Russia’s fake nuclear drills and real failure in Mali

KEY EVENTS

• False claims of Polish and French nuclear drills recycle the narrative of a “threatening NATO” to mask Russia’s own aggression.
• The EU’s €90 billion Ukraine loan is miscast as a “death machine” and austerity driver, distorting its actual economic and defence support role.
• Unfounded allegations of Western involvement in Mali attacks deflect from Russia’s own failing role in the region.

LAST WEEK IN REVIEW

This week’s most pervasive messaging returned to its default target: Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine was framed as having made peace impossible, his administration depicted as an extraction vehicle for Western interests, and the EU’s €90 billion Ukraine loan described as money taken from ordinary Europeans to fund what one FIMI outlet called ‘a death machine’. This framing ran alongside a second, related strand casting European rearmament as inherently aggressive – one outlet claimed Germany ‘is planning to repeat 1939’ – positioning NATO and the EU not as responding to Russian aggression but as its authors. The third significant development was the opportunistic reading of European electoral results as evidence of fracture: Bulgaria’s election was framed as signalling ‘cracks in the European line’, Hungary’s political shift was falsely attributed to Soros networks and EU interference, and Romania’s political uncertainty was identified as an opening for Russian influence. Taken together, these framings are doing coordinated work – delegitimising Ukraine, recasting Western defence as aggression, and presenting internal EU politics as proof of an order breaking apart.

SNAPSHOT OF FIMI NARRATIVES

‘Poland, France preparing nuclear drills simulating strikes on Russia’s Kaliningrad and Leningrad regions’

A recurring pro-Kremlin FIMI narrative accuses NATO of warmongering and of posing an existential threat to Russia. Last week, FIMI outlets claimed that Poland and France were preparing nuclear exercises in which they would simulate strikes on two Russian regions.

However, the claim has no publicly available evidentiary basis. It appears entirely made up. No official source – not Poland, not France, not NATO – has acknowledged any nuclear drills in Poland targeting Russia. NATO does conduct nuclear-related exercises, mostly for self-defence – exercises that are transparent and focused on maintaining the readiness and coordination of nuclear forces.

This fits a broader and recurring FIMI tactic: projecting Russia’s own aggression onto others. Pro-Kremlin outlets routinely portray NATO as the aggressor, claim the alliance ‘provoked’ Russia into war, or recycle myths that NATO promised never to enlarge, encircled Russia, or seeks direct confrontation. These narratives invert reality. It was Russia that launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, while NATO remains a defensive alliance whose support to Ukraine responds to, rather than caused, Russian aggression. Casting NATO as war-mongering serves a familiar purpose: deflect responsibility for the Kremlin’s actions, manufacture a false sense of Western hostility, and justify Russia’s own militarisation and escalation.

The false claim appeared on a Russian-language pro-Kremlin website.

‘The EU’s €90 billion loan aimed at financing Ukraine’s death machine’

A recurring pro-Kremlin FIMI narrative portrays EU support for Ukraine as feeding a so-called ‘death machine’, falsely casting military assistance as profiteering and social sabotage rather than support for a country defending itself against Russia’s aggression. One such narrative claimed the EU’s €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan would deepen hardship for Ukrainians through austerity while portraying Ukraine’s leadership as deliberately prolonging war at the expense of its own people.

The framing of the EU’s support loan as an austerity measure imposed on Ukraine and a trigger for economic hardship in Europe misrepresents the loan’s structure, its beneficiaries, and its likely impact. It also repeats earlier manipulation about the EU’s support for Ukraine. The loan is backed by EU budget headroom and capital markets borrowing, not transfers from national health or infrastructure spending.

Of the total, €30 billion supports the Ukrainian state budget while €60 billion is directed toward Ukraine’s defence industrial base. Procurement rules require, in principle, that products originate from EU, EEA, or EFTA countries – meaning a substantial share of spending flows back to European industry. Partial repayment is expected from Russian reparations.

These false claims were disseminated by a Kremlin-aligned Telegram channel.

‘Western intelligence services may have played a role in Mali terrorist raid’

The claim that Western security services may have trained or directed insurgents behind one of Mali’s most serious coordinated attacks, which struck Bamako and other cities last week, was advanced by pro-Kremlin outlets without supporting evidence. Some outlets also alleged Ukrainian involvement in attacks on government forces in Mali, in line with earlier FIMI narratives. Allegations made solely by Russian officials carry no weight given their long, documented record of unsubstantiated claims.

Pro-Kremlin outlets routinely blame unrest, coups, sabotage, or insurgent violence far beyond Europe on covert Western, and increasingly Ukrainian, subversive activity, using far-fetched claims to ignore local realities, promote conspiracy narratives, and portray Kyiv and its partners as destabilising forces worldwide. What this does is trying to deflect from Russia’s own failures.

This particular allegation sits in direct contradiction with recent history. Until 2022, France led an active counter-jihadist campaign in Mali for nearly a decade, alongside EU training missions and a UN stabilisation effort. That coalition was dismantled following a series of military coups in the country that brought Kremlin-backed governments to power; these governments expelled Western forces.

This was presented as a sovereign move away from Western partnerships, wrapped in anti-colonial rhetoric portraying them as ineffective and intrusive. In reality, it opened the door for Russia’s Wagner Group, later rebranded as the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps, to take their place, which pledged to stabilise the situation and counter armed groups.

Instead, insecurity has deepened. Jihadist groups have expanded significantly across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, despite the presence of Russian-backed Wagner Group and Africa Corps personnel. Last weekend, Mali experienced its largest coordinated attacks in years. A coalition of Tuareg rebels and al Qaeda-linked jihadists attacked several cities, forcing Russian mercenaries to retreat and exposing the strategic failures of the Mali-Russia partnership.

Pro-Kremlin disinformation had previously accused France of supporting jihadists during the period of Western military engagement in the region. The same narrative has been revived now that the consequences of Western withdrawal are visible.

The false claim was disseminated by a channel of the Russian state-controlled FIMI outlet RT.

Don’t be deceived.