Schadenfreude over the abyss
Pro-Kremlin disinformation operators have tried to smear, delegitimise and humiliate Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy since his election in 2019. We have documented hundreds of attacks against him and other Ukrainian officials.
When US President Trump and Vice President Vance publicly argued with Zelenskyy on 28 February, mouthpieces of the Kremlin and their underlings in the disinformation ecosystem unsurprisingly relished discussing the meeting in great detail. They portrayed the Ukrainian war-time leader as ‘drug-addicted’, ‘delusional’, ‘psychologically inadequate’, ‘incompetent’, ‘corrupt’, and believe it or not, a ‘Cocaine Fuhrer’.
Insults reveal the insulter
Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev called Zelenskyy a ‘cocaine-addicted clown’ and ‘the ungrateful pig that got a hard slap from the masters of the pigsty’. RT liar-in-chief Margarita Simonyan declared that Zelenskyy had been ‘smashed, disgraced and put in his place, destroyed himself in the eyes of the American people and insulted the White House’. She concluded that ‘now he is finished, must resign, apologise … the Ukrainian delegation was raped’. Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Ministry spin doctor Maria Zakharova compared Zelenskyy to a character from a Soviet film characterised as a ‘weak, intellectually undeveloped being’.
A dream come true
Russian state-controlled outlets and the pro-Kremlin disinformation ecosystem went into overdrive to blame Zelenskyy for the outcome of the meeting and portray him as disrespectful, aggressive, and a warmonger unwilling to end the conflict. President Trump, by contrast, was praised as a leader striving for ‘peace and prosperity’. The Sputnik outlet claimed Ukraine is a ‘deep state tool’ to destroy Trump.
The Kremlin has long blamed NATO for its own invasion of Ukraine and dreamt about splitting the transatlantic alliance. Therefore particular emphasis was placed on driving a wedge between the US and other NATO members by claiming that the diplomatic incident had been ‘scripted by the Europeans’ and in particular the United Kingdom, who are using Ukraine to promote their anti-Russian agenda. The fact that Zelenskyy attended a summit in London directly after his visit to Washington was presented as evidence of British involvement.
Reactions to the London summit
This London summit on Ukraine was also widely reported by the Russian press and commented on by Russian officials, with the main message being that it was an ‘anti-Trump event’, that the EU had betrayed the United States and that there was ‘no longer unity the West in supporting Ukraine’.
Putin’s talking head Peskov commented that ‘the new US foreign policy configurations largely coincide with Russia’s’ and Foreign Minister Lavrov claimed that in ‘the last 500 years, all the world’s tragedies originated in Europe, the United States was not the instigator’.
EU is now part of the war party
Pro-Kremlin outlets and disinformation operatives now portray the EU, the UK and other countries who continue to support Ukraine in defending itself against Russian aggression as the ‘war party’, as obstacles in the way of peace for which Russia is supposedly working with the US. Peskov called the announcement of suspension of US military aid to Ukraine the best contribution to the cause of peace.
New empires dismantle Europe
While Trump is being praised, the United Kingdom, the EU and their leaders have become the main targets of attacks in pro-Kremlin outlets. In his noxious show on prime-time television, propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called the EU ‘a cancer’ and HRVP Kaja Kallas a ‘fire-breathing dragon’.
He demanded to ‘kick all bastards who work for EU-related institutions out’ of Russia and to bomb the EU with Oreshnik wunderwaffen. His guests threatened to invade the EU if it became a party to the conflict and said that ‘powers that will manage to become new empires will dismantle Europe’.
Eurasia has always been at peace with Oceania
Russia suddenly declaring its policy aligned with that of the United States is propaganda copy-pasted from Orwell’s 1984. The way in which Russian officials and outlets gleefully seized upon the public disagreement between Trump and Zelenskyy also reveals the circular, self-reinforcing nature of their deceptions.
They took a diplomatic setback for Ukraine and transformed it into ‘evidence’ supporting their own narratives about Zelenskyy. Russian schadenfreude betrays how desperately they’ve been seeking external validation for their lies. Finding echoes of their talking points in the words of Trump and Vance was treated as vindication, despite the irony that they have routinely denounced American leaders in other contexts.
Russia running out of time, but not out of lies
Russian officials hope that the end of US support will force Ukraine to capitulate before Russia’s own economy and war effort collapse. Like a schoolyard bully who doubles down on taunts and humiliation when running out of real strength, the Kremlin is desperately amplifying every perceived setback for Ukraine.
After three years of grinding warfare, Russia faces depleted reserves of experienced soldiers, critical equipment shortages, and crippling international sanctions slowly strangling its economy.
Moscow knows it’s running out of time and it needs Ukraine to break before it does. This explains the Kremlin’s obsession with humiliating Zelenskyy and its almost frantic celebration of any perceived Western disunity. The louder and more vicious its propaganda becomes, the clearer it is that it fears its own inability to sustain this conflict much longer.
Don’t be deceived.
More disinformation targeting the EU last week:
The EU is instigating protests among Georgia’s youth
Pro-Kremlin disinformation has long accused Western governments and especially the EU of ‘instigating colour revolutions’ in Russia’s neighbourhood, and in particular in Georgia. Attempts to smear EU leaders are also common. In this recent case, ‘information’ from a Russian intelligence service supposedly showed that the EU Delegation in Tbilisi received significant funding to coordinate demonstrations, with protesters supposedly being paid up to 120 euros per day. In a related case, EU Ambassador in Tbilisi Paweł Herczyński was falsely accused of being ‘complicit in violence during popular protests’ and ‘encouraging violence’ near the Georgian parliament. These baseless claims suggested the Ambassador was actively campaigning against the ruling party ahead of parliamentary elections. Both stories lack any supporting evidence. Ambassador Herczyński has consistently emphasised the importance of democratic values and the peaceful resolution of political disputes in his public statements.
Europe tramples free speech as it bans pro-Kremlin outlets
On 24 February 2025, the EU decided to suspend the broadcasting licences of eight Russian media outlets as part of its 16th sanctions package against Russia. These bans are a justified measure to counter foreign state-sponsored disinformation. The Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) immediately issued a statement protesting what it called ‘the practice of bans and repressions against independent media’. RUJ claimed the EU is ‘deliberately fuelling information confrontation’ and introducing ‘political censorship’ under the pretext of fighting ‘disinformation’. It portrayed the blocking of Russian outlets as a threat to Europeans who are ‘deprived of access to alternative information’.
Freedom of expression has recognised limitations under international law. Political arsonists cannot hide behind the fig leaf of ‘freedom of expression’. The affected outlets have been documented as instruments in Russia’s information warfare, systematically spreading disinformation about Russia’s war against Ukraine. Pro-Kremlin sources often invoke values like press freedom to shield propaganda operations from accountability, while Russia itself has one of the world’s most restrictive environments for genuinely independent journalists.
The EU may soon fall into complete disarray
While spreading revolution and trampling values, the EU somehow also found time to dissolve itself amongst border conflicts between its member states, notably between Germany and Poland. This case is yet another iteration of the ‘imminent collapse of Europe’ myth, which in some form or shape has been employed since at least 1919. It is also a case of Russian projection because border issues between Germany and Poland have been settled since 1990 while Russia is trying to change borders through an imperialistic war.
Pro-Kremlin outlets have often predicted EU disintegration due to sanctions imposed on Russia, alleged discontentment of the EU population over EU financial assistance to Ukraine, or the COVID-19 pandemic.
In reality, European citizens strongly approve of European cooperation. In Eurobarometer surveys in late 2024, 79 per cent of respondents found the Euro a good thing (see about the eurozone here) and 69 per cent found the EU a place for stability (see more comprehensively about the EU here.)
