Flash Report The story behind On February 15, 2015, three Russian nationals arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria and booked stays at two local hotels, albeit with an unusual request; the men wanted rooms with a view, but not of the…
The conference will take place as a hybrid event with main venue in Sofia, Bulgaria and via Zoom. Check the conference agenda for more information Join us next week to discuss how we can overcome vulnerabilities in Southeast Europe related…
Flash Report Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has once again highlighted the risks associated with the EU’s considerable dependence on conventional energy supplies from Russia. Although the current energy crisis began before the war, it was exacerbated by Russia…
Flash Report Author: Gloria Trifonova, Svetoslav Malinov, Todor Galev, CSD The Kremlin’s extensive and methodical disinformation campaign against Ukraine began long before its invasion on February 24, 2022. And it has only grown in complexity and scale since. Bulgaria is…
CSD, together with several other organizations, including the AEJ, organized a press conference to talk about the Kremlin’s pro-Russian disinformation and anti-democratic messages in Bulgaria in the context of the information war. According to T. Galev from CSD, when disinformation…
Although Russia’s economic presence in Europe has been declining in last two years, Bulgaria alongside with Serbia are the countries most inclined to safeguard and showcase pro-Russian disinformation and propaganda narratives and sentiments in Southeastern Europe. They serve as key…
The FENCE initiative, supported by the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO), offers small-scale grants to boost fact-checking and debunking activities in Southeast Europe, with a special focus on Bulgaria, Greece, and Romania. The initiative’s aim is to reveal the Kremlin’s disinformation and propaganda narratives being…
Factcheck.bg is the first fact-checking platform in Bulgaria, endorsed by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in the USA. Factcheck.bg was launched in June 2021 as an initiative of the Association of European Journalists…
Countering Russian disinformation and propaganda requires not only deterrence, but also a long-term strategy of media literacy training and awareness campaigns for the general public. In the short term, the creation of a state body to monitor the media environment…
As part of its ongoing research on disinformation and foreign influence, CSD is monitoring the disinformation narratives related to the situation in Kazakhstan that appeared in Bulgarian News Front’s content during the first half of January 2022. The outlet published…
The narrative about the Ukrainian “nuclear bomb” may not be among the most popular stories in our country related to the war in Ukraine. But the way in which it is constructed illustrates how Kremlin propaganda works: loud claims, unsupported…
The AEJ today calls for an EU-wide ban on RT, which has played a key part in spreading lies and endorsing “false flag” that ensured confusion over Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, and in general seeking to weaken Western democracies…
The deal with the US for eight F-16 fighter jets is the most significant and expensive step in the modernisation of the Bulgarian army in at least 20 years, but now it is in danger of becoming a hybrid tool…
Bulgaria has once again proven to be one of the most insecure NATO member states – with a divided society, a “captured” political class, corruption and lack of leadership, and the cost of this behaviour in the deepening crisis over…
“There is no Russian aggression against Ukraine”; “Ukraine has joined the Russian Federation”; “Happy freedom, Russian brothers and sisters”. Such and other similar misinformation posts and statuses are being spread in hundreds of Bulgarian Facebook groups and dozens of websites,…
On 12 November 2021, the Center of the Study of Democracy held a press conference Disinformation Narratives in the November 2021 Bulgarian Elections Campaign: Key Actors and Amplifiers. On the event was presented recent analysis assessing the main propaganda and disinformation…
In its Policy Brief Disinformation Narratives in the November 2021 Bulgarian Elections Campaign: Key Actors and Amplifiers Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) is exploring Bulgaria’s growing vulnerability to propaganda and disinformation in the context of November 2021 parliamentary…
