prepared by Greenpeace France, these companies have used their lobbying connections to include fossil gas and nuclear energy in the EU's sustainable investment taxonomy.
The inclusion of gas and nuclear in the taxonomy would enable Rosatom (the Russian state-owned nuclear energy company) to secure a share of the potential €500 billion in new nuclear capacity investments in the EU. Furthermore, expanding gas capacity in line with the taxonomy could generate an additional €32 billion in revenue for Russia by 2030. This increases Russia's dependence on the EU energy market, giving Vladimir Putin additional leverage over the EU, even in the context of the war in Ukraine. Despite sanctions, major European companies such as TotalEnergies, SEFE, Naturgy and Fluxys contributed approximately $5.2 billion to Russian tax revenues through Yamal LNG contracts between 2022 and 2024. This demonstrates how the profit motive of large companies conflicts with national security interests, indirectly undermining the sanctions regime and enabling Russia to maintain its economic coercion.
c) Financing of Political Parties and Reciprocal Relations in Western Europe
Russia uses direct financing and support mechanisms to divide the political environment in Western Europe and create allies that are compatible with itself. Foreign funding is used to influence political parties, campaigns and politicians, creating a network of influence that defends Russian interests when important political decisions (such as sanctions) are at stake.
Selected Case Studies:
1. France: The National Front (now National Rally), led by Marine Le Pen, received a €9.4 million loan from Russia in 2014. This financial dependency is a key vector reinforcing the party's anti-EU and pro-Russia rhetoric.
2. Germany: The far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) party is linked to Russia through allegations of possible monetary payments and the Kremlin drafting a ‘manifesto’ for the party. This demonstrates Russia's capacity not only to provide funding but also to directly influence the ideological orientation and internal agendas of political parties in the West.
3. Hungary: The Fidesz administration in Hungary uses a powerful centralised propaganda apparatus to systematically disseminate anti-Ukrainian, anti-Western and pro-Russian narratives. Furthermore, by turning a blind eye to the cooperation of far-right groups such as the GRU's (Russian military intelligence service) turning a blind eye to its cooperation with far-right groups such as MNA, thereby providing a favourable environment for Kremlin-aligned activities.
Through these asymmetric influence mechanisms, Russia has gained a critical veto power or blocking capability in EU decision-making processes with relatively small financial investments. This situation is linked to the strengthening of populist and anti-EU parties in Europe in every election and directly weakens the viability of the EU's collective foreign and security policies.
Part IV Hybrid Threats and Shadow Warfare Targeting Critical Infrastructure
Russia's strategic coercion involves low-threshold actions targeting Western critical infrastructure and social stability by blending cyber and physical spheres of influence. This is a war of attrition aimed at weakening the West's recovery capabilities and deterrence perception in the event of a conflict.
a) Cyber Warfare Capabilities and State Actor Operations
Russia is recognised as a leading actor in the cyber domain, with its intelligence services (GRU, FSB and SVR) conducting cyber espionage, sabotage and disinformation campaigns. Reports published by institutions such as the UK National Cyber Security Centre and the US State Department confirm Russia's aggressive approach. Notable cyber incidents include the 2015 Bundestag hack and the 2017 Macron Leaks.
One of the most destructive examples is the 2017 NotPetya malware attack, which caused billions of dollars in financial damage and supply chain disruptions. This is an example of cyber -economic coercion. The effects of Russian cyber attacks go beyond system disruptions, translating into reckless actions that trigger sanctions from the West.
b) Critical Infrastructure Sabotage: Purpose, Method and Deterrence Threshold
As the conflict in Ukraine has prolonged, Russia has intensified its ‘Shadow War’ operations, extending the battlefield into the daily lives of European societies. The primary objective of this low-threshold coercion is to create a constant sense of insecurity and fragility within Western societies without crossing NATO's collective defence mechanism (Article 5) threshold.
These operations include physical sabotage actions targeting critical infrastructure. Examples include a deliberate sabotage act 7 that destroyed a section of railway carrying goods to Ukraine on the Poland-Ukraine railway corridor, an arson attempt on a large warehouse in Warsaw, and disruptions and flight cancellations at major European airports such as Copenhagen, Berlin, Frankfurt, Brussels and Oslo due to the sighting of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). Authorities view these incidents as part of an increasingly hostile pattern of activity.
In response to these threats, Poland has launched ‘Operation Horizon,’ a nationwide security initiative deploying tens of thousands of military personnel and cyber units to protect railway corridors, logistics centres, and other critical areas from sabotage or cyber operations. This demonstrates that demonstrates how Russia's low-threshold coercion tactics create economic and political attrition by forcing target states to allocate significant resources to internal security and risk management.
Section V Instrumentalisation of the Cultural and Religious Sphere
The Russian Federation uses cultural and religious institutions as tools of geopolitical influence and coercion to compensate for its traditional lack of soft power. This strategy views the Russian diaspora as an instrument of influence and blends religious conservatism with an anti-Western ideology.
a) Russkiy Mir Doctrine: Geopolitical Use of Diaspora and Identity Policies
The concept of Russkiy Mir (Russian World) was conceived in the late 1990s by intellectuals close to the Kremlin and incorporated into political discourse by Vladimir Putin from 2001 onwards. The doctrine views Russia as a ‘divided nation’ and emphasises the desire for ‘the restoration of the unity of historical Russia.’ This concept combines ideological, political, and geopolitical dimensions with the claim that a ‘broad Russian civilisation,’ which it sees as part of Russia's interests, must be protected against external powers such as the West.
The Russkiy Mir Foundation and more than 50 cultural centres called ‘Russian Houses,’ established to support this geopolitical vision, ostensibly aim to promote the Russian language and culture. However, according to Wilfried Jilge's analysis, the Foundation quickly emphasised the idea of an ‘imagined community’ defined by national and cultural terms encompassing both Russians in Russia and Russian-speaking ‘compatriots’ abroad. This concept of a ‘diaspora empire’ legitimises the Russian Federation's claim to a ‘protective’ right over Russian-speaking minorities abroad by deliberately relativising the borders between nation states.
b) The Russian Orthodox Church: A Central Instrument in the Information War
The Russian Orthodox Church and its affiliated institutions play a critical role in the Kremlin's overseas influence operations. Used as a key instrument in the war effort in Ukraine, the Russian Orthodox Church serves as a platform for disseminating pro-Kremlin messages through its congregations in the US and Western Europe.
Clergy affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church intensively disseminate anti-Western narratives that frame NATO and the European Union as threats to traditional Christian values. These messages are often disguised as calls for religious conservatism, such as ‘family values’ or ‘spiritual resistance to globalisation,’ but essentially serve as information warfare. Whether churches affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church in America (ROCOR) are being used as tools for intelligence gathering or foreign influence operations targeting US policymakers has been the subject of an inquiry request by Republicans in the US House of Representatives. This demonstrates that religious institutions are being used not only culturally, but also as high-level strategic intelligence and lobbying tools.
Chapter VI The West's Resilience Architecture and Countermeasure Recommendations
The West's strategic response to Russia's hybrid threat architecture requires increasing institutional capacities and strengthening resilience, particularly in the areas of information, finance, and critical infrastructure.
a) Strategic Communication and Countering FIMI (EEAS Framework)
The European Union, through the European External Action Service (EEAS), has taken a leading role in combating FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference). Since 2015, the EEAS has significantly enhanced its capabilities to identify, analyse and respond to FIMI, particularly in the context of Russia's aggression towards Ukraine. FIMI is recognised as a growing security threat to the EU's foreign policy, democratic processes and global reputation.
Analyses show that Western societies generally have strong resistance to Kremlin narratives, but it has been identified that Russia aims to exploit the deep differences in perspective between the Global South (Multi-aligned Community) and the West. Russia's instrumentalisation of post-colonial discourse and the success of its influence operations in the Global South (35 abstentions in the March 2022 UN vote, 17 of which were from African states) demonstrate that the West's strategic communication falls short, particularly in terms of countering post-colonial narratives on a global scale. -colonial narratives. Countermeasures must be expanded to encompass the global narrative war.
b) Legislative Gaps Regarding Illicit Financial Flows
Russia's financial influence strategy skilfully exploits existing legal loopholes in the West. UK-based research highlights structural gaps exploited by Russia's ‘legitimised’ kleptocratic capital used for political influence. The current anti-money laundering framework focuses on technical legality rather than the ultimate purpose of the capital.
This necessitates that future policy responses focus not only on money laundering techniques but also on the purpose of its use for political influence. Stricter legal and regulatory frameworks against foreign funding of political parties must be established. Foreign states are eroding national sovereignty by interfering in local political processes through financial means.
c) Critical Infrastructure Security and Cyber Defence Strategies
Russia's hybrid threats—particularly low-threshold cyber attacks, sabotage attempts, and physical disruptions targeting critical infrastructure 7—require the West to combine cyber, physical, and intelligence defences into a single integrated ‘hybrid defence’ strategy.
Poland's ‘Operation Horizon’ initiative, which deploys up to 10,000 military personnel and cyber units to protect railway and logistics centres, provides an example of this integrated response model. To counter Russia's attrition warfare conducted just below the threshold of deterrence, the boundaries between cyber security expertise, military planning and civil-military coordination must be removed. A high level of coordination and rapid public information are vital to prevent the political impact of cyber attacks (as seen in the 2017 French elections).
VII. Conclusions
The Russian Federation's strategic influence architecture in the West is based on the integrated use of Sharp Power, illicit financial influence and hybrid coercion, departing from traditional soft power. The Kremlin aims to weaken Western societies it cannot persuade through charm from within, via information manipulation and political penetration. This model of ‘symbolic occupation’ deliberately instrumentalises democratic institutions, the media and financial systems.
Russia has been successful in exploiting the West's structural weaknesses, particularly loopholes in financial regulations, political polarisation, and a lack of strategic communication against post-colonial discourses. Russia's aim is not only to change policies but also to fundamentally undermine the West's confidence in its own systems. Despite Russia's limited economic capacity, its ability to cause destruction on a global scale necessitates a reassessment of the West's collective security and resilience strategies. To counter these hybrid threats, the West must increase financial transparency, integrate critical infrastructure defence, and clearly distinguish Hard Power mechanisms from Soft Power.
References
1. Russia's Shadow War Against the West - CSIS, https://www.csis.org/analysis/russias-shadow-war-against-west
2. Europe-Russia: Balance of Power Review Ifri, https://www.ifri.org/en/studies/europe-russia-balance-power-review
3. Understanding Russian Disinformation and How the Joint Force Can Address It, https://publications.armywarcollege.edu/News/Display/Article/3789933/understanding-russian-disinformation-and-how-the-joint-force-can-address-it/
4. Social Media Weaponisation: The Biohazard of Russian Disinformation Campaigns,
5. How the Russian Orthodox Church Became a Weapon of Political Warfare, https://www.fpri.org/article/2025/10/how-the-russian-orthodox-church-became-a-weapon-of-political-warfare/
6. Russkiy Mir: ‘Russian World’ - German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), https://dgap.org/en/events/russkiy-mir-russian-world
7. Russia's shadow war: How the Kremlin uses sabotage to wear down Europe, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/russias-shadow-war-how-the-kremlin-uses-sabotage-to-wear-down-europe/
8. Russian illicit financial flows and influence on western European politics - University of Birmingham,
9. Russian cyber and information warfare and its impact on the EU and UK | Feature from King's College London, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/russian-cyber-and-information-warfare-and-its-impact-on-the-eu-and-uk
10. Soft Power: A Comparison between Britain, France and Russia https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/aseanrussia/soft-power-a-comparison-between-britain-france-and-russia/984ECCBFAAFF072C678C1A2E48D91DEE
11. From “Soft Power” to “Sharp Power”: Revisiting the Conceptual Vocabulary, FULL EVENT, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAmNcLYu-3w
12. Sharp Power, Not Soft Power, Should Be the Target - Boston Review https://www.bostonreview.net/forum/forum-henry-farrell-bruce-schneier-democracys-dilemma/joseph-s-nye-jr-sharp-power-should-be-target/
13. From Soft Power to Sharp Power: How Global Influence Is Becoming More Aggressive | by Juliano Menini Trindade - Medium https://medium.com/juliano-menini-trindade/from-soft-power-to-sharp-power-how-global-influence-is-becoming-more-aggressive-d7ca59afb771
14. Russian information operations outside of the Western information environment - NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence https://stratcomcoe.org/publications/download/Russian-info-operations-DIGITAL.pdf
15. New Research: Mapping the Political and Corporate Resistance to Europe's Phase-Out of Russian Energy | Razom We Stand https://razomwestand.com/new-research-mapping-the-political-and-corporate-resistance-to-europes-phase-out-of-russian-energy/
16. Russian Diaspora as a Means of Russian Foreign Policy - Army University Press https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/Military-Review/English-Edition-Archives/March-April-2018/Sencerman-Russian-Diaspora/
17. Kremlin-Funded Media: RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem - State Department https://2021-2025.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Kremlin-Funded-Media_January_update-19.pdf
18. Information Integrity and Countering Foreign Information Manipulation & Interference (FIMI) https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/information-integrity-and-countering-foreign-information-manipulation-interference-fimi_en
19. Russian Disinformation Efforts on Social Media - RAND https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR4373z2.html
20. Successfully Countering Russian Electoral Interference - CSIS https://www.csis.org/analysis/successfully-countering-russian-electoral-interference
21. The “Macron Leaks” Operation: A Post-Mortem | Atlantic Council https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/The_Macron_Leaks_Operation-A_Post-Mortem.pdf
22. “Russian doll” gas and nuclear lobbying threatens EU energy independence – new research - Greenpeace European Unit https://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/issues/climate-energy/46227/russian-doll-gas-nuclear-lobbying-taxonomy-eu/
23. Investing in destabilisation: How foreign money is used to undermine democracy in the EU - European Parliament https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2021/653631/EXPO_STU(2021)653631_EN.pdf
24. Foreign Electoral Interference Affecting EU Democratic Processes - APPF | European Parliament https://www.appf.europa.eu/cmsdata/277388/Foreign%20electoral%20interference%20affecting%20EU%20democratic%20processes.pdf
25. Alternative for Germany (AfD): How the far-right party became the Long Arm of Russia and China - DER SPIEGEL
26. Russia and the Far-Right: Insights from Ten European Countries https://icct.nl/sites/default/files/2024-04/Russia%20and%20the%20Far-Right%20Insights%20from%20Ten%20European%20Countries%20-%20A4%20e-book_0.pdf
27. Did Putin win the EU elections? - Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2019/5/28/did-putin-win-the-eu-elections
28. US Congress to investigate possible ties between Orthodox churches in America and Russian intelligence services https://risu.ua/en/us-congress-to-investigate-possible-ties-between-orthodox-churches-in-america-and-russian-intelligence-services_n160305
