Russia’s war against Ukraine has opened a brand-new front for disinformation and influence operations. A major influx of refugees in neighbouring countries is creating avenues for exploitation of local nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Western narratives, already on the rise. GlobalFocus Center (Romania) has partnered with Political Capital (Hungary) European Western Balkans (Serbia) and Reporters’ Foundation (Poland), in a joint effort to check out how Ukraine-related disinformation is reflected and used within the far-right, ultra-nationalist and extremist communities to advance goals consistent with Russian interests. 

This research material is the first from a series developed as part of the project UKRAINE MONITOR (Monitoring of Networks of Influence Tactics and Operations in the Region), which tries to document these phenomena and disseminate the information to relevant parties. 
Within this project, we monitor online and social media activity among extreme groups in each of the countries mentioned above and analyse indications of convergence, communication, or coordination.

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