In an article from January 23, they identify some current claims of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in what they describe as his “annual press conference.” (1) The headline describes the presser as a “FIMI offensive.” FIMI stands for Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference.
EU vs. Disinfo aims to be accessible to a wide audience. But I find its commentaries sometimes superficial. (I’m trying to be generous here!) But it does provide a useful guide to some of the stories the Kremlin has been recently stressing, which the website organizes under the following headings:
Making it personal: Lavrov singled out several European leaders for special mention: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU Foreign Policy High Representative Kaja Kallas, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Immanuel Macron, and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Since the European NATO countries are currently supporting Ukraine its defensive war against Russia, and since Russian leaders consider the EU and especially NATO a threat to them, the Russian Foreign Minister criticizes some senior European figures. Obviously something that requires deeper analysis!
The article alerts us that a devious FIMI trick is at work here: “The personal targeting of individuals rather than policies is a classic FIMI technique designed to weaken public confidence in democratic decision-making and depict EU leaders as irrational and dangerous.” Mentioning a foreign leader’s name is a devious intelligence trick? Who knew?
Casting Germany as a returning danger: I suppose it could be helpful to someone just beginning to follow international news about Europe to learn that Russia has been known to link Germany with its Nazi past. The article explains this meant that Lavrov was trying “to claim the moral high ground by casting Europe rather than Russia as the heir to past aggression” with that reference.
The EU as a hostile force: Also standard Russian rhetoric. Though its official position over years has been that NATO membership for countries like Ukraine is a much bigger problem than the EU in their eyes. And that is entirely credible.
The same old falsehoods about Ukraine: This category is fairly obvious and the article does provide some links for further information. But the fact that countries make unflattering propaganda about other countries with which they are at war is not exactly a new phenomenon in the world.
Targeting the near-abroad: Lavrov grumped about Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Moldova. Also nothing particularly new and not especially interesting in itself.
The coloniser in Ukraine condemns colonialism: Imperial powers are hypocritical. I suppose this might come as a shock to, say, fifth-graders.
The disinformation goes on, and on: This one at least gives me an excuse to use my favorite I.F. Stone quote about governments and war; “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.”
It’s good to have an accessible debunking site for checking things of this kind. But EU vs. Disinfo provides pretty rudimentary analysis. When I checked the various hot links in the article, all of them led to other EU vs. Disinfo pieces. The very first one links to itself. (?!)
Notes:
(1) Lavrov’s 2026 presser: a three-hour FIMI offensive against Europe and its leaders. EU vs. Disinfo. <https://euvsdisinfo.eu/lavrovs-2026-presser-a-three-hour-fimi-offensive-against-europe-and-its-leaders/>
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