Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) is not merely a communication issue — it is a form of hybrid warfare that poses a global threat to European democratic societies.
This was stated by Kaja Kallas, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, during a conference on combating FIMI in Brussels, as reported by a Ukrinform correspondent.
“Our latest reporting shows that Russia and China have massive digital infrastructure in place to conduct FIMI operations. Last year alone, more than ninety countries and over three hundred organisations were targets of attacks. From the Paris Olympic and Paralympic games, to the Presidential elections in Romania and Moldova. We saw everything from disinformation about farmers’ protests in Germany, to biased material trying to legitimise Russia’s influence in the Middle East. It is a major global threat,” Kallas warned.
“Russia has invested over a billion euros in their state-controlled propaganda outlets in the last few years. It is increasing [this] year on year. And this doesn’t include what they are spending on their intelligence services or for their covert proxies operating worldwide. And of course they are not the only one. We can only guess how much China is investing in their own FIMI armoury… Combining the two means it’s very, very dangerous. Our own budget is a hundred times smaller at least. We may not have so much money, but we are making the most of what we do have,” Kaja Kallas noted.
According to her, the EU has established a rapid alert system to detect foreign interference and cyberattacks. This network involves leading experts and operational measures to reduce the harmful impact of FIMI campaigns.
“But it is obvious we need to allocate more resources and take this threat more seriously. Again, I want to stress, FIMI is not a communications issue. It is a tactic of war,” the EU High Representative stressed.
Among the countermeasures against such hostile activity, she mentioned identifying “compromised” networks and resources and increasing the cost of maintaining them for information aggressors, who are forced to create new accounts and register new “shadow” websites.
The second “line of defense” is public awareness. One of the most developed databases on information manipulation and disinformation is the EUvsDisinfo platform, which operates under the European External Action Service. It has already detected an incredible number of such cases. Its experts have identified over 18,000 instances of Kremlin disinformation. Last year alone, the EUvsDisinfo website was visited by 38 million people, including specialists from fact-checking organizations.
Finally, the third effort to counter FIMI is the imposition of sanctions on violators, which significantly complicates and slows down their harmful activities. Currently, the EU sanctions lists include more than 50 individuals and about 20 publications that are fully controlled by Russia, a state that has waged a criminal war in Europe.
“FIMI is a fundamental part of hybrid war. It often precedes conventional attacks. We have seen this all over Europe, including Ukraine. There are malign actors including Russia and China that have built industrial-scale machinery to manipulate our information environments. Their aim is to polarise societies and make it impossible to engage in constructive, informed dialogue. We must consider the integrity of our information space as important as our territorial integrity. We must fight back,” Kallas concluded.
As reported, the EU-Ukraine security agreement includes joint efforts to combat hybrid threats, including cyberattacks and foreign disinformation.
Photo: Europa.EU
Source: Kaja Kallas: information manipulation posing major global threat to Europe
