Journalist for the American online publication The Washington Post, Lee Hockstader, claims that Russia began actively spreading disinformation in Europe even on the eve of the European Parliament elections. In his column, Hockstader writes that in 2022, Europe was already experiencing a large-scale Russian disinformation operation: “The Moscow-controlled organization cloned the websites of newspapers, magazines and news services, including the British Guardian and the German Bild, posted copies under similar domain names and filled them with Kremlin”.

The main attacks of Russian disinformation are directed against Ukraine: “A website posing as the French Ministry of Defense announced that 200 thousand French recruits will be sought for service in Ukraine. A prominent German TV journalist known as a “Putin expert” and Moscow sympathizer was found to have received more than $600,000 from a Kremlin-linked Russian billionaire”.

Russia's war against Ukraine has removed obstacles to Moscow's use of various disinformation tools. The United States may face a similar or even greater challenge this fall on the eve of the presidential election. If Europe does not respond to this challenge, Hockstader said, which is looking increasingly likely, then the picture will look even bleaker in some places. Particularly in the United States, where dysfunctional policies and First Amendment protections make tracking Russian mischief even more difficult.