Pro-Kremlin groups twist EU lawmakers’ words to ‘pollute’ politics, memo warns

Pro-Kremlin disinformation groups are using recent speeches by European Parliament members to “sow polarization and pollute” politics in Europe, a memo sent to all members on Thursday and seen by POLITICO said.

Parliament’s communication department said that video clips from this week’s plenary were spread by pro-Russian groups — and spread further by anti-Israel networks linked to Iranian and Hamas-affiliated media — to “inauthentically amplify” parts of speeches by the chamber’s members. The aim of some messages was to push pro-Kremlin narratives, including accusing the European Parliament of having double standards because the EU imposed sanctions on Russia but not Israel.

“Pro-Kremlin groups misleadingly claim the [European Parliament] and EU support genocide in Gaza and suggest that the [European Parliament] is detached from the real people,” the internal memo reads. “According to a popular pro-Kremlin narrative, protests on the streets of EU countries prove that the vast majority solidarizes with Hamas.”

The European Parliament’s warning is part of an effort to ramp up digital defenses against cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns targeting its election in June. With upcoming votes in key democratic countries including the United States, United Kingdom, India and across the European Union, officials are on high alert for geopolitical foes like Russia and China to attempt to tip the ballots in their favor through disinformation and cyberattacks.

According to the memo, the disinformation has so far affected only few member states as most of the speeches are either in English, Spanish and French, but the trend is increasing. The alert level associated with the disinformation campaigns is marked three, with five being the highest level.

Other campaigns the European Parliament has recorded include a focus on the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, spreading "deceptive narratives" in combination with videos of European Parliament members and of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, largely on social media site X. Some posts claimed the EU has been "hijacked" by the WEF and that the EU is in the process of setting up a "Ministry of Truth" to censor speech.