Russia Doubles Down on Hybrid Threats, Disconnective Propaganda and Influence-to-Recruitment Networks

Recently, a few analyses relating to CRC’s work on hostile influence and societal resilience were published. This blog provides a short review of these publications and how they support CRC finding about the ongoing convergence of key cyber-cognitive threat vectors, such as disconnective propaganda, digital recruitment, and hybrid threats.

Russian Synthetic Disconnective Propaganda Targeting Ukraine

A recent EDMO Weekly Pulse examined Russian disinformation targeting Ukraine’s government and military mobilization. The provided examples included AI-generated videos depicting Ukrainian soldiers being forcibly taken to the front, as well as authentic footage recaptioned to falsely suggest that civilians were being detained during recruitment operations.

The proliferated malign narratives were aimed at cultivating distrust, weakening public morale and undermining capacity for collective action. In The Rise of Disconnective Propaganda: Protecting Social Resilience as a Pillar of European Security, Dr. Gregory Asmolov discusses how similar hostile influence efforts target the horizontal ties and social infrastructure that support collective action and resilience.

Figure 1 – An analysis of disinformation activity targeting the Ukrainian government and military mobilization. (Courtesy of EDMO).

The findings highlighted in EDMO’s report show how adversarial narratives target public sentiment regarding mobilization in order to demoralize Ukrainian society and weaken its mobilization capacity.

In a more recent essay, The Rise of Disconnective Power: How Digitalisation Supports Global Fragmentation, Asmolov introduces the wider concept of “disconnective power” through which he examines how authoritarian states leverage digital tools to weaken horizontal connections both within and beyond their borders. His applied framework explores how connectivity can be turned into “a resource for fragmentation.”

Russian-Linked Influence-Recruitment Efforts

While some malign narratives circulated online seek to undermine Ukrainian (and European) military mobilization, Russian recruitment campaigns use digital channels to attract foreign nationals to Russia’s war effort.

A detailed investigation report by Code for Africa’s iLAB covers a prominent example, involving deceptive social media advertisements targeting men in African countries. The ads promise civilian work and attractive salaries, sometimes posing as film casting calls. The investigation identified dozens of recruitment groups operating hundreds of websites and social media accounts.

Figure 2 – Facebook ads featuring an overt Russian recruitment offer and a deceptive movie casting call, targeting African men. (Courtesy of Code for Africa and UNITED24 Media)

A recent CRC Spotlight documents a different, albeit similar, form of activity by a Russian-linked cross-platform network, tracked by CRC as UNK_SmoothOperator. Alongside typical Russian state propaganda, the network disseminated recruitment offers on behalf of Russian officials and the Russian Armed Forces, as well as explicit calls to sabotage targets within Europe.

Unlike the recruitment ads targeting African audiences, UNK_SmoothOperator’s observed messaging has focused on European audiences, including appeals framed around Irish patriotism.

Figure 3 – Russian recruitment offers in English, French, and Spanish disseminated on X by an account associated with UNK_SmoothOperator. (Source: CRC )

CRC has classified UNK_SmoothOperator as a hybrid threat cluster. Monitoring and information-sharing with relevant partners are ongoing. Additional findings from our investigation will be published soon.

The Russian Hybrid Threats Strategy

Although repurposing digital influence networks allows Russian-linked actors to make effective use of existing infrastructure, incorporating motivated or manipulated foreign nationals into Russia’s military apparatus offers additional advantages. The most apparent value is the partial mitigation of Russia’s worsening manpower shortage, exacerbated by heavy frontline losses in Ukraine. More interestingly, an influx of foreign volunteers may also support Russia’s strategic reliance on covert operations and hybrid threats in response to Europe’s and NATO’s extensive support for Ukraine.

In this context, recruiting pro-Russian European volunteers can serve multiple purposes. First, they can act as high-value propaganda assets, adapting pro-Russian messaging and communicating it directly to vulnerable audiences in Western countries, potentially bypassing censorship and other restrictions. Second, they may receive tactical training before being deployed “behind enemy lines” as inactive “disposable assets.” If activated, they could support a range of hybrid activities, including sabotage, drone attacks, reconnaissance, and destabilization.

Conclusion

Recent reporting and research point to two related trends in the cyber-cognitive threat landscape:

1. Authoritarian actors use disconnective propaganda to weaken social ties and collective resilience.
   

2. Hostile influence networks can combine propaganda with recruitment offers and incitement, expanding the potential consequences of their activity.
   

For global security stakeholders, this calls for improved capabilities that enable timely detection and assessment encompassing the full range of activity conducted through coordinated influence networks. Practitioners should examine not only which narratives circulate, but also whether the same operational infrastructure is used to recruit, mobilize, or incite audiences.

Protecting societal resilience means safeguarding the digital spaces through which people communicate, organize, and act. A rapid response to threats against European security interests requires closer coordination among threat researchers, media, government stakeholders, counterintelligence, and law enforcement. CRC continues to advocate for more robust and agile interfaces to facilitate that cooperation.

[References:]

1. African Digital Democracy Observatory. (2026). Death Benefits: Russia’s War Recruiters Have Gone into Business. 23 September 2026. https://disinfo.africa/death-benefits-russias-war-recruiters-have-gone-into-business-248d5fa036e8 klyszcz.substack.com
   

2. Asmolov, G. (2026). The Rise of Disconnective Propaganda: Protecting Social Resilience as a Pillar of European Security. Cyfluence Research Center. https://www.cyfluence-research.org/post/the-rise-of-disconnective-propaganda
   

3. Asmolov, G. (2026). The Rise of Disconnective Power: How Digitalisation Supports Global Fragmentation. Europe-Asia Studies, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2026.2729202 
   

4. Cyfluence Research Center (CRC). (2026). CRC Spotlight: Propaganda, Recruitment and Sabotage: Influence Networks as Emerging Hybrid Threats. https://www.cyfluence-research.org/post/crc-spotlight-propaganda-recruitment-and-sabotage-influence-networks-as-emerging-hybrid-threats
   

5. EDMO. (2026). War in Ukraine: AI-powered disinformation targets mobilization. Weekly Pulse, 1 October 2026. https://edmo.eu/publications/war-in-ukraine-ai-powered-disinformation-targets-mobilization/
   

6. European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). (2026). The Ceuta Crisis Fuels a Peak in Migration Disinformation: Monthly Report No. 3 - EDMO Fact-Checking Network. 18 September 2026. https://edmo.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/EDMO-Monthly-Report-no.-3-Horizontal.pdf
   

7. European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO). (2026). The Ceuta Crisis Fuels a Peak in Migration Disinformation: Monthly Report No. 3—EDMO Fact-Checking Network. https://edmo.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/EDMO-Monthly-Report-no.-3-Horizontal.pdf
   

8. Institute for Security Studies (ISS). (2026). Russia’s Military Recruitment Networks Exploit Western Tech Platforms. 6 October 2026. https://issafrica.org/iss-today/russia-s-military-recruitment-networks-exploit-western-tech-platforms 
   

9. UNITED24 Media. (2026). Russia’s War Recruitment Network in Africa Is Growing Fast. 6 May 2026. https://united24media.com/world/russias-war-recruitment-network-in-africa-is-growing-fast-18513
   

10. UNITED24 Media. (2026). How Fake Movie Casting Calls Became Part of Russia’s Foreign Recruitment Network. 22 September 2026. https://united24media.com/world/how-fake-movie-casting-calls-became-part-of-russias-foreign-recruitment-network-22767