Tag: Russian Influence

Initially, I thought that the goal of the Russian influence operations was to create a kind of sympathy for the Russian regime and Russian ideology. But their main target now is simply to create more chaos inside the neighboring countries in order to kind of make us look the other way into our internal problems and stop supporting Ukraine...

If the pressure from Russia was not that obvious in the Macedonian case with the banned imports of apples from Prespa, the example of Ecuador was pretty straightforward. By skillfully manipulating the business sector, the pressure put on the Ecuadorian leadership hit success and it changed its mind on the US offer to exchange the old Soviet weaponry and...

The security problems in the Western Balkans are now also related to disinformation and fake news which try to destabilize the region and may hinder realization of the most important strategic objectives in the Western Balkans. On this topic and others, Portalb.mk conducted an interview with Bojana Zorić, an expert on security issues in the Western Balkans. She emphasizes...

Germany is looking to import natural gas from Nigeria, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said in an interview published as he left Berlin on Sunday for a trip to West Africa, writes German news agency DPA. "Nigeria has the biggest gas supply in Africa," he told the Nigerian daily The Punch. "German companies are interested in gas deliveries from Nigeria and...

Cyberattacks on companies in Germany are increasingly being carried out from Russia and China, according to a study by the digital association Bitkom published in Berlin on Friday, writes German news agency DPA. Of the more than 1,000 companies surveyed across sectors, 46% were able to trace attacks back to Russia this year, compared to 23% in 2021. Another 42% of...

A Russian citizen who plotted the assassination of a Chechen dissident living in German exile was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday by a court in Munich, writes German news agency DPA. The convicted man, identified only as Valid D, had plotted to kill Mokhmad Abdurakhmanov on the orders of a cousin of Chechen strongman ruler Ramzan Kadyrov,...

Local officials expect the German government to extend its trusteeship over a major oil refinery in eastern Germany that is majority-owned by subsidiaries of Russian state-owned oil company Rosneft, writes German news agency DPA. The PCK refinery, located in Schwedt along the German border with Poland, supplies fuel to large parts of north-eastern Germany. Until the end of 2022, the refinery...

Print copies of “Ruski doktor” magazine; Photo: Meta.mk The “Ruski doktor” (Russian physician) magazine is no longer published in Macedonian language. However, this print magazine, as one of the methods of spreading Russian soft power in the Balkans, is present in North Macedonia through the Serbian edition, which is available at the selling points throughout North Macedonia. Оn the former Yugoslavia...

When assessing the influence that throws North Macedonia off the tracks from the proclaimed process of democratic development directed towards adopting the values of the European Union (EU) and EU accession, one cannot ignore the manner in which Macedonian media present the contribution of certain EU Member-States and how media and political interpretations impact the perception of the community...

A dozen traffic signs and equipment on the Miladinovci-Stip motoway have been scribbled all over with pro-Russian propaganda symbols. The symbol “Z”, that glorifies Russian military invasion of Ukraine and found written on Russian military vehicles used to invade Ukraine along with “Brotherly Russia” type slogans, have recently been spray-painted on the traffic signs on the motorway, at the...

The Russian embassies in Skopje and Sofia recently celebrated the National Holiday of the Russian Federation “Russia Day” by organizing receptions in both capitals thereby sending scandalous messages regarding the Russian military aggression in Ukraine. Today, the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was forced to publicly respond and condemn the attempts of the Russian Ambassador, Eleonora Mitrofanova, as “unacceptable and...

It is a fact that the Russian propaganda network is well developed in this country, including representatives of official Russian institutions, diaspora and paid political parties. Another fact is that they have been active in this region for quite some time now, therefore an operational network has been installed in the last few decades which, inter alia, is also...

A register of Russian spies in Europe, shared on Twitter, identifies 42 individuals acting in their own countries and being paid by the Russian Federation. This register was produced on the basis of the open data and information related to arrests or proceedings of these identified Russian spies in the last five years, writes Truthmeter.mk. Under the content-sharing agreement between...

Although there are more variations of the topic related to where the Russian influence was greater in the latest escalations of the relations between North Macedonia and Bulgaria, more serious sources agree quite distinctively that it is there. No doubt, many information and disinformation surrounding this problem are also present contributing to the escalation, with the probable ultimate goal...

This story was published by the Hungarian investigative journalism non-profit, Atlatszo. An edited version was published as part of a partnership with Global Voices. Tamás Bodoky, editor-in-chief of Atlatszo, told Media1 that he believes there is a coordinated campaign to attack the investigative nonprofit from actors close to Hungary's ruling party Fidesz, mirroring the autocratic methods used in Putin’s Russia.   Reminiscent...

In the two Macedonian parties with a pro-Russian ideology, “Rodina Makedonija” and “Obedineta Makedonija”, there has been turbulence in the recent period, that is, over 240 founders from “Rodina Macedonia” submitted to the Constitutional Court a request to leave the party, and for it to be deleted from the register of parties. One of the petitioners of this request...

For the third time this month, in an interview, Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski spoke about the Russian meddling in North Macedonia's internal affairs. In the latest issue of Fokus weekly magazine, Pendarovski reveals there is a lot of information by authorities about people arriving to cause provocations at the recent civil protests, but also for financing "certain political subjects." "All...

Andrey Zakharov is an investigative journalist from the Russian service of BBC. He moved from Russia in November last year, when he was being designated as foreign agent in Russia, as many other journalists. He is currently living in one European country. In an interview for Truthmeter, he speaks about the Russian propaganda and the way it spreads, the...

The recent expulsion of five Russian diplomats is not the first expulsion of Russian diplomats from Macedonia. For the first time, Macedonia expelled a Russian diplomat in 2018, when not only the intensified Russian propaganda influence was noticeable, but also an attempt for Russian political influence by supporting the Macedonian clone of “United Russia”, writes Truthmeter.mk. Under the syndicating agreement...

For more than a month, the Centar Municipality, City Hall of Skopje and the Foreign Affairs Ministry of North Macedonia are silent about the questions sent by Meta.mk about the new Russian playground behind the Universal Hall in Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. The playground had a board set and then removed, that had the name of the...