Klingova: Pro-Kremlin narratives threaten democracy in Slovakia and the region

Disinformation is becoming one of the biggest challenges to democracy and political stability, while the spread of polarizing narratives is being carried out by Slovak and regional leaders, says Katarina Klingova, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Democracy and Sustainability at the GLOBSEC Policy Institute.

In an interview with The Geopost, Klingova emphasizes that such narratives benefit the Kremlin, while underlining that it is important to understand how these phenomena affect different countries and what the mechanisms are to combat them.

She talks about the situation in Slovakia, interference in electoral processes, narratives that are spreading in the region, the spread of fear, manipulation of information, and attacks on democratic institutions, comparing these developments with the situation in the Western Balkans.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Can you tell us about the current situation with disinformation in Slovakia, the interference in the recent elections, and the current situation?

I heard: One of the trends that we have seen in terms of information operations or the dissemination of polarizing narratives in Slovakia is that, while in 2016 and 2015, these kinds of narratives were disseminated by actors on the fringes of the information landscape and the political landscape, today they are expressed by key political leaders, including various members of our parliament or who are disseminating narratives that benefit the Kremlin, not only in Slovakia but also throughout the region, disseminating a lot of narratives that undermine the war in Ukraine, undermine the support of Slovakia, the European Union or NATO in Ukraine, disseminating narratives that if people vote for this or that political representative or political party, then Slovak women's sons and husbands will also be sent to the battlefield. So there is a lot of fear mongering, the creation of enemies where there are none, antagonizing different social groups, people who have more liberal political views, a lot of defamatory attacks and attacks on civil society representatives and investigative journalists.

The Geopost: Have you found and followed new narratives of, as you said, attacks from Central Europe and also in the Balkans, which is a new narrative that they have used?

I heard: There are many, many stories being spread. The latest news that has been spreading in Slovakia recently is that the anti-government protests that take place almost every two weeks in several Slovak cities are organized by the organizers of Euromaidan or the revolutions in Georgia. There were attempts to claim that the leader of the Georgian Legion in Ukraine had come to Slovakia and was essentially organizing a coup. We often notice cyber attacks against our institutions in Slovakia, as well as bomb threats, which were especially widespread at the beginning of the school year. It was a week in which bomb threats were reported to several schools throughout Slovakia. There is a tendency to blame Ukrainians for these activities. For example, when it comes to similar activities in the Czech Republic, Czech intelligence usually says that the Kremlin or people somehow connected to the Kremlin are behind such high-level attacks.

The Geopost: You know the situation from a European and Slovak perspective, obviously the situation in the Balkans, what is your message to us, all of us, on how to fight all this disinformation because we are not yet in NATO and not in Europe.

I heard: The message is the same for us. Many of our vulnerabilities, exploited by malign actors at home and abroad, exist because we enable them. So, we need to close our security gaps. We need to do our homework and understand that if we allow it, if we do not enforce our existing laws, if we do not protect the truth, there will be various malign actors who will take advantage of this. So we need to do this as homework. We also need to understand, both in Central Europe and in the Western Balkans, that building resilience is a long-term solution. It takes time and effort from all actors in society. It is not only the task of public administration, but journalists, media, civil society organizations and researchers must also be actively involved. And of course, the structures that enable this kind of policy and this kind of cooperation must be created. It should not only be the whole government, but the whole society, because every individual, whether it is an official in a government or an individual like you and me, can contribute to building resilience in our respective countries. What we can do better is to share knowledge about best practices, share knowledge about absurd information operations, because there are many things happening that are similar, many things happening at the same time. So we need to have a better overview of the situation, not only of what is happening in individual countries of the Western Balkans, but also of what is happening in the wider area. That is why it is good that you are organizing this conference and bringing together today very interesting actors in order to exchange ideas and promote the exchange of knowledge.

/The Geopost