zona.gesta.ro 2025.05.23. https://zona.gesta.ro/2025/05/23/szele-tamas-a-kreml-es-hispania/
They are beginning to find themselves in the fortunate position — largely thanks to the hyperactivity of Russian disinformation operators — that European counter-intelligence services can increasingly infer, from the direction and volume of fake news and manipulative content, which European country is the Kremlin’s next target. The signs now suggest that Spain was recently in the crosshairs.
According to a confidential report by Spain’s national security services, Russia conducted a disinformation campaign in the country following last year’s catastrophic floods in an attempt to sow distrust in democratic institutions and to delegitimise Spain’s support for Ukraine — and let’s not forget: Spain also held European Parliament elections last year. The Kremlin allegedly carried out the same playbook during elections in Romania, Moldova, and Georgia, with the aim of pushing these states away from the EU and potentially drawing them into Moscow’s sphere of influence, El País writes.
A Storm Over Hispania
The Kremlin exploited the disaster caused by Storm Dana in Spain to generate distrust toward Spanish democratic institutions, undermine Spain’s support for Ukraine, and project an image of international chaos, according to a report by the National Security Department (DSN), part of the Office of the Spanish Prime Minister, led by General Loreto Gutiérrez Hurtado. The report was submitted to the Spanish parliament.
As El País notes, this is the first time an official document explicitly links the spread of rumours and fake news — which followed the natural disaster that hit Valencia province and several autonomous regions in autumn 2024 — to Russian-backed disinformation campaigns.
“During the crisis triggered by Storm Dana on 29 October 2024, the Kremlin-aligned propaganda and disinformation system (…) amplified and repurposed previously existing misleading narratives,” the report explains. “Pro-Russian actors focused on increasing citizens’ distrust toward state institutions, delegitimising support for Ukraine on the pretext of the real need for aid in areas affected by Storm Dana, and projecting the image of a country sinking into chaos,” it adds.
The document notes that disinformation is among the most significant national security risks and recalls that the World Economic Forum ranks short-term misinformation among the top ten global risk factors.
“Events such as pandemics, elections, or natural disasters have already been exploited by the Kremlin — and will continue to be used as tools in the future,” the report warns.
Drawing on various studies by the European External Action Service (EEAS), Spain’s National Security Ministry explains that in mid-2022, after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a Russia-linked and still-active disinformation operation called “Doppelgänger” was launched. It involves a coordinated information structure consisting of 228 domains and 25,000 network accounts operating in several languages — including Spanish — and includes 60 documented incidents.
The Doppelgänger Operation
“The Kremlin carried out disinformation campaigns in an attempt to increasingly influence other countries’ electoral processes,” such as those in Moldova, Romania, and Georgia, with the aim of distancing them from the EU or, “ideally, drawing them into the Russian government’s sphere of influence,” the Spanish document states. It also claims that Moscow “reportedly supported disinformation campaigns ahead of the 2024 US elections,” which resulted in Donald Trump’s victory.
The Ministry of the Interior notes that these campaigns were not waged through traditional channels as in the past — for example via Kremlin-aligned outlets like Sputnik or RT. Now, “tracing the origin is much more difficult,” as multiple actors operate separate infrastructures created specifically for particular occasions.
The use of artificial intelligence “has produced a qualitative and quantitative leap in the mass and almost instantaneous spread of disinformative content,” the report adds. The EEAS has documented at least 41 cases in which AI was used to manipulate information.
Risks, Threats, and Dangers
In assessing risks and threats, the report identifies cyber-vulnerabilities, disinformation campaigns, unregulated migration flows, strategic and regional tensions, and economic and financial instability as the most serious challenges.
It also lists disinformation and cyber-related threats among the most significant risk factors for the next five years, while in the longer term — by 2035 — experts consider societal fragmentation and strategic uncertainty to be the greatest dangers.
Although the document includes a dedicated chapter on the vulnerability of energy supply, it does not mention the risk of a complete blackout such as the one that hit Spain and Portugal on 28 April. The report was approved by the National Security Council on 24 April — just four days before the entire Iberian electrical grid had to be shut down.
Well, it seems we are already able to detect both the scale and the intensification of Russian propaganda. And we can even tell which area it is targeting. Only one question remains unanswered: why has Spain suddenly become so important? Did Moscow somehow foresee the arrival of Storm Dana and try to prepare the ground for an emerging — or deliberately engineered — social crisis with a disinformation blitz?
If so, then Moscow bears serious responsibility for withholding knowledge of the impending disaster — and even attempting to exploit it.
In any case, it is good that this report has been made public: at least Russian services and disinformation operators now know that they are being watched.
In Europe, they are already the ones being watched — not the ones being listened to. And that makes a world of difference.
This article was produced with the financial support of the European Union. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible. Zóna did not receive funding; it merely provides the platform for publication.
