Invisible mouthpiece: how Russia affects youth through social media

This articles was shared by the European Democracy Youth Network (EDYN), a valued partner of the GBYEN

Authored by: Karolina Shmalko, Deputy Chairwoman of the Board EDYN Ukraine

Mykyta Haliaskarov, Intern at EDYN Ukraine

Modern Wars Are Also Fought Online

Russia's war against Ukraine is not confined to the battlefield. Alongside missiles and military operations, the Kremlin wages a continuous information campaign designed to shape public opinion, undermine democratic institutions, and weaken Western support for Ukraine. In today's digital environment, social media has become one of the most effective instruments of this strategy. Platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and X have fundamentally changed the way people consume information. According to the European Commission, young Europeans are now more likely to receive news through social media than television, making digital platforms the primary arena where political attitudes are formed. For authoritarian regimes, this transformation presents an unprecedented opportunity. Unlike traditional propaganda, modern influence operations no longer require television stations or newspapers. Instead, coordinated networks of bots, fake accounts, influencers, and increasingly artificial intelligence can distribute misleading narratives to millions of users within hours. Young people have become one of the Kremlin's primary targets - not because they are politically naive, but because they are the first generation whose understanding of world events is largely shaped by algorithm-driven platforms.

Why Young People?

Generation Z is often described as digitally native. However, being digitally skilled does not necessarily mean being resilient to disinformation. While young people are proficient in navigating digital platforms, research consistently demonstrates that media literacy and digital literacy are different competencies. The ability to create content or use social media does not automatically translate into the ability to evaluate sources, verify facts, or identify manipulation. Another reason lies in how younger audiences consume information. Unlike previous generations, they rarely seek political news directly. Instead, news appears between entertainment videos, lifestyle content, advertisements, and memes. Political information is therefore consumed without the contextual cues traditionally provided by professional journalism. This matters because adolescence and early adulthood are critical periods for shaping political values, civic engagement, and social identity. Repeated exposure to manipulative narratives during this period can gradually normalize distorted perceptions of international politics and democratic institutions. From Russia's perspective, influencing today's young users means influencing tomorrow's voters, policymakers, journalists, and opinion leaders.

The New Information Environment

Social media has transformed from a space for communication and entertainment into one of the primary sources of news, particularly for younger audiences. According to the European Commission's Youth Survey, young Europeans now rely more on social media than television for news (42% vs 39%), fundamentally changing how political information is discovered and consumed. This shift has created new opportunities for foreign information manipulation. Unlike traditional media, social media platforms prioritize engagement rather than accuracy, allowing emotionally charged or misleading content to spread rapidly through recommendation algorithms. Research by Science Feedback suggests that TikTok - one of the fastest-growing news sources among young people - contains a particularly high prevalence of misinformation, illustrating how platform design can amplify false or manipulative narratives. The scale of this challenge is reflected in recent European research. Nearly three-quarters of young people report encountering disinformation online, while the European External Action Service (EEAS) identifies Russia as the primary source of foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) targeting European societies. As social media increasingly shapes public opinion, understanding how these platforms facilitate influence operations has become an essential part of strengthening democratic resilience.

Psychology of disinformation and Russian tactics

Foreign actors, such as Russia, use social media to influence society.  “The illusory truth effect” caused by repetitive disinformation makes users believe untruthful information. It means that fakes, shared by a network of bots, remain in users’ minds because they are constantly encountered. It happens even if a user knows that it is not true. That’s why one of the features of Russian propaganda is massiveness. Such messages can also strengthen the posts of state-affiliated actors (such as state media) or influencers.

Though analytical skills may prevent a user from falling into disinformation, it does not work with sharing. It happens due to emotional arousal and affiliation with some group. Posts with disinformation or propaganda gain more reactions because they use negative emotions (the most popular are fear and anger). Such posts are more likely to be shared than posts with neutral headlines and tone. Sharing news, even untruthful, is used to maintain contact with groups he/she affiliates with.

It is easy to push propaganda on social media due to the algorithms. A spike in reactions due to emotional impact and bot usage leads to more frequent recommendations of such materials. Even when a user watches a disinformative video until the end to debunk it, social media starts to put it into the feed more often. 

Usually, posts with Russian narratives concentrate on the dehumanization of “unfriendly countries” and a partial or distorted presentation of information. Usage of emotions helps to attract the user’s attention instantly. We should not forget about involving AI, which has had significant development in recent years. Deepfakes, AI-generated pictures and videos can fulfill Russia’s goals with less money than before. 

It is less probable that a fact-check of such information can be fulfilled by youth. Interaction with the news is rather unintentional on social media due to a weaker interest in the news. They do not search for this information, but emotions and repetitiveness can make them remember it.

What Russia wants to achieve

Informational warfare is embedded in the military doctrine of Russia, which means it is considered part of a war, including hybrid ones. Waging disinformation and propaganda is a part of achieving Russia’s foreign policy goals. First of all, it is the legalization of a brutal war in Ukraine through fakes about the Ukrainian armed forces and the country’s establishment. It is worth mentioning that the discreditation of political elites in other European countries is also common (especially before elections). Russia aims to persuade the audience that it achieves successes on the battlefield, trying to weaken the EU's firm stance against such politics.

Russia is willing to continue both active and hybrid war, and the infospace is no exception. We can see a tendency to increase such spending: according to the Ukrainian MP Yevgeniia Kravchuk, Russian expenditure for spreading disinformation has increased by 50% compared to the previous year; according to the FIMI reports, the number of fakes has also increased.

Beyond Ukraine, the Kremlin seeks to weaken European unity by portraying the EU as a party to the war and framing support for Ukraine as economically unsustainable. Narratives about migration, inflation, refugees, sanctions, and "war fatigue" are used to deepen existing social divisions and reduce public support for continued assistance to Ukraine.

Fakes about the EU may cause disappointment and a search for rapid or unrealistic decisions. To fulfill such tasks, disinformation amplifies Eurosceptic, populist, and far-right parties (as a common rule). It partly explains the “Alternative for Germany” success at the 2025 general elections. EUvsDISINFO research says that politicians of the party often spread disinformation and that some of them were paid for it. Messages about election fraud were often connected to AfD as the main victim. Postdam Institute research shows that many first-time young voters were influenced in their decision by the party’s TikTok. 

The Kremlin will not relinquish its efforts to build a coalition of countries that is favourable to Russia in the following years. Playing with sensitive topics will foment fear and misunderstanding, which may influence the election results in France, Bulgaria, Greece, and Italy (which will be held in the next two years). Looking at the success of right-wing populist parties, we can say it has become a trend among the youth. The testimony to it is the increasing number of young voters of such parties. Such actions try to weaken countries’ unity domestically, making deterrence against Russia less solid. 

Russia's Digital Toolkit

Russia's influence operations have evolved considerably over the past decade. Rather than relying exclusively on state-controlled media such as RT or Sputnik, contemporary campaigns employ a diverse ecosystem of digital tools. Automated bot networks artificially inflate engagement, creating the illusion of widespread public support. Fake personas and coordinated influencer accounts spread narratives in ways that appear authentic rather than state-directed. Telegram channels serve as rapid distribution hubs for conspiracy theories and manipulated content, while TikTok's recommendation algorithm enables emotionally charged videos to reach millions of viewers within hours. Artificial intelligence has further transformed this landscape. Deepfake videos, AI-generated images, cloned news websites, and synthetic audio significantly reduce the cost of producing convincing disinformation. One of the earliest examples occurred in 2022, when a fabricated video depicting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy calling on Ukrainian troops to surrender circulated online. Although quickly debunked, the incident demonstrated how rapidly AI-generated content could be weaponized. Large-scale campaigns have become increasingly sophisticated. Operations such as Doppelgänger, uncovered by European investigators, created fake replicas of legitimate Western media websites to spread pro-Kremlin narratives and undermine public trust in democratic institutions. The objective is not necessarily to persuade audiences that Russia is right. More often, it is to generate confusion, increase uncertainty, and convince users that objective truth no longer exists.

Conclusion

Ukraine has remained the main victim of Russian disinformation since 2014. Its experience is unique because it shows how informational warfare can be strengthened during conflicts.  Russia´s tactic has moved from narratives to action: social media has become a platform for recruiting young people to damage the infrastructure and hinder the military’s activity. Such actions can be broadened to other countries, such as Poland or the Baltic countries. 

Taking into account that the number of provocations and hybrid threats from Russia has increased, Russia will continue to use fear- and anger-mongering narratives as the new election cycle approaches. Young people stand at the centre of this contest. As the first generation to receive most of its information through algorithm-driven platforms, they face unprecedented exposure to foreign information manipulation.