By Xhabir Deralla
CIVIL | Hybrid Threats Monitoring (CHTM) 

Europe’s streets are becoming another battlefield of hybrid influence. In Albania, students are demanding accountability and economic opportunity. In Italy, young people are protesting government priorities and military spending.

These movements have legitimate foundations. But their political messages may also serve actors whose objectives have little to do with education, social justice or democratic accountability.

The central question is not simply whether Moscow organises protests. It is how authentic public anger can be redirected towards narratives that weaken European security, solidarity with Ukraine and trust in democratic institutions.

Albania: Protest, violence and the politics of “foreign hands”

Student-led demonstrations intensified in Tirana in October amid grievances over education, employment and corruption. Some confrontations turned violent, prompting police intervention and arrests.

On October 16, Prime Minister Edi Rama accused unnamed foreign actors of encouraging unrest to destabilise Albania and obstruct its European integration. No publicly verifiable evidence identifying foreign organisers accompanied his allegations. The protests continued through October 31. An October 26 assessment by the European Digital Media Observatory documented misleading narratives surrounding the unrest, while the accusations of foreign coordination remained unverified.

Two dangers coexist. Foreign actors may exploit legitimate demonstrations, while governments may exploit allegations of foreign interference to discredit political opposition.

Italy: “More classrooms, fewer bombs” – when protest rhetoric serves Moscow’s interests

On October 16, students demonstrated across Italy against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s policies, demanding greater investment in education and opposing increased military expenditure.

One slogan stood out: “More classrooms, fewer bombs” (Più aule, meno bombe).

In its October 18 analysis, CIVIL specifically problematised this seemingly universal appeal, identifying its potential role in geopolitical information manipulation.

The demand for better schools is legitimate. The problem emerges when education and military spending are presented as mutually exclusive choices, while Russia’s aggression against Ukraine disappears from the argument. This is precisely the framing promoted by Kremlin-aligned propaganda: European citizens supposedly suffer because their governments support Ukraine and strengthen defence, rather than because Russia launched a war threatening European security.

The slogan becomes politically consequential not because students necessarily intend to support Moscow, but because its framing can reproduce the Kremlin’s preferred narrative.

There is also a documented political dimension. The Rome demonstration involved the radical student organisation OSA (Opposizione Studentesca d’Alternativa). OSA and allied organisations, including Cambiare Rotta, have previously promoted strongly anti-NATO positions. Materials published by the Rete dei Comunisti in 2022 attributed responsibility for the war’s origins to Western policies and called for NATO’s withdrawal from Europe.

In March 2026, OSA and Cambiare Rotta organised an international mobilisation explicitly opposing European rearmament and NATO. Such positions are not proof of Russian direction. They do, however, establish a political and ideological continuity that deserves scrutiny.

More importantly, Russia-aligned networks operating within Italy are not hypothetical. A 2025 investigation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue documented efforts by networks including Donbass Italia and Contronarrazione to circumvent sanctions on RT, promote Kremlin propaganda and coordinate with actors connected to Russian officials.

The investigation established the existence of an influence infrastructure capable of connecting online narratives with offline activism. It did not establish that these networks directed October’s demonstrations.

Nevertheless, the convergence is significant: Legitimate protest messaging, radical anti-NATO political agendas and established Kremlin-aligned information operations can reinforce one another without necessarily sharing a command structure.

The Kremlin does not need to control a protest to benefit from its political direction. It only needs to inject enough carefully crafted narratives to redirect the legitimate exercise of democratic rights towards its own strategic objectives.

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Russia does not have to control a protest to benefit from its political direction.

The Kremlin’s strategy: Amplify, distort, polarise

The European External Action Service’s fourth report on foreign information manipulation and interference, published in March 2026, documents Russian operations targeting democratic societies through deception, amplification and coordinated information distribution.

Networks including Doppelgänger and Storm-1516 have demonstrated how fabricated material, impersonated media and coordinated accounts can manipulate existing controversies.

The objective is not always to invent a crisis. Often, it is to deepen an existing one.

When genuine protests are portrayed as evidence of European collapse, or when support for Ukraine is blamed for every economic hardship, Moscow gains politically even if no Russian operative participates in the demonstrations.

Western Balkans: A particularly vulnerable environment

The Western Balkans are especially exposed because domestic political polarisation, fragile institutions and disputed geopolitical loyalties create opportunities for manipulation.

A March 2026 SEE Check report identified domestic political and media actors as important distributors of misleading narratives in Albania, alongside pro-Russian and anti-NATO messaging.

Foreign interference does not operate only through foreign agents. Domestic actors may knowingly cooperate with hostile networks—or independently promote narratives serving identical strategic objectives.

For Albania, a NATO member pursuing EU accession, prolonged destabilisation could have consequences beyond its borders.

RECOMMENDATIONS: Defending democracy without criminalising dissent

European institutions face a difficult but unavoidable responsibility: Protect democratic freedoms while exposing networks that exploit them.

Authorities must investigate genuine foreign interference through verifiable evidence, not political accusations. Equally, independent journalism and civic organisations need sustained support to detect manipulation, investigate political connections and build public resilience.

Brussels must move beyond bureaucratic frameworks and short-term project cycles towards meaningful investment in democratic capacity.

And European governments must resist the temptation to portray inconvenient protest movements as foreign conspiracies.

When governments restrict freedoms and undermine public trust, authoritarian actors already achieve part of their objectives, whether a particular foreign operation succeeds or not.

Democracy cannot be defended by dismantling the freedoms that make it worth defending.

This analysis is an updated and expanded version of an article originally published by CIVIL Media on October 18, 2026.

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