As previously reported by CIVIL Media, based on the findings of CIVIL Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team (CHTM), there is a noticeable increase in the presence of content with Russian propaganda narratives ahead of the local elections. According to the CHTM findings, some Macedonian media outlets have made efforts to take leading positions in the region, when it comes to spreading Russian propaganda narratives.
Long-time supporters and apologists of Russia’s unprovoked military aggression against Ukraine among Macedonian portals, in their daily efforts to justify the “investment” made in them for spreading Russian propaganda and pro-Russian narratives in the country, are doing so with joy and undisguised satisfaction, as can be concluded from the headlines of the published texts.
With headlines such as: “RUSSIANS HAVE ENTERED CENTRAL UKRAINE? Troops advance into Dnipropetrovsk, beyond Donetsk borders”; “Russian troops enter key region of Dnipropetrovsk”; “Russian army seizes several parts of Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region“; “Russians make major advance into Ukraine – Here are the details“; “Russia enters fourth-largest city – Ukraine officially confirms fighting”, these media outlets are only putting themselves at the service of the Russian propaganda machine, spreading Kremlin’s propaganda narratives, especially if taking into consideration, and these media are certainly aware of this, based on their long-standing journalistic experience, that a large part of the reading audience prefers to read only the headline, and draw conclusions based on that, without paying attention to the content of the text.
Furthermore, several Macedonian media outlets with noticeable pro-Russian editorial policy, will publish a text titled: “Russia has a new type of drones: Ukrainians in panic”,
which is completely in the role of spreading Russian propaganda narratives.
As noted by CIVIL Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team (CHTM), the main Russian “player” in these efforts is the pro-government RIA Novosti, along with its affiliates outside Russia, where the media in the Balkans, including in North Macedonia, have proved to be among the most receptive to Russian propaganda narratives.
Namely, in some media outlets in the country and in neighboring countries, news from RIA Novosti (which is, in fact, banned from rebroadcasting in our country ) is being distributed, with headlines such as “Russia killed NATO officers?” in Macedonian media, and the same translated into Serbian “Rusija ubila NATO oficire?” in neighboring Serbia, the killings of civilians and destroyed residential buildings are falsely portrayed as an attack on command and logistics points of the Ukrainian army in Kyiv and the surrounding areas.
Of course, the source from which domestic and regional media are taking this (dis)information is, naturally, the pro-regime propaganda agency RIA Novosti, which refers to the coordinator of the pro-Russian illegal movement in Mykolaiv Sergey Lebedev.
It appears that these media have not looked at the thousands of disturbing photos and videos of the massacre carried out by Russian aggressors in Kyiv, and haven’t read the condemnatory reactions that have come from the entire democratic world, so that they can so easily spread the ordered Russian manipulative and propagandistic narratives.
In another case, as CIVIL Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team (CHTM) noted, some media outlets in the country and the neighboring countries are distributing the statement of former Polish President Andrzej Duda “Duda: Zelensky wanted to drag Poland into war with Russia”, or in Serbian “Duda: Zelenski hteo da uvuče Poljsku u rat sa Rusijom”, taken from the Polish political magazine “Do Rzeczy”, which contains answers to journalistic questions by former President Andrzej Duda.
Although the headline is translated literally, domestic and Serbian media outlets have inserted their own interpretation when conveying the text, whereby in their texts, unlike the original Polish text, they call the Ukrainian president “the head of the Kyiv regime”, fully in line with the formulation of Russian propagandists.
The text with Russian classification of the Ukrainian president was first published in the Serbian government media outlet “Politika“. The same was then first published in North Macedonia by the national news agency Makfax, from where it was picked up by several other Macedonian portals, most of them known to the CHTM team from prior monitoring of the presence of Russian propaganda and manipulative narratives, which published the text in its entirety, along with the manipulative title derived from Russian propagandists for President Zelensky.
That nothing is new in the Macedonian media space, at least regarding the spread of Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine, is further demonstrated by an expanded and upgraded “communiqué” concerning the incursion of Russian drones into the territory of a NATO member, in this case Poland.
It seems that some Macedonian media outlets are afraid to name the drones that were shot down in Poland as being Russian, despite all indications and relevant statements by officials from the country whose sovereign airspace was violated by Russian drones.
Disregarding the statements of high-ranking Polish government officials, such as Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, who accused Russia of deliberately violating Polish airspace after several Russian drones entered Poland and were shot down, probably starting, from what seems to be, for them, the only relevant source, the Russian Ministry of Defense, which denied involvement in the incident (which was dismissed as “lies and denials” of Moscow and “standard Soviet responses”) in identical headlines of the texts titled “Polish military operation completed”, it is stated that the Polish army completed its military operation after shooting down drones that had entered Polish airspace during the night, without specifying the origin of those drones.
After checking the internet, the CIVIL Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team (CHTM) noticed that only in the texts of these Macedonian media outlets, unlike others in the region, there is no mention that the drones were Russian.
Ahead of the elections, certain Macedonian portals, known for having viewed the Russian aggression against Ukraine exclusively through the Kremlin’s lens, continue to zealously carry out the tasks assigned by their sponsors, disseminating the narratives of Russian propagandists.
Same with the statement by U.S. President Donald Trump, who, in the spirit of a recently shifted rhetoric, is deepening support for Ukraine, after his efforts for advancing peace talks stalled, signed an authorization for intelligence agencies and the Pentagon to assist Kyiv in conducting long-range missile strikes on Russia’s energy infrastructure.
This news appears to have especially unsettled Moscow’s megaphones in the region, as it touches on the most painful point, Russia’s energy infrastructure and its production and export of oil and oil derivatives, from which the Russian military and propaganda machinery is financed.
Without going deeper into the reason why Trump changed his mind and allowed attacks deep into Russian territory, of course, the daily Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, resulting in a large number of civilian casualties, these in a text titled “KREMLIN REACTS, NATO WILL DRAW UKRAINE WHERE TO STRIKE? Possible attacks on mega-facilities inside Russia”, one-sidedly report the statement of (their) Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, who accuses that the U.S. is regularly providing intelligence information to Ukraine via the internet, commenting the allegations by The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. plans to provide Ukraine with intelligence data specifically targeting oil refineries, gas pipelines, nuclear power plants and similar critical infrastructure deep inside Russian territory.
Although they cite the allegations of the WSJ, there is not a word that this this development comes at a time of a shifting rhetoric from Trump regarding the war in Ukraine, after his mediation efforts to mediate peace between Kyiv and Moscow have so far failed, and Trump is frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and recently made his most pro-Ukrainian statements to date.
As CHTM notes, ahead of the local elections in North Macedonia, there has been increased activity of Russian propaganda through the dissemination of pro-Russian narratives in some Macedonian media outlets, which have the aim, even though it is about local elections, to increase anti-EU and anti-Western sentiment among a targeted part of the electorate.
Hence, several Macedonian media outlets, previously known for their frequent uncritical reporting of narratives of Russian officials and propagandists, in the latest surge of Russian propaganda in the Macedonian information space, these media outlets are almost in an orchestrated manner conveying the statement of the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, known for several of his clumsy comments, which he shared on his Telegram channel, on the occasion of Trump’s announcement that he is considering supplying Ukraine with U.S. Tomahawk missiles, as a response to the daily Russian attacks on civilian targets and critical infrastructure across Ukraine, which have resulted in a large number of civilian casualties.
Some media outlets have published apocalyptic headlines to intimidate readers, such as
“TOMAHAWK FROM UKRAINE WOULD TRIGGER A NUCLEAR RESPONSE FROM RUSSIA Medvedev says it would be bad for everyone, especially for Trump”, while with a slightly milder version like “Medvedev warns: Delivery of Tomahawk missiles could have serious consequences for the U.S. and Trump”, they share the “sharp” criticism of the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Council, even using his derogatory qualifications of “star-striped uncle” for Trump that “the delivery of those missiles could end badly for everyone, primarily for Trump himself”, at the same time, some even interpret the hidden meaning of his words, that he was alluding to a possible nuclear response from Moscow.
At the same time, these media outlets report that Medvedev, in the same post, emphasized “that it is impossible to distinguish between the nuclear and conventional versions of the Tomahawk”, a statement made at a time when Moscow is attacking Ukraine with ballistic “Kinzhal” and “Iskander” supersonic missiles, capable of carrying thermonuclear/tactical nuclear warheads, and for which it is equally impossible to distinguish between their nuclear and conventional version.
The increased Russian propaganda in certain Macedonian media outlets ahead of the local elections has multiple goals, which are in correlation with the broader strategy of Kremlin for influence in Europe, the Balkans, including in North Macedonia.
The Russian propaganda, through convenient media outlets in North Macedonia, which is a NATO member and EU candidate country, seeks to portray the Alliance and the EU as hypocritical, corrupt, and hostile, which should weaken the credibility of these institutions among the citizens, which corresponds to the statements of the party leadership which, following the confrontation with the European institutions on the Belgrade-Budapest relation, accuses the EU of an alleged attack on the Macedonian identity, while, on the other hand, it wants to portray Russia and Putin as allies in the fight to defend Macedonianism, which will dissuade citizens from voting for pro-European options.
The goal of the increased presence of Russian propaganda narratives is to create an atmosphere of distrust, instability, backsliding of democratic processes and a slowdown of Euro-Atlantic integration, which would leave North Macedonia susceptible to Russian influence and vulnerable to future geopolitical games in the long term.
Dragan Mishev in cooperation with CIVIL Hybrid Threats Monitoring Team (CHTM)
This article is part of the Democracy Navigator project – a strategic response to disinformation and hybrid threats, building democratic resilience.
Translated by: N. Cvetkovska