(Bloomberg) -- The UK and other European states are planning to expose new examples of Russian disinformation as they pursue a more assertive response to alleged interference by the Kremlin in Western elections at a meeting of the European Political Community this week.
With some 45 leaders set to be hosted by new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday, European allies are preparing the publication of further evidence that Russia has sought to undermine democracies across Europe, according to people familiar with the matter and documents seen by Bloomberg.
The leaders will “work together to effectively track and stop both legal and illicit money flows that enable interference activities — including in elections” in Europe, according to a document prepared for the summit.
The emphasis highlights interference that Starmer and other European leaders perceive as a growing threat to democracy. At the summit in Oxfordshire, they’ll discuss how to counter what they see as attempts by Moscow to fund interference in elections across the continent, the people said. A working group on “defending democracy” — one of three at the summit — will be co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron.
“European countries need a renewed determination to protect their democracies and a radical change in the scale of the comprehensive response to these challenges,” the document said. The UK Foreign Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Declassifying intelligence on covert Russian operations in Europe is a method that’s been increasingly used by Western governments to shine a light on what they call the hybrid threat posed by Moscow. Earlier this year, UK police charged several men under a new national security law with supporting Russia by carrying out an arson attack against a Ukraine-linked business on British soil.
The hand of Moscow’s GRU military intelligence service is likely behind a series of ever-more overt, frequent and coordinated incidents across the continent, European officials previously told Bloomberg.
To be sure, countering disinformation has proved challenging for governments and non-state experts. Bodies created by Western governments to combat the spread of propaganda have faced political criticism and in some cases been shuttered. Social media companies have also been making it harder or more expensive to access data around disinformation.
Hybrid threats and disinformation from Russia have become a more prominent topic of conversation among European leaders in recent months, with a series of incidents linked to Moscow exposed by law enforcement and intelligence agencies across the continent.
Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported how a Russian intelligence operative was behind an influence campaign across Europe and had appeared to have offered to pay for planted news articles. Just last week, US authorities said they had disrupted a Russian disinformation effort that used artificial intelligence-powered bots to create fake social media profiles.
Last year, French authorities said they had identified a digital disinformation campaign against several European countries including France involving “state entities or entities affiliated with the Russian state” that have been “amplifying false information.”
There have also been claims that antisemitic graffiti in France could be linked to foreign interference. Meanwhile in Moldova, Russia is using a variety of measures — from AI-generated deep fakes to bags of cash, the Moldovan foreign minister said in April.
There have also been cases of more overt interference. In Germany, two suspects were allegedly hired by Russian intelligence to target military bases. In Estonia, young men with criminal records were recruited over Telegram to vandalize a minister’s car and national monuments. In Poland, a man was arrested on suspicion of assisting a Russian plot to assassinate Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He was accused of collecting information on an airport that serves as the main stopover point for officials traveling to and from Ukraine.
--With assistance from Ania Nussbaum and Jeff Stone.
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