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Thank you. 

Dear President,  

Honourable Members of the European Parliament,  

There is no rewriting of history that can ever explain away the invasion of another country today. 

But some people just don’t care. 

Putin’s justification for his war on Ukraine is steeped in lies. Ukrainians are fighting back every second of every day. And we will continue to support them until they win this war. 

But there is also a war taking place off the battlefield. It is Russia’s war of disinformation. Disinformation is a fundamental part of Russian military activities. And this is what we are here to discuss.

When Russia illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula, it began with a disinformation campaign based on falsely accusing Ukraine of a different history it never had. I will not repeat these lies here; anyone can find them online. 

We are talking about coordinated and state-funded information manipulation campaigns. Not only in the media. Russian authorities are revising history textbooks for Russian pupils and students, bringing the imperial war propaganda to schools and brainwashing children, for years now, and it has a clear impact. Again, you can look at the videos online. 

Russia jails its own historians and destroys organisations that seek truth. Like Yuri Dmitriev, for example, whose work identified the victims of Stalin-era repressions in Karelia. We have seen this all before, we have seen it in action in the Soviet Union. 

Honourable Members, 

We cannot accept the spill-over into Europe of Russian disinformation campaigns. It is a weapon to support the kinetic warfare on the ground. We have to fight it. This is hybrid warfare. 

The frontline of this hybrid war runs through our own democracies: universities, parliaments, media and other institutions. 

It aims at creating distrust – people don’t know what to trust anymore –, sparking domestic divisions, influencing democratic decision-making – including the decisions we make at the ballot box. It aims at changing our policies and deterring Europe from supporting Ukraine. 

Organised disinformation or sometimes also manipulated information which is partly true, reaches wide audiences via social media; it sits literally in our pockets, on our phones, in our apps. 

The best way to counter propaganda and disinformation remains the same: expose it, provide facts and the truth, support the free and independent press. Traditional media and journalists play such a crucial role to ensure that propaganda and disinformation don’t succeed. 

Online, the major platforms also have a fundamental role in this regard. The European Union has been at the forefront of developing policies and tools to the fight against disinformation online. 

With the Digital Services Act and the Code of Practice on Disinformation, the European Union put in place the framework to make sure that digital platforms are doing their job. But we also have to empower users, researchers and fact-checkers, demonetising disinformation and ensuring transparency of political advertising. 

What is Europe doing against Russia disinformation aggression? 

Following Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, the European Union’s work against disinformation began and has only become stronger since then. The East StratCom Task Force was created with a specific mandate from the European Council to counter Russia’s disinformation campaigns. 

Thank you to the European Parliament for pushing to set it up.  

Since then, the European Union has done more to fight foreign information manipulation and interference. 

We have built a Rapid Alert System (RAS) to share information, exchange best practices and coordinate responses with the European Union Member States and institutions. 

Our objective is to collect evidence on all foreign interference activities, act quickly against disinformation campaign and expose Russia. 

Beyond our immediate neighbourhood, we expanded our work in this area to support our European delegations around the world. We are working widely to safeguard civilian and military operations from all foreign information manipulation and interference. 

We have built a Team Europe approach to tackle Russia’s interference attacks against the European Union and our partners. We have experts in dedicated Task Forces now, focussing on other parts of the world such as the European Union’s Southern Neighbourhood, the Western Balkans, China, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions. 

To ensure that the information on the incidents and threats that we collect has a benefit for all, we have created a dedicated Information Sharing and Analysis Centre. This helps civil society in our Member States and beyond, to pool their knowledge about root causes, incidents, and threats. 

Honourable Members,  

Disinformation is a Russian military tactic and a threat to our security. Going forward, building on the work of the Commission services and the EEAS in combating foreign information manipulation, interference and disinformation. 

We will cooperate better to make sure that we can better prevent, detect and also address domestic threats to democracy, as well as improving situational awareness of disinformation and crisis response mechanisms. It is key to talk about the concrete examples and I urge you to invite our experts also to [be briefed by] them. 

As we recently saw in Romania, Moldova and Georgia, Russia does not stop its attempts to undermine and destabilise our Union and our partners. We know we must work especially with candidate countries, building their resilience to withstand Russia’s attempts to keep them away from their European path. 

Beyond our neighbourhood, we also need to rebuild the European Union’s influence in third countries. We will work together closely with democracies in Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions where Russia is investing heavily in its information manipulation operations. 

To tackle this, we also need to work with our like-minded partners, especially in the G7, to pool the know-how, resources and also respond collectively. 

Thank you. 

Link to video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-265245  

Closing statements 

Speech delivered by Vice-President for Cohesion and Reforms, Raffaele Fitto, on behalf of High Representative/Vice-President Kaja Kallas 

Thank you, Chair, 

Honourable Members, 

Thank you for this debate.  

The Global Risk Report by the World Economic Forum ranked disinformation as the second biggest risk the world would face this year. 

Disinformation threats pose a real risk to democracy. To counter orchestrated and programmed disinformation campaigns, we need to act on all grounds. 

We must be prepared to recognise the disinformation; we need critical thinking and media literacy. We have to support the work of journalists, fact-checking organisations and rapid alert systems. 

And we cannot take our foot off the pedal. 

Going forward, including with a new European Democracy Shield to address the most severe risks to democracy in the European Union, there is a clear commitment to protecting democracy at home. 

We must replicate this commitment in helping our neighbours too. 

Because as we see in the lies that Putin’s regime spreads to justify starting a war in Ukraine, fighting foreign interference and information manipulation is a matter of security. 

And we as policymakers have a responsibility to our citizens to do what we can to protect our democracies. 

Thank you. 

Link to video: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-265247