Russia is deliberately trying to undermine Ukraine’s European choice and obstruct its accession to the European Union through coordinated hybrid attacks and large-scale information sabotage, according to a report by Ukraine and the EU published on June 23. The document details aggressive foreign influence operations online targeting both Ukrainians and citizens of EU countries, with the aim of completely eroding public support for Kyiv’s integration into the European bloc.
In the foreword to the report, prepared by the European External Action Service under the leadership of EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, the European diplomat directly stated that the emergence of a democratic, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine on Russia’s border as part of the European family represents a complete strategic failure of all imperial ambitions of the Kremlin in Europe. Kaja Kallas emphasized that Russia seeks to exploit all fears in Western and Ukrainian societies related to corruption, national security, cultural identity, and potential economic costs.
The report analyzes in detail attempts of information manipulation and external interference by Russian structures. Experts from the EU diplomatic service investigated around 500 such incidents between January 2025 and May 2026, and found that at least 80 of them were directly focused on Ukraine’s EU accession.
During these investigations, specialists identified consistent patterns of behavioral and narrative alignment between official Russian state media channels and external resources that are formally not linked to the Russian government but actively launder, repurpose, and amplify key Kremlin narratives.
Researchers note that in its hybrid attacks, Russia tailors messages to different national audiences, creating separate disinformation narratives for each country. Ukrainian audiences are told false claims that the EU is deliberately prolonging the war to weaken Russia, that some European states secretly want to divide Ukrainian territory, that Brussels seeks full control over Ukraine, and that European and Ukrainian values are fundamentally incompatible. Meanwhile, within the EU itself, Russian influence operations target other narratives: German audiences are told Ukraine is responsible for their economic hardship, while French citizens are persuaded that Ukraine is hopelessly and completely corrupt.
In addition, one major Russian information campaign deliberately used complex historical narratives related to the Volhynia and Eastern Galicia massacres, framing current events as disrespect for the memory of Polish victims. According to the report, this case became a classic example of agenda hijacking, where real historical disputes are exploited by an adversary to amplify destructive narratives. It refers to a public dispute between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Polish counterpart Karol Nawrocki, which arose after Kyiv decided to rename a military unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which fought against the Soviet Union in World War II but also committed mass ethnic killings of Poles.
The authors of the joint document call for immediate and close cooperation between EU and Ukrainian institutions to directly and effectively counter the threat of Russian hybrid operations. In his statement in the report, Kyrylo Budanov stressed that the joint response to Russian aggression in the information space must be equally decisive, strict, and systematic. Key measures include strategic communication, public explanation of EU integration processes, timely detection and blocking of foreign interference operations, active cooperation with global digital platforms, and targeted sanctions against key actors in Russian disinformation networks.
The investigation comes at a time when Brussels is increasingly calling on EU countries to take further steps in the enlargement process and officially open five of the six main reform clusters, with the first cluster already agreed to be opened on June 15.
