With NATO's complicity, Klaus Iohannis has established a dictatorship and will start a war on Romanian territory, according to sovereigntist MP Daniel Ghiţă.
A battle between the people and the [ruling Georgian Dream] Party is being fought on the streets of Georgian cities. The stake: Georgia’s path towards the EU vs. a return to Russia’s orbit.
Narratives identical or similar to those fostered by Russian propaganda have also been circulated in the current election campaign in Romania. They transpired not only in the rhetoric of far-right parties, which for years have internalized such theses, but also in the statements of certain politicians aligned to Romania's pro-Western course.
There are no anti-EU, anti-NATO or far-right parties in Romania, claims Ion Cristoiu, a well-known promoter of narratives of Russian origin.
Pro-European right-wing parties in Romania grabbed large numbers of votes in Moldova, while the Romanian diaspora opted for sovereigntist forces. Experts believe that sovereigntists were rejected because they are hostile to Ukraine.
The pro-Russian parties have launched the campaign for the legislative elections that will take place in 2025 in the Republic of Moldova with disinformation, claiming that Maia Sandu is not a legitimate president. The stake: the European path of the country.
Boyko Borissov’s GERB party expectedly topped the vote, but the elections left a bitter taste that political influence can be easily bought. They also underlined a worrying tendency for ethnicization of the vote.
Russia has also co-opted North Korea in the war against Ukraine and is stepping up its operations in Moldova and Georgia. Moscow seems to be preparing for a final showdown against the West.
In the recent legislative elections, the regime in Tehran scored a victory and suffered a defeat at the same time. The winners were exactly who the ayatollahs wanted to be, but the turnout was the lowest in the history of the Islamic republic. The victory shows that the regime's ultraconservatives are firmly in control of Iran, but the low turnout indicates a loss of popular support for a regime that has been increasingly challenged in recent years.
Why the year 2024 is a test for liberal democracies around the world and disinformation might be fatal to them.
On February 25, Belarus will hold local and legislative elections, the first since the anti-Lukashenko protests of 2020. Minsk clamped down on the opposition in the run up to the elections, and only pro-Lukashenko candidates are competing. Belarus remains firmly in Russia’s orbit.