Russian propaganda network “Pravda” targets Albanian-speaking audience

The Balkans is one of the main target groups of the “Pravda” network, covering 16.2% of the total content, although the region represents only 3.2% of the world’s population. This is according to the research report “Russian propaganda network Pravda and the Balkans” by the digital platform for combating information disorder, Hibrid.info.

According to the same report, the results of which were presented at a press conference on Tuesday, Serbia is the most affected country, with 10.1 times more content per capita than the global average.

At the conference “Challenges of Information Disorder in Kosovo”, it was emphasized that the main narratives of the Albanian-language “Pravda” articles are pro-Russian and pro-Serbian and, among other things, focus on the cooperation between Moscow and Belgrade and the glorification of the heads of state and government of these countries.

Hybrid researcher Festim Rizanaj said that Pravda’s Albanian articles portray NATO as an aggressor, the European Union as ignorant and the United States of America as manipulative.

According to the research, Albanian-language articles on the Russian propaganda channel “Pravda” deny Kosovo as a state, compare it to Crimea and accuse it of institutional terrorism against the Serbian community.

“Particular attention was paid to the Albanian-language portal albania.news-pravda.com, which published 2,699 articles in the period from March 28, 2024 to April 28, 2025 alone, which are reprints from sources close to the Kremlin, such as the Telegram channels of the Russian embassy in Tirana, as well as Russian state media such as RT, Sputnik, Tass.ru, Ria.ru, etc. However, the analysis shows that the ‘Pravda’ network had no real impact on the Albanian-speaking audience due to: poor automatic translations and often incomprehensible language, the complete absence of presence on social networks used in the region, the very low number of followers, absence in Google search results and minimal website traffic – with only 11 organic visits per day,” reads, among other things, the analysis by hybrid.info, reports TheGeopost.

The Russian propaganda network “Pravda” is an online operation coordinated with the official Kremlin that disseminates various pro-Russian content via websites disguised as information portals.

The main goal of the Pravda network is to exert indirect influence through the constant repetition of Russian narratives in the Albanian-speaking digital space. The aim is also to influence artificial intelligence such as chatbots /The Geopost/