The geopolitical landscape of 2024 and 2025 was shaped by intersecting political, security, and economic transformations that intensified global competition and fragmented the international order. This “geopolitical multiverse” elevated the strategic importance of information as a tool for influence, particularly in vulnerable regions like the Western Balkans. The region currently operates under a dynamic of “controlled instability,” where external powers exploit local vulnerabilities to shape political behavior and public sentiment. A reduction in active United States engagement has created a perceived “vacuum of influence,” allowing actors such as Russia and China to project power through economic leverage and sophisticated information operations. These global shifts have directly contributed to a volatile environment where disinformation is not merely a by-product of tension but a deliberate component of foreign policy strategies aimed at undermining democratic processes. Foreign influence promoting geopolitical goals, however, is becoming secondary to domestic actors and dynamics, increasingly amplifying domestically driven information threats.
Information threats in the Western Balkans are driven by a sophisticated system of recurring narratives designed to delegitimize democratic institutions and destabilize the region. The dominant disinformation themes in 2024 consistently portrayed the West as hostile and destabilizing, blaming Western actors for conflicts like the war in Ukraine and accusing them of interfering in regional politics. Conversely, the East, specifically Russia and the Orthodox Christian world, was presented as a morally and politically superior alternative.
These geopolitical narratives were accompanied by anti-EU messaging that depicted the European Union as dishonest and unwilling to integrate the region, while simultaneously framing local domestic institutions as weak or controlled by foreign powers. Cultural and identity-based narratives also played a critical role, framing Western values, particularly regarding gender equality, as existential threats to traditional social norms.
While these narratives share a common strategic aim, they are tailored to exploit specific national vulnerabilities across the region. In Serbia, the state itself has been identified as the primary architect of information manipulation, saturating the media landscape with content that frames civil protests as foreign-sponsored attempts to overthrow the government. This centralized control contrasts with the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where disinformation is deeply intertwined with secessionist Western Balkan societies to financial pressures, reduced growth opportunities and declining public trust in institutions. All these conditions heighten the resonance of disinformation. Third, the rapid evolution of technology-driven risks, as identified by the EU, expanded the capabilities available to actors seeking to influence public opinion through digital platforms, artificial intelligence and cyber-enabled channels. These trends intensified during 2025, driven by tectonic shifts in the global geopolitical landscape, in particular changing foreign policies of the new U.S. administration, affecting the relations with the EU and NATO, and attitudes towards the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Taken together, these dynamics suggest that information threats in the Western Balkans cannot be understood in isolation from the global events that shaped the period. The intersection of geopolitical rivalry, economic strain and hybrid tools created an environment in which external actors could more effectively project influence and manipulate narratives across the region. Disinformation emerged not merely as a by-product of broader tensions but as a deliberate and integrated component of foreign policy strategies aimed at shaping political outcomes.
This analysis therefore begins by tracing the defining events of 2024 and 2025, assessing how their consequences reached the Western Balkans, and examining how information manipulation became interwoven with these developments, ultimately shaping the region’s strategic vulnerability in the contemporary information domain.
In order to identify geopolitical trends in the Western Balkan region related to foreign malign influences, quantitative analysis of key disinformation trends was conducted, together with analysis of the data created within the project Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub: Exposing Malign Influences through Watchdog Journalism. The project generated a Knowledge Hub database, containing data on more than 2,000 disinformation articles, in-depth stories, and analysis, including data on relationships between authors, media outlets, and disinformation themes and narratives.
In order to reveal specific geopolitical trends for each country, individual in-depth interviews were conducted with representatives from partner organizations in the region, as well as individual interviews with experts on geopolitics, demonetization of disinformation, regulation of digital platforms, and election integrity, coming from academia, institutions, and CSOs from all six Western Balkan countries. Results of the closed consultation session on the Euro-Atlantic path of the Western Balkans and the role of information threats in this process, conducted during the International Conference e-Society.mk 2025 with experts from the region under Chatham House rules, also informed the research. Furthermore, desk research was conducted in relation to the topics covered. Key referenced publications are noted in the Bibliography section of this analytical report.
