Russian strategic narratives disseminated during COVID-19 aiming to influence and increase radicalisation in the political sphere in the EU and to destabilize the security environment of the EU

The author will examine which Russian strategic narratives were disseminated in the EU during COVID-19 with the purpose to radicalize political movements. Additionally, the author will analyze strategic narratives whose aim is to harm the European security environment. Revisionist forces (including Russia), whose main desire is to change the balance of power and the existing security architecture, have tried to use the COVID-19 to achieve their goals. The goal of Russia’s information activity in the West is to influence it and destroy its unity (Mölder, Sazonov 2020: 36). The Kremlin creates fears and exploits related existing ones by casting conspiracies and narratives of fear. Russia is trying to influence audiences by causing mistrust and by increasing gaps within the EU. Moscow's goals is to shape public opinion to its advantage and try to influence and take advantage of growing populist movements and trends in Western societies and the political establishment. For that reason, Russia is using influence activity. As Roselle et al (2021) argue, our epoch’s soft power is a strategic narrative and the strat. narrative began with a starting point similar to Nye’s idea, based on an understanding of fundamental change in the international system and the question of how to influence international relations. As Antoniades et al. (2010: 5) have argued, strategic narratives are representations of a sequence of events and identities, a communicative means by which the political elite seeks to give a meaningful meaning to the past, present, and future in order to achieve political goals. Miskimmon et al. (2013) argue that strat. narratives can affect: • an international system that expresses how a political actor shapes perceptions of the organization of international relations • policies, such as the desire of political actors to influence international negotiations or to intervene in disputes between parties over the management of military conflicts • identity – in other words, how political actors want to project their identity in international relations. Thus, if political actors are able to align narratives of the international system, politics and identity with their own strategic orientations and goals, the greater the opportunity becomes for them to increase their influence in the international arena (Miskimmon et al 2018: 3). The strat. narratives created by Russia are aimed at various target groups. Creating narratives exploits populist political movements as well as politicians. To this end, various strategic narratives were created that will amplify or shape perceptions of the world in line with the goals of Russia. Summary: key points Kremlin’s propaganda uses all opportunities, COVID-19 is well illustrate this issue. Russia’s influence operations disseminated strat. narratives that amplify or shape perceptions of the world and political preferences in line with the Kremlin’s foreign policy goals COVID-19 (Sazonov et al. 2022) Strat. narratives on the international system spread by Russia describe West, along with its institutions (EU, NATO), predominantly as a vanishing and diminishing force suffering from democratic values equated with weakness. Kremlin is looking for their allies in West. Populist movements (far-right, far-left, also some more moderate politicians) are target audiences of Kremlin’s influence operations. Strat. narratives are brought before target groups through public and covert methods. Kremlin’s strat. narratives are targeted at potential target audiences, among them populist movements, radical (but also non-radical) political figures and forces, several international target groups, alternative or anti-establishment groups, anti-US, anti-NATO movements, anti-EU, etc. (Mölder, Sazonov 2020; Sazonov et al. 2022) References Antoniades, A. et al 2010. Great Power Politics and Strategic Narratives. Global Political Economy. Centre for Global Political Economy University of Sussex Brighton, UK EUvsDisnfo 2021. DISINFO: COVID-19 PANDEMIC SERVES THE AGENDA OF AUTHORITARIAN CONTROL OVER DEMOCRATIC COUNTRIES, https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/covid-19-pandemic-serves-the-agenda-of-authoritarian-control-over-democratic-countries (30.12.2021) Hinck, R. S.; Kluver, R.; Cooley, S. 2018. Russia re-envisions the world: strategic narratives in Russian broadcast and news media during 2015. Russian Journal of Communication 10(1), 21–37. Laclau, E. 2007. On populist reason. 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