The Kremlin’s usage of hybrid warfare has received increasing attention on NATO’s east Flank, where attacks have included arson, sabotage and cyber operations. In contrast, confederate Europe has become a blind place in Europe’s hybrid threat posture. Here, Russia employs little visible but no little strategical tactics, including disinformation, the manipulation of cultural and spiritual narratives, and infrastructure disruptions specified as blackouts. The goal is not immediate destabilization but the gradual erosion of political cohesion, public trust, and alignment with the EU and NATO.
Unlike in east Europe, where governments have developed hybrid detection and deterrence tools, many states in the South proceed to underestimate the threat. This creates fertile ground for the Kremlin’s influence, peculiarly in shaping public opinion on sanctions, weakening long-term support for Ukraine, and undermining democratic resilience.
A different toolkit: how Russia operates in the South
The Kremlin’s hybrid activities in confederate Europe have been little disruptive on the surface but exceptionally efficient. Russia has employed a combination of hybrid tools to influence political elites, form public opinion, and disseminate pro-Kremlin narratives through disinformation campaigns and cultural diplomacy. They have focused on undermining public support for continued aid to Ukraine and pushing narratives that frame the war as a proxy conflict driven by the West.
In Italy, the Kremlin has been actively pushing pro-Russian narratives via fringe media actors and populist movements. These narratives have portrayed sanctions as self-destructive and NATO support as needlessly escalatory. Also, the Kremlin’s run has explicitly targeted Meloni’s government, which has actively backed Ukraine and prioritized energy safety for Italy.
In Greece, the Kremlin has skillfully leveraged Orthodox spiritual connections to inject identity-based narratives into public discourse, labelling the war in Ukraine as a western attack against common Slavic and Christian values. Moreover, for over a decade, the Kremlin has organized World Public Forum conferences in Greece with Orthodox Church leaders and populist European leaders, specified as Austria’s Alfred Gusenbauer and Germany’s Martin Schulz.
In Spain, the Kremlin has successfully spread disinformation questioning the EU’s support for Ukraine, as well as the costs of military aid through channels specified as YouTube and Telegram. Moreover, fresh blackouts across Portugal and Spain demonstrated the fragility of confederate Europe’s critical infrastructure. In this regard, a pro-Russian hacker group swiftly claimed responsibility, indicating how specified incidents can be leveraged as part of the Kremlin’s broader hybrid strategy.
The confederate EU associate states are besides susceptible to Russian influence on an economical level, peculiarly in the energy sector. For instance, Russian natural gas accounted for more than half of Greece’s full imports in 2024 alone. The Turkstream pipeline, which runs from Russia through the Black Sea to Greece’s east neighbour, Turkey, allows Moscow to destabilize the Greek energy market. To tackle its dependence on Russian energy, the EU has funded the first phase of a fresh natural gas task in the far north-eastern Greek city of Alexandroupolis.
It is simply a akin communicative on the another side of the Mediterranean. Last year, Spain emerged as the second-largest importer of Russian natural gas behind France. investigation by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) accounted for 35 per cent of Spain’s full imports. Despite efforts to diversify its energy mix, the EU as a full inactive remains highly dependent on Russia for its energy. In 2024, EU associate states purchased up to 7 billion US dollars worth of Russian LNG.
The gap in countering the Russian hybrid warfare toolkit
Unlike countries in east Europe (e.g., Ukraine, Poland or Lithuania), which have developed communication units and digital consequence centres to counter Russian propaganda, governments in confederate Europe have demonstrated a deficiency of action in this domain. They deficiency coordinated hybrid threat strategies and have failed to integrate existing EU instruments, specified as the fast Alert System, into their national responses.
At the same time, there is simply a crucial underfunding of civilian actors in countering disinformation emanating from Russia. In particular, watchdog NGOs and fact-checking organizations are severely underfunded and incapable to meaningfully counter the Kremlin’s hybrid activities in the region.
A call to action
To reverse these adverse trends, countries in confederate Europe should transition from simply passive monitoring to more active deterrence.
They should establish national hybrid threat centres to coordinate activities among key government bodies and civilian society actors in countering Russian propaganda. They could follow the example of Ukraine’s Centre for strategical Communications, which is tasked with responding to Russian disinformation activities in real time.
Simultaneously, they should invest actively in independent journalism and regional fact-checking organizations. Public civic education campaigns should besides be part of a broader set of measures to counter Russian propaganda.
And finally, national education systems should embed media literacy from an early age. Sweden and Finland offer proven models that embed intellectual defence and critical reasoning in education, turning societal resilience into a long-term asset.
Southern Europe remains an exposed flank in Europe’s hybrid threat posture. As the Kremlin adapts its toolkit to exploit softer vulnerabilities, the deficiency of organization preparedness and communicative resilience in the South poses increasing risks. Addressing these gaps is essential to reinforcing both national safety and EU cohesion in the face of sustained hybrid pressure.
Maksym Beznosiuk is simply a strategical policy expert and manager of UAinFocus, an independent platform connecting Ukrainian and global experts around key issues concerning Ukraine. His work spans EU–Ukraine cooperation, Ukraine’s recovery, energy and natural materials policy, governance in conflict-affected regions, and the security-policy nexus. He holds an LL.M. in Global Environment and Climate Change Law from the University of Edinburgh, a Double Master’s in European Studies (Euroculture) from Uppsala and Jagiellonian Universities, and Bachelor and Specialist degrees in global Law and global Relations from Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University.
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Hugo Blewett-Mundy is simply a non-resident associate investigation fellow at the EUROPEUM Institute. He specializes in Russia, east Europe and abroad policy. Hugo besides writes regularly about east European affairs, and his articles have appeared in EUobserver, The Hill, and the Centre for European Policy Analysis. He holds a B.A. in Politics and Central and East European Studies from the University of Glasgow and a M.A. in Russian and Post-Soviet Politics from the UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies in London.
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