During the period from October to December 2025, the disinformation environment in the Western Balkans was marked by a consolidation of anti-Western and grievance-based narratives undermining the region’s accession to the European Union (EU), cutting across migration, elections, and geopolitics. Monitoring conducted by the Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub shows that these narratives did not operate in isolation. Rather, they increasingly overlapped and reinforced one another, contributing to heightened polarization, weakening trust in democratic institutions, and undermining support for the Euro-Atlantic path of the region.
Compared with earlier quarters of 2025, the final quarter showed a clearer shift from protest-driven and event-specific manipulation toward a broader strategic framing of the EU, NATO and other Western institutions as sources of instability, coercion, and decline. While disinformation related to Russia’s war against Ukraine remained present, it was increasingly embedded within wider anti-EU and anti-NATO narratives. These narratives portrayed the EU as an unfavorable strategic choice in a shifting global order, while framing NATO as a driver of conflict—particularly in the context of debates around United States support to Ukraine and messaging aligned with pro-Russian actors.
At the same time, migration emerged as one of the most actively exploited topics across the region, mirroring broader European trends while being adapted to local political and identity-based tensions. Migration-related disinformation gained particular prominence in North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Isolated incidents, unverified claims, and politically charged reporting were used to portray migrants as a threat to public safety, women, religion, traditions, and national identity. Unverified or misleading claims that the United Kingdom would relocate failed asylum seekers to Western Balkan countries further intensified these narratives. While adapted to local sensibilities, anti-migrant messaging was linked to broader conspiratorial claims about demographic engineering and cultural replacement. Pro-Russian messaging further reinforced these claims by framing migration as threat to Orthodox Christian societies.
Elections remained a central target for disinformation, with narratives aimed at delegitimizing electoral processes, deepening polarization, and diverting attention from substantive issues. Common patterns included allegations of interference by the EU and NATO, the use of nationalism to mobilize voters along ethnic lines, and claims that the United States selectively legitimizes preferred political actors. These dynamics were particularly visible in Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Kosovo, where disinformation sought to undermine trust in democratic institutions.
Serbian influence remained a cross-cutting factor shaping both political developments and disinformation narratives. In Kosovo, Belgrade’s ties with actors from Serb-majority areas in the north contributed to tensions and institutional fragmentation. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, close relations with Milorad Dodik and Republika Srpska entity leadership continued to challenge state cohesion and EU progress. In Montenegro, influence was also exercised through the Serbian Orthodox Church, alongside disinformation narratives suggesting a joint EU accession path with Serbia—misleading claims that blur the individual, merit-based nature of EU enlargement.
Overall, disinformation actors leveraged migration, elections, and geopolitical developments to amplify grievance-based narratives, deepen polarization, and erode trust in democratic institutions, contributing to declining resilience and increased skepticism toward the European Union, NATO, and the broader Euro-Atlantic integration process. These convergences demonstrate how external geopolitical narratives and domestic political opportunism feed off each other in the region’s information space.
