Securing Democracy Dispatch

Russian diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• EU Sanctions: Russian officials and state media criticized new EU and UK sanctions against Russia and called into question their effectiveness. Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) accused the EU of escalating “unilateral, illegitimate measures”, while the head of the Russian State Duma’s committee on financial markets, Anatoly Aksakov, guaranteed that Russian banks were prepared for the restrictions. The Russian Permanent Mission to the EU claimed that these sanctions would backfire and “inevitably lead to an increase in [EU] fuel prices”. Leonid Slutsky, State Duma deputy for international affairs, supported this claim by boasting about Russia’s allegedly stronger GDP growth compared to the EU. Rosneft declared that it considered the EU sanctions against the Indian firm Nayara Energy “unjustified” and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko warned that such secondary sanctions against Russia’s partners would only accelerate “the emergence of a multipolar world”.
• Ukraine Ceasefire Negotiations: The Russian delegation praised Russia’s goodwill and blamed Ukraine for moral degradation after the third round of ceasefire negotiations in Istanbul, Türkiye. Slutsky noted that Russia demonstrated “humanism and aspiration toward a diplomatic end to the conflict”. The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, emphasized that Ukraine purportedly still holds roughly 30 Russian civilians from the Kursk region. At the same time, he guaranteed that “some” of the 339 kidnapped Ukrainian children presented by the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul two months ago came back to Ukraine. Medinsky added that many children from this list have allegedly never been in Russia and another 50 are “adults”. Medinsky also labeled the mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, a “half-baked Gauleiter” and called his proposition to exchange exhumed Red Army soldiers for Ukrainian prisoners of war a “moral degradation”. 

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• Israeli Strikes on Syria: The PRC MFA and Beijing’s representative at the United Nations denounced Israel’s military strikes on Syria. State media followed suit, with China Daily calling Israel’s justifications for the strike a “pretext” and CGTN America deploring that the attack came “at a politically sensitive moment” for the US-Syria relationship. CGTN Europe relayed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s strong criticism of Israel on X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The TikTok clip, which featured Erdoğan labeling Israel a “desperate terrorist state” that must be stopped before it sets “the world on fire”, garnered nearly 1.5 million views, making it the second most-viewed piece of PRC-produced content last week.
• EU-China Summit: In anticipation of this week’s EU-China summit in Beijing, PRC messaging blew hot and cold on the Europeans. The MFA opposed the inclusion of PRC companies in the latest round of EU sanctions related to the war in Ukraine on July 18, before hailing the “fruitful results” of EU-PRC cooperation on July 21. State media was similarly conflicted, with the Global Times praising trade between both sides and CGTN promoting prospects for joint innovation. People’s Daily attacked EU actions that “seriously undermine China-EU economic and trade ties” and China Daily denounced the EU’s “groundless accusations or unjust pressure”. Over the same period, China.org called for the EU to diversify its trading partners to alleviate Washington’s “coercive financial statecraft”.

Iranian diplomats and state media focused on one main narrative this week:

• Nuclear Talks: In response to French, German, and UK threats to restore UN sanctions on Tehran, Iranian officials and state media amplified an RT report that presented Russia and the PRC as global alternatives to the West. After a trilateral meeting between Tehran, Moscow, and Beijing this week, Iranian state messengers emphasized the three countries’ “alignment” against Europe’s snapback mechanism and their desire for continued cooperation. Press TV amplified a senior Russian diplomat’s statement that the European Troika “violated” the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal and thus “forfeited” its right to implement the snapback. Similarly, IRNA repeated the PRC vice foreign minister’s calls for Iran’s right to pursue peaceful uses of nuclear energy to be “guaranteed”. Iranian state messengers continued their criticism of Europe ahead of Iran’s nuclear talks with France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on Friday, with Press TV publishing a feature lambasting Germany for its “deep-rooted hostility” against Tehran. Iranian officials also downplayed the prospect of restarting direct negotiations with the United States, claiming that Washington “wants talks for war, not peace”.

Google removes 11,000+ state-backed propaganda YouTube channels: Google removed close to 11,000 YouTube channels in the second quarter of 2025 that were tied to state-backed information campaigns, including more than 7,700 channels linked to the PRC and more than 2,000 connected to Russia. Google also took down an RT-linked page on its Blogger platform that spread pro-Kremlin content in English, Spanish, Serbian, and Russian. Senior Fellow Bret Schafer tells the Dispatch, “While it’s a good thing that Google, unlike some peers, is continuing to counter state-backed influence campaigns, the lack of details provided in the recent bulletin does little to help the open-source community better understand threat actor behavior or conduct cross-platform analyses. In years past, threat reports from tech companies served as a jumping-off point for open-source investigations, but this report provides little value beyond confirming what we already knew: the same state-backed actors continue to use YouTube to run influence campaigns.”

US intelligence official threatens prosecution over 2016 election assessment: US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard called for the prosecution of several Obama-administration officials after she declassified documents that she alleges prove that these officials sought to undermine US President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election by “withholding” and “manufacturing” intelligence in their assessment of Russian interference that year. Managing Director David Salvo says, “First, there was strong bipartisan consensus during the first Trump administration that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Second, it is possible to acknowledge the Russian interference operation to influence American voters and also recognize that, in spite of Russia’s operation, Trump’s electoral triumph was legitimate. Third, there is overwhelming evidence that Russia probed electoral infrastructure using cyber tools, even if Russia did not alter a single vote—and even if they never intended to alter a vote in the first place. And finally, Obama-administration officials discussing how a Russian cyber operation against voting infrastructure could undermine confidence in the vote is not politicization of intelligence, as Gabbard alleges, but an assessment of a plausible outcome of a cyberattack.”

Kremlin-linked Pravda network ramped up anti-von der Leyen content ahead of no-confidence vote: Between March and June this year, the Russia-linked Pravda network increased daily posts by 60%, subdomains by 20%, and expanded to new languages to push narratives aimed at denigrating European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The network’s output spiked on June 26—more than 80 posts across the entire network—after a motion of no-confidence was officially filed against her, though the motion eventually failed. Research Analyst Etienne Soula says, “The steady stream of Russian information attacks against the EU and its leadership is nothing new, but the timing of this latest acceleration should raise alarm bells. It corresponded with an impeachment attempt that was spearheaded by far-right parties, many of whom have well-documented ties to the Kremlin. Whether coordinated or merely coincidental, this convergence of messaging from external autocratic states with a disruptive procedure initiated by domestic populist forces illustrates the ever-growing pressure that European democracies face from all directions.”

In Case You Missed It

• Three PRC-linked hacking groups are behind a global cyberattack that has reportedly infiltrated at least two US federal agencies, according to Microsoft.
• The PRC-backed hacking group Volt Typhoon compromised an unnamed US state’s National Guard network from March to December 2024, according to a US government memo.
• An Iranian national and former employee of Tehran’s state broadcaster created a website that sought to raise a bounty for Trump’s assassination, according to an investigation by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
• X removed only one of 125 reported pieces of Russian propaganda that violated EU sanctions, including RT programs that have been banned since 2022.
• Concerns over Russian interference in Japan have grown following Sputnik’s interview with a candidate from the Japanese nationalist party Sanseito before last week’s upper-house election and allegations of Russian online bot networks pushing anti-government content.

How Russia Landed Trump in This Epstein Mess. Senior Fellow Bret Schafer/ASD research quoted in Mother Jones

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