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For far too long, Ukraine has treaded carefully around China’s role in the ongoing war with Russia. Despite mounting evidence of Beijing’s support for Moscow, both materially and diplomatically, Kyiv has been reluctant to criticize China directly. However, during the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy finally broke his silence, openly accusing China of aiding Russia in undermining peace efforts.

In his speech, Zelenskyy alleged that “Russia, using Chinese influence in the region, using Chinese diplomats also, does everything to disrupt the peace summit.” He further claimed that China was supplying “elements of Russia’s weaponry,” something the United States has alleged for months by Kyiv has remained circumspect about.

Zelenskyy’s unusually direct comments marked a significant shift in Kyiv’s stance and a long-overdue reckoning with China’s role in the war.

Kyiv’s Cautious Pragmatism

Kyiv was initially hesitant to openly criticize Beijing for its position on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, despite China’s tacit support for Moscow, due to several critical strategic considerations. First and foremost, Ukraine hoped to leverage China’s aspirations to enhance its global reputation in managing hotspot disputes, as demonstrated by its successful brokering of the Iran-Saudi Arabia deal. Thus Zelenskyy repeatedly extended invitations to Chinese President Xi Jinping to mediate the conflict.

Moreover, China had heavily invested in vital Ukrainian infrastructure projects across key sectors such as energy, agriculture, and transportation. By 2019, China had surpassed Russia as Ukraine’s largest trading partner, with significant imports of Ukrainian barley, iron ore, and corn. Furthermore, Ukraine enjoyed a robust defense trade with China; after Russia, the next largest sources of weapons for China from 2016 to 2020 were France (9.7 percent) and Ukraine (6.3 percent).

In 2017, Ukraine also joined China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, seeking to harness that relationship to expedite the modernization of its transportation networks. Ukrainian policymakers aimed to establish the country as a gateway for Chinese access to Europe. Prior to the Russian invasion in 2022, China was Ukraine’s number one trade and economic partner and in 2021 Zelenskyy had expressed optimism that Ukraine would serve as a “bridge to Europe” for Chinese businesses.

By treading carefully, Ukraine aimed to keep lines of communication open and maintain the possibility of China contributing to a negotiated settlement, however slim.

China’s Symbolic Peace Efforts

For its part, China has attempted to portray itself as a neutral actor in the conflict, engaging in several rounds of shuttle diplomacy. However, these efforts have been largely symbolic and failed to yield meaningful progress toward peace.

In May 2023, Chinese Special Representative Li Hui visited Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany, and Russia to discuss a political settlement. However, reports suggest that Li promoted a ceasefire that would leave Russia occupying parts of Ukraine, a proposal unacceptable to Kyiv, which has consistently maintained that any peace deal must include the full withdrawal of Russian forces.

China has also put forward a 12-point peace plan, but this plan has been criticized for being vague and failing to address the core issues of the conflict. The plan talks about general principles such as respecting sovereignty and abandoning the Cold War mentality, but does not provide any specific proposals for resolving the dispute.

While Chinese leaders have emphasized the importance of a political resolution and called for a ceasefire, they have consistently blamed NATO and the West for provoking the conflict, echoing Russian talking points.

Economically, China has become a crucial lifeline for Russia, helping to mitigate the impact of Western sanctions. Trade between the two countries reached a record $240 billion in 2023, a 64 percent increase from 2021. China has also significantly increased its purchases of Russian oil and gas, becoming Russia’s top crude oil customer in 2023.

In terms of technology, China has been supplying Russia with dual-use goods that have both civilian and military applications. This includes machine tools, microelectronics, and optical components for tanks and armored vehicles. U.S. officials have reported that China has provided Russia with components for drones, cruise missiles, and other military equipment. Chinese officials have rebuffed criticism from the U.S. and Europe on this point, insisting that its trade with Russia is “legitimate” and calling the accusations of dual-use exports “extremely hypocritical and irresponsible.”

Shift in Kyiv’s Stance

Kyiv’s shift in stance toward China appears to be driven by a combination of broken promises, lack of dialogue, and repeated diplomatic snubs. Zelenskyy revealed that during a phone call in April 2023 – the first and only direct communication between the leaders of China and Ukraine since the war began – Chinese President Xi Jinping had promised to stand aside and not support Russia with weapons. However, in Singapore on June 2, Zelenskyy said, “Today, there is intelligence that somehow, some way, some things come to Russia’s markets via China … elements of Russia’s weaponry come from China.” China’s apparent breach of its promise has likely eroded Ukraine’s trust in Beijing and prompted a more critical stance.

Furthermore, Zelenskyy accused Chinese officials of refusing to meet with him, stating, “many times we have wanted to meet Chinese representatives,” including Xi, but “unfortunately Ukraine does not have any powerful connections with China because China does not want it.” Ukraine has been trying to meet with Chinese officials for a long time, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, but has been repeatedly rebuffed. Even at the Shangri-La Dialogue, no meeting took place between Zelenskyy and Dong Jun, the Chinese defense minister.

These repeated snubs have likely contributed to Ukraine’s growing impatience and the decision to criticize China openly. As the war drags on and evidence of China’s multifaceted support for Russia mounts, Ukraine appears to be losing patience with Beijing’s duplicitous stance. It is adopting a more confrontational approach to pressure Beijing and draw international attention to its role in the conflict.

Official says no sign of permit in Ottoman archives, in blow to British Museum, which defends legal right to statuary

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Here is the report (pdf)

"Please Check”. More that 800 organisations, among which many media outlets have been flooded with emails and social media mentions urging them to verify dubious claims undermining Ukraine, France and Germany for the most part. The issue is that these solicitations are part of a massive pro-Russian operation, still ongoing at the time of writing.

The graffitis, videos or screenshots sent to newsrooms are fake and were fabricated for the purpose of diverting journalist’s ressources, or even try to have their narratives amplified by getting fact-checkers to publish debunks. Operation Overload, as we dubbed the action, is detailed in our latest report, led with the support of Reset.Tech and 20+ fact-checking entities, which shared content they had received.

This operation is remarkable for its scale, the elaborate tactics it employs and the quality of the fake content produced. We uncovered and traced coordinated action on Telegram and X to create artificial dissemination of fake content, as well as on a network of websites controlled by the perpetrators. This content amalgamation technique aims at creating a false sense of a wide online presence of fakes. The next step are the coordinated email campaigns, pointing fact-checkers and journalists at the manipulated images or videos through links to social media and the controlled websites.

This investigation was triggered by the publication of AFP and Antibot4Navalny’s coverage of the operation Martryoshka, reporting about a part of this campaign that unfolded on X. Matryoshka ended up to be only the tip of the iceberg. As Amaury L., CTO of CheckFirst, puts it: “Overload is ‘Matryoshka’ on steroids”. Indeed, the numbers are staggering. Our research shows that more than 800 organisations have been targeted by nearly 2400 tweets. 200+ targeted emails were sent to newsrooms across Europe and beyond. The undertaking achieved its goals in its first months, since we found 250+ articles of fact-checks or debunks mentioning the fake assets created for Operation Overload.

Operatives seek to create divisions between societies. Four countries are the main targets: France, Germany, Italy and Ukraine. The perpetrators time their efforts to coincide with major events, such as the Paris Olympics. The tactics employed clearly attempt to overload the global disinformation research and fact-checking community, causing experts to work extra hours to verify and debunk false content that has been created and distributed specifically to target them. As we show in the report, another stated goal is to attempt to use these professionals to amplify the operation’s false claims and reach a wider audience.

“The actors aim to introduce their narratives to European audiences using innovative methods. They target fact-checkers and media organisations, prompting them to publish debunks or news stories about these narratives. They create an alternate reality, claiming, for instance, that photos of fake graffiti are gaining viral traction on X, or featuring “a video published by DW” and appearing on “many websites,” when in truth, all such content is fabricated by the same actor.” - Guillaume Kuster Co-Founder of Check First

The investigation aims to dismantle the fake news environment created by the perpetrators. In this report, we focus on the emails used to target fact-checkers, researchers and newsrooms. We also examine the techniques used to create a false sense of omnipresence of this manipulated content online. The final part of the report analyses the impact of the campaign on the fact-checking community as a whole.

Young voters in key election battlegrounds are being recommended fake AI-generated videos featuring party leaders, misinformation, and clips littered with abusive comments, the BBC has found.

With TikTok emerging as a new social media battleground in this election, the political parties have begun a war of memes on the app in a bid to reach its audience of young voters.

But a BBC project to investigate the content promoted by social media algorithms has found - alongside funny montages - young people on TikTok are being exposed to misleading and divisive content. It is being shared by everyone from students and political activists to comedians and anonymous bot-like accounts.

Videos which have racked up hundreds of thousands of views have promoted unfounded rumours that a major scandal prompted Rishi Sunak to call an early election and the baseless claim that Sir Keir Starmer was responsible for the failure to prosecute serial paedophile Jimmy Savile.

Satirical, fake AI-generated clips show Rishi Sunak declaring, “Please don’t vote us out, we would be proper gutted!” and making unevidenced claims about how the Conservative leader is spending public money - including how he will send his “mates loads of dosh”.

Other AI-generated videos share misleading claims about his national service pledge for 18-year-olds, suggesting young people would be sent to current war zones in Ukraine and Gaza.

Some of these are described as satire or parody in captions, but the comments suggest some users are confused about which claims are factual.

TikTok told the BBC it had increased its investment in countering misinformation for the UK general election, including adding a fact-checking expert to existing resources and employing AI-labelling technology.

The videos were spotted as part of the BBC's Undercover Voters project, which has created profiles for 24 fictional people on all the major social media sites, based on data and analysis by the National Centre for Social Research (Natcen).

The fictional profiles represent a range of voters in battleground constituencies across the UK, giving an insight into what content is promoted to different types of people. The profiles are private, with no friends. They just like, follow and watch content relevant to their character traits informed by the Natcen research.

I examined the feeds of the profiles of three of these fictional voters in the former “red wall” constituency of Bishop Auckland, a target for Labour which is currently held by the Conservatives - and where our Undercover Voters are younger.

Their social media feeds revealed that, while other sites have also experienced a flurry of political content, TikTok had the most lively conversation, particularly among younger voters.

TikTok has boomed since the last election. According to media regulator Ofcom, it was the fastest-growing source of news in the UK for the second year in a row in 2023 - used by 10% of adults in this way. One in 10 teenagers say it is their most important news source.

TikTok is engaging a new generation in the democratic process. Whether you use the social media app or not, what is unfolding on its site could shape narratives about the election and its candidates - including in ways that may be unfounded.

Content promoted to Undercover Voter character Jack, a disaffected 31-year-old, include TikToks misrepresenting remarks made by Labour politicians in speech bubbles. These include comments about immigration, transgender rights, Brexit - and false claims that the shadow international development secretary called to “abolish the Army”.

Several other videos repeated the unfounded allegations about Sir Keir and Jimmy Savile.

Other videos Jack was served on his feed included clips with threats in the comments about “euthanizing” Rishi Sunak and racist remarks about him.

Messages such as “vote Reform UK” were shared repeatedly in the comments of many videos, much more than those I saw in support of any other party. TikTok users have begun to notice the comments, with many calling the posters “Reform bots”, suggesting they could be fake, automated accounts.

I contacted some of the commenters who had photos and names on their profiles, and they told me they were real people based in the UK with no official affiliation to Reform UK and with no encouragement or instruction from the party. But others were anonymous with no profile image and numerical usernames - common hallmarks of fake accounts - and they did not respond to my messages.

Whether they are real people or not, their comments can create the impression that their preferred party has greater support.

Another Undercover Voter character based in Bishop Auckland, 25-year-old Chloe, was created to have no prior interest in politics. But about one in 10 posts on her TikTok feed was a political meme or funny video, including official content coming from the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK.

These include Rishi Sunak’s first TikTok on the Conservatives’ new account about national service, clarifying that he is not forcing all 18-year-olds to join the army.

They also include a video of Cilla Black singing Surprise Surprise from the official Labour profile - with a caption saying “POV: Rishi Sunak turning up on your 18th birthday to send you to war”.

A third Undercover Voter named Louise - in her 50s and politically undecided - was pushed more TikToks targeting political leaders with abusive comments, as well as satirical montages and parody videos about policy announcements such as national service.

I tracked down some of the people behind the videos and posts shown to our Undercover Voters.

One 16-year-old from the south of England, who made a satirical edit of that first Rishi Sunak TikTok about national service, said she was surprised how quickly her content took off.

“I didn’t specifically create this account for the election and the reason I made the TikTok initially was just for a joke - I didn’t expect to get over 400k bloody views,” she said, adding that she is not affiliated with any party and has not received any money for creating the TikTok.

“Social media really is the only platform for young people to have a voice nowadays in my opinion.”

She said she knows satirical content can be “controversial” and she understands how her video “could mislead people” but would hope people could tell it was supposed to be a bit of fun.

Alongside the video, some users had posted threatening comments towards Mr Sunak, but the 16-year-old said she did not think anyone would actually want to harm a politician.

Dozens of other users I messaged who are creating this content are also in their late teens or early 20s, and want to get involved in creating political videos to engage other people their age in the election.

They all tell me that while they may support a political party, they have not been paid for their posts and are not officially affiliated with any of the campaigns.

One politics student tells me they “don’t worry about misleading people because the parties mislead others with their opinions about other parties”.

Another person based in Coventry, who shares his videos about Reform UK, tells me he hopes to “boost their popularity in an unofficial way” and says he set up his account back in February. He say he is a member of the party and has not received any money for making his TikToks.

He is concerned that satirical content - including his own - might unintentionally mislead people on TikTok. His account was restricted by TikTok for posting spam.

A spokesperson for TikTok told the BBC that it had increased its investment “in efforts to ensure reliable information can be found on TikTok”, launching a “UK Election Centre with a fact-checking expert” and adopting an “industry-leading AI labelling technology”.

It also said it was introducing “more policies to aggressively counter foreign election interference” and that it removed 97% of videos with misinformation about elections and civic issues before anyone had viewed them.

Citing a sustained fall in inflation, the ECB said its deposit rate would be cut to 3.75% from a record high of 4%, putting it ahead of the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, which have yet to cut interest rates.

Ciaran Martin said that the criminal group were "looking for money" by targeting the pathology services firm Synnovis.

Hospitals declared a critical incident on Tuesday after the ransomware attack, which affected blood transfusions and test results.

It also led to operations being cancelled and emergency patients being diverted elsewhere. 'Serious type of ransomware'

King’s College Hospital, Guy’s and St Thomas’ - including the Royal Brompton and the Evelina London Children’s Hospital - and primary care services are among those affected.

Mr Martin told the programme: "We believe it is a Russian group of cyber criminals who call themselves Qilin."

He said the group, which operates on the dark web, operated "freely from within Russia".

The cyber security expert explained that the group had previously attacked automotive companies, Australian courts, and the Big Issue in the UK.

He said: "They're simply looking for money," but said the British government had a policy of not paying ransoms.

He told the BBC that the criminal group were "unlikely" to have known they would cause healthcare disruption when they organised the attack.

He added: "There are two types of ransomware attack. One is when they steal a load of data and they try and extort you into paying so that isn't released, but this case is different.

"It's the more serious type of ransomware where the system just doesn't work."

Mr Martin said the attack was "one of the more serious that we've seen in this country".

When asked about patient data, he said: "It's not really a question of data in this one, it's a question of the services.

"The criminals are threatening to publish data, but they always do that. Here, the priority is the restoration of services." "Disruption continues"

As of Wednesday evening, the NHS was reporting that disruption continued to affect services at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and primary care providers in south-east London.

An NHS London spokesperson said: “All urgent and emergency services remain open as usual and the majority of outpatient services continue to operate as normal.

“Unfortunately, some operations and procedures which rely more heavily on pathology services have been postponed, and blood testing is being prioritised for the most urgent cases, meaning some patients have had phlebotomy appointments cancelled."

NHS London added: “We are sorry to all patients impacted."

Patients are advised to access services in the normal way by dialling 999 in an emergency and otherwise using NHS 111.

NHS London said patients should continue to attend appointments unless they were told otherwise.

It said it had launched a "cyber incident response team" and that staff were working "around the clock" to minimise disruption.

One patient told BBC London that he was just moments from receiving a heart operation when the hospital cancelled the procedure due to the cyber attack.

Oliver Dowson said the surgeon explained "there was an issue with the blood bank".

He said: "When you've been sitting there since the crack of dawn in a smock waiting to have open-heart surgery, however calm I tried to feel, you still get a bit nervous."

He said he was "upset and angry" about his procedure being rescheduled to next week.

Synnovis, which provides pathology services for the NHS, opened new laboratories in Southwark in April.

The company says it currently processes about 100,000 blood tests a day and serves about two million patients.

Synnovis said it was unable to comment further on the cyber attack.

Polls opened in the Netherlands on Thursday to kick off four days of voting in European Union parliamentary elections across the 27 member states that are expected to deliver gains for the hard right.

Euro-area finance ministers gave political backing Wednesday to an effort by Group of Seven nations to provide loans to Ukraine using windfall profits generated from immobilized Russian central bank assets.

“The discussion among ministers showed appreciation for the constructive engagement with G-7 partners in this regard and full support for it to continue,” Eurogroup president Paschal Donohoe said in a statement following a video conference meeting of finance ministers.

The meeting was called to explore options on how to front-load financial aid to Ukraine by providing loans based on the profits derived from immobilized Russian central bank assets. The discussion came after G-7 finance ministers last month pushed ahead with the plan, aimed at harnessing as much as $50 billion to help Ukraine’s war effort. They agreed to present options to G-7 leaders ahead of next week’s summit in Italy.

G-7 countries have immobilized about $280 billion of Russian central bank assets in response to President Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, with the majority held in Europe through the Belgium-based clearing house Euroclear.

Euro-area ministers were positive about the process but emphasized the need of risk-sharing between the EU and the US, according to people familiar with the discussion.

During Wednesday’s meeting, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde signaled that using future interest revenues derived from the immobilized assets doesn’t represent a risk to the euro, the people added, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions are private.

One option being considered is a US-led proposal where the US — and possibly other G-7 countries — would provide a loan to Ukraine that would be repaid by the windfall profits generated by the immobilized assets in the EU, in addition to other G-7 partners’ contributions.

But the plan relies on receiving assurances from the EU that Russia’s assets would remain frozen until Russia has agreed to pay reparations and that the windfall profits would be available for the repayment of the loan.

Currently, the EU needs to renew its Russia sanctions every six months, including the immobilization of its central bank assets, a step that requires unanimous approval by the bloc’s 27 member states. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has become a hurdle in clearing recent rounds of sanctions against Moscow, as well as in approving financial and military aid for Kyiv.

One alternative under consideration is that each G-7 country or partner would use the immobilized Russian assets in their jurisdictions.

“This would mean rather than using windfall profits generated on assets immobilized in the EU to repay loans from the United States (or other G-7 members), those windfall profits would be used to finance the principal and interest for a loan to Ukraine supported by the EU budget,” said a document prepared for the Eurogroup discussion.

But this option would be complex because the 27 member states would need to unanimously agree to use the EU budget as a guarantee beyond 2025.

Another option considered by the Europeans was to circumvent the obligation of the six-month renewal of the sanctions by “enacting a specific regime concerning Russian Central bank assets framing the regular review clause with objective criteria,” the document said.

These objective criteria would be the end of Russian aggression, a peace agreement and an agreement on war reparations, but that change would also require unanimity.

"Using administrative data, we estimate that, on average, the EU ETS – the world's first and largest market-based climate policy – induced regulated manufacturing firms to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 14-16% with no detectable contractions in economic activity. "

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France, Germany and Poland have become “permanent” targets for Russian disinformation attacks in the run-up to European Parliament elections this week, a senior EU official said Tuesday (4 June).

The European Union has repeatedly warned heading towards the 6-9 June vote that Russia would ramp up disinformation campaigns in the 27-country bloc.

“There are three big countries under permanent attack (from Russia). And it’s France, it’s Germany, and it’s Poland,” said EU commissioner Věra Jourová, pointing to work by the European Digital Media Observatory, of which AFP is part.

There are “more massive disinformation attacks on specific topics”, said Jourová, the commissioner for values and transparency. For example, in France they are focused on this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris.

In Germany, she said, they exploit concerns over migration and security, while in Poland, a narrative has appeared online that Ukrainian refugees are a “burden”.

She pointed to a false story on the Polish state news agency last week stating that Poles would be mobilised to fight in Ukraine, which authorities said was likely a Russian cyberattack.

"Russian propaganda is done with… very good knowledge of which country has some sensitivities, which country can absorb better the narratives,” Jourová said.

The propaganda was also spread through the Telegram messaging app in countries such as Slovakia, Bulgaria and the Baltic states, she said.

Telegram does not have to comply with the strictest rules for “very large” platforms with at least 45 million monthly active users under the EU’s landmark content moderation law, known as the Digital Services Act (DSA).

“Telegram is not under our competence yet, but we are now counting the users of Telegram because they announced to us that (they) have 42 million users,” she said.

‘Maximum vigilance’

Jourová was speaking to journalists in Brussels after a visit to the United States to meet with executives of the world’s biggest tech companies, including X and YouTube.

She said she urged “maximum vigilance in these last days”, warning the risk remained.

She said she also reminded the companies of their stringent obligations under the DSA.

Jourová’s comments come a day after similar findings by Microsoft in a new report.

The US tech giant’s Threat Analysis Center said Russia was waging an intense disinformation campaign aimed at tarnishing the reputation of the International Olympic Committee and stoking fears of violence at the Games.

Microsoft President Brad Smith, who was in Brussels to meet EU officials including Jourová, echoed her concerns about Russian influence operations.

“The number one abusive AI case that people are worried about is the risk of deepfakes influencing elections, especially deepfakes that come from foreign governments,” Smith said,

“And we’ve definitely seen the Russian government investing in that capability.”

European Union finance ministers will hold a videoconference on Wednesday on a G7 proposal to leverage Russian central bank assets immobilised in the West to allow Kyiv swiftly to receive a loan of around $50 billion, senior euro zone officials said.

The size of the loan has not yet been agreed in the EU, the officials said, but the $50 billion was mentioned by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as a possible amount after a meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers on 23-25 May in Italy.

The idea is that the money for Ukraine, struggling to buy weapons to fend off the Russian invasion, would be raised through a bond that could be backed by annual windfall profits generated by the $300 billion of Russian central bank assets frozen in the West after Moscow's attack on Ukraine in February 2022.

European officials have said that, while seizing the capital of the assets would be legally very risky, using the profits generated by the frozen capital is fine because the profits do not legally belong to Moscow.

"There is a lot of uncertainty about the potential modalities, but the key issue on the table is whether the EU would be open to some sort of concessional loan to Ukraine, based on future revenue stream from the frozen Russian assets," one senior euro zone official said.

European governments have already agreed to transfer profits of 2.5 to 3 billion euros ($2.7-3.3 billion) per year generated by the Russian assets to a special fund that would finance the purchase of weapons and also reconstruction of Ukraine.

If the EU were to agree to using the profits as a leveraging tool to get more money up front, as proposed by the United States, it would have to amend its decision to spend the cash on weapons and reconstruction.

"In practice, that would mean changing for 2025 and beyond the recently adopted decision on windfall profits in EU. There would also be potential changes to the EU sanctions regime when it comes to the assets," the senior euro zone official said.

Officials said that another open issue was who would issue the bonds to raise the money: should it be the United States and other G7 countries, or should be it be the EU, which has holds by far the biggest amount of the immobilized assets.

For the EU to agree to issue the bonds, either alone or as part of a G7 consortium, would likely open a tricky question of joint responsibility for the debt, something that some, like Germany, normally strongly oppose.

"I do not expect any concrete outcome after the video-teleconference. I see it more like a check of temperature before next week's G7 leaders' summit," the senior official said.

Leaders of the United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, Germany, France and Italy - the G7 - are set to meet in Italy on June 13-15 and the issue of the Russian assets is on their agenda.

Slovenia recognised a Palestinian state on Tuesday after its parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the move, following in the recent steps of three other European countries.

Slovenia’s government endorsed a motion last week to recognise a Palestinian state, and had sent the proposal to parliament for final approval, which was needed for the decision to take effect.

The parliament voted 52 in favour of recognition, with no opposing votes out of the 90-seat assembly. The remaining lawmakers abstained from the vote.

Leaked internal documents have exposed the activities of a Russian state-backed legal defence foundation that European intelligence agencies and analysts say is in fact a Kremlin influence operation active in 48 countries across Europe and around the world.

Internal documents from the Fund for Support and Protection of the Rights of Compatriots Living Abroad (Pravfond) indicate that the foundation finances propaganda websites targeted at Europeans, helped pay for the legal defence of the convicted arms trafficker Viktor Bout and the assassin Vadim Krasikov, and has employed a number of former intelligence officers as the directors of its operations in European countries.

The documents show that the group has spent millions of euros to finance propaganda and legal campaigns. Public data also shows that Pravfond’s local partners have received millions in state subsidies from a number of the European states where the foundation operates local branches, raising questions about the use of public funds and national security concerns just days before elections to the European parliament.

More than 40 Pravfond documents, obtained by the Danish public broadcaster DR from a European intelligence source and shared with a consortium of European journalists including the Guardian, show that the organisation has had a number of documented former intelligence agents among its leadership. They include Vladimir Pozdorovkin, who has been identified by European intelligence sources as an agent for the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, and in public records as Pravfond’s curator for its operations in the Nordic and Baltic countries; and Anatoly Sorokin, who the documents show is a member of the SVR and curates Pravfond’s Middle East, Moldova, and Transnistria division.

The head of the Institute of the Russian Diaspora, which is listed on official documents as Pravfond’s “project implementer”, is Sergey Panteleyev, who has been subject to sanctions in EU countries as a member of a Russian military intelligence unit that specialises in psychological-warfare operations.

Andrei Soldatov, an expert on the Russian intelligence services and co-author of The Compatriots, said Pravfond appeared to be a “classic soft-power effort” and that the ties between intelligence and compatriot organisations were “well documented”. He noted that Andrey Milyutin, the deputy head of the department of operative information of the fifth service of Russia’s security agency, the FSB, was a member of the government’s committee on “compatriots living abroad”, indicating the link between intelligence activity and outreach to the Russian diaspora.

In a 2020 national security report, the Estonian security services called Pravfond a “pseudo legal protection system” that “in reality is an influence operations fund”, and they have said the FSB uses the groups to recruit collaborators abroad, including among supporters of the 2014 annexation of Crimea, many of whom had ties to the group.

Pravfond was founded in 2012 by presidential decree and was backed by the Russian ministry of foreign affairs and the federal agency Rossotrudnichestvo, which administers foreign aid and has been described by the head of Pravfond, Alexander Udaltsov, as a “unique element of Russian soft power”. Udaltsov has been subject to sanctions by the European Union since 2023 for “supporting and implementing actions and policies which undermine and threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.

Pravfond did not reply to questions sent by the Guardian and by its reporting partners in the week before this publication, although some of the recipients of its local grants did.

The documents show that Pravfond sponsored the legal defence of Krasikov, an alleged FSB agent who was given a life sentence for the murder of the former Chechen field commander Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin’s Tiergarten in 2019. The documents indicate that the lawyer Robert Unger received €60,000 in legal fees paid out by Pravfond’s budget in 2021 as approved by Udaltsov. A European intelligence source said it possessed documents showing that Unger had received a larger sum of money for representing Krasikov in previous sessions, but could not provide documentation.

Asked about the payments, Unger confirmed he had received a request from the journalist consortium but said his mandate for Krasikov ended in 2021 after the life sentence and that because he was “still subject to legal professional confidentiality even after the end of the mandate and have not been released from it, I am unfortunately prevented from answering your questions”.

A Pravfond budget document from 2014 also showed that the organisation had provided significant sums to fund the legal defences of Bout and the convicted drug trafficker Konstantin Yaroshenko, both of whom later returned to Russia as part of prisoner exchanges negotiated between Moscow and Washington.

The documents also indicated that Pravfond had spent hundreds of thousands of euros to maintain several websites that purported to fight against “Russophobia” and promote the “defence of the Russian language” in Europe. It has also funnelled money to a number of fringe publications throughout Europe.

Documents obtained by the consortium showed that Pravfond funded the activities of golos.eu, an online portal that operates out of a post-office box in Brussels and mainly provides a vehicle for commentators to voice criticism of the Ukrainian government, particularly the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and his top aides and military advisers.

Reached for comment by the Guardian, the Golos deputy editor Yuri Andriychenko denied that the site received money from Pravfond or had any links to the Russian state. He suggested that someone else had applied for grant funding using the site’s name, writing: “We are not surprised that someone in Russia is trying to make money on our name, because it is much easier than creating your own project.”

According to the internal documents, Pravfond also funds the activities of Euromore, another online portal that focuses heavily on purported threats to Russians in Europe. Euromore was “designed to take into account the closure of international platforms” such as RT and Sputnik by the EU authorities and “create its own significant alternative”, the documents said. Those sites were largely blacklisted in the west after the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

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Wildly popular social network TikTok approved adverts containing political disinformation ahead of European polls, a report showed Tuesday (4 June), flouting its own guidelines and raising questions about its ability to detect election falsehoods.

"TikTok has failed miserably in this test,” said Henry Peck, a senior campaigner at Global Witness, the organization that cobducted the study.

The fake ads, submitted by the group last month, all contained content that could pose a risk to electoral processes — including warnings to voters to stay home over a danger of poll violence and a spike in contagious diseases.

They also included a fake notice raising the legal voting age to 21 and appeals for people to vote by email, which is not permitted in European elections.

Citing an internal investigation, the Chinese ByteDance-owned app said its systems correctly identified the breach, but the ads were approved due to “human error” by a moderator.