Every year on May 9, familiar picture appears on European cities' streets: columns of people with soldier portraits, orange-black ribbons and red flags. Organizers call this memory commemoration. However, this is not always so. What Europe observes every Victory Day is visible edge of huge state-funded influence infrastructure Moscow built for decades and sharply expanded after February 2022 full-scale Ukraine invasion.
russian diaspora abroad numbers are estimated 10 to 25 million people. For Kremlin, this population is not community but resource to be exploited. After 2014, and especially after 2022, russian special services and foreign policy structures systemically transform diaspora networks into active hybrid warfare element. Goals are clearly defined: lobby against sanctions, create appearance of grassroots moscow aggression support, collect intelligence data and discredit Ukraine support.
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This system architecture is not improvised. It consists of formally cultural or humanitarian organization network practically subordinated to russian state institutions and diplomatic missions.
Rossotrudnichestvo coordinates activity through russian Houses network in dozens of cities. russkiy Mir Foundation finances educational initiatives simultaneously promoting political narratives. Pravfond supports NGOs and media across Europe, presenting russian-language content restrictions as discrimination. Compatriot coordination councils unite local diaspora organizations into single political voice — which invariably reproduces russian Foreign Ministry messages.
russian special services and diaspora structures prepare mass events in many European capitals: rallies, motorcades, historical reenactments, flower laying. Formal organizers are local pro-russian movements and diaspora structures — specifically Nezakladnam CR movement in Prague, russian Houses in Sofia, Warsaw and Bucharest. Behind cultural facade, operational design is transparent.
These events are used to spread anti-sanctions and Ukraine military aid messages, calls for peace at any cost, accusations of West inflaming war and demonstrative placement of russian and Soviet symbols in public space. Formally Victory Day transformed into platform for disinformation and political pressure coordinated through russian embassies and state-affiliated institutions.
Immortal Regiment marches — once genuine grassroots initiative commemorating family members who fought in World War II — long ago captured by state. Scenarios, speakers and symbols now centrally coordinated.
Stalin portraits appear alongside Soviet flags. We can repeat slogans sound on Europe's streets — direct military conquest reference. This is not memory. This is new war rehearsal.
Tolerance toward russian diaspora events without proper control effectively means providing public space for campaign legitimizing ongoing war on European soil. Events Europe will see May 8 and 9 are not merely memorial marches. They are platforms for diaspora influence networks and potentially for operational activity by structures connected with russian intelligence.
Europeans should understand such actions organized in their countries are not coincidentally accompanied by anti-sanctions and anti-Ukraine military aid messages, peace at any cost calls, West accusations of inflaming war — they are hybrid aggression tool russia uses to destroy European societies.
Countries where russian latent structures may operate in response must pay more attention to such organization funding transparency, apply foreign influence control mechanisms, clearly separate cultural initiatives from politically organized events and support independent russian civic initiatives as important Kremlin propaganda counterbalance.
Effective in this case can be restricting military and totalitarian symbol use (St. George ribbons, Z, Soviet symbols) as well as banning public calls justifying russian aggressive war.
Cooperation between states, specifically within European and Euro-Atlantic structures, must necessarily include sharing assessments regarding specific organization activities to ensure coordinated and effective response to European societies' security challenges.
No less effective tool can be coordination with Ukrainian and allied diasporas to organize alternative actions to counter russian narrative monopoly. As life shows, only together can one overcome terrible Europe threat that russian federation actions currently pose.
To another victory frenzy act which russian propaganda once again plays these days, reliable barrier must necessarily be opposed and European societies not allowed to be divided — especially in Ukraine support question in confronting aggressor. Must unite so European "Never again" slogan defeats russia's one "we can repeat", so aggressor is punished and Peace returns to Europe again.
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