Photo: Aerial view of an LNG terminal with storage tanks and a docked LNG carrier/ Open Source

Europe did not only replaced Russian gas oil with LNG but it actually rewired its whole energy security architecture. Thus, what has emerged since 2022 is not just autonomy but rather a new system of managed interdependence shaped by long term infrastructure commitments, maritime chokepoints and the global markets. LNG has stabilized Europe in crisis but it has introduced new strategic exposures like the dependence on sea routes, Washington’s export capacity and the regulatory execution speed within Europe.

The real question regarding European security is no longer supply sufficiency but whether this LNG based system strengthens resilience or forces Europe into a new set of geopolitical constraints.

Energy security is not only about supply volumes, but about power, structure and control. The abrupt reduction of Russian flows exposed the extent to which European energy security relied on single-direction pipeline systems and demonstrated how infrastructure can function as a geopolitical instrument. Europe’s response was immediate: diversification of suppliers, rapid LNG deployment, new terminals, new transmission routes. Systemic disruption was avoided. However, replacing pipeline gas with LNG does not automatically produce autonomy. What has emerged is a new energy geometry shaped by global markets, maritime corridors, multiple exporting states and reconfigured internal transmission systems. The central question is not whether LNG replaced Russian gas but the strategic system Europe has constructed in its place.

Managed interdependence

European energy security underwent a structural shock during 2022–2023. Until then, Russian pipeline gas had accounted for roughly 40% of EU imports. Supply reductions exposed the vulnerability of natural gas pipelines as a single-direction system. LNG operates under a different structural logic.

Pipeline networks are geographically fixed and dependent on bilateral routes. LNG is mobile while its pricing is linked to future markets, between domestic gas costs and international availability and broader supply and demand.

In structural terms, LNG transforms gas from a route-bound commodity into a globally traded energy system. However, LNG flexibility does not eliminate exposure. Key maritime ports such as Suez and Bab el-Mandeb become critical since LNG requires operationally uninterrupted sea transport, or deliveries to Europe can be delayed within days.

Europe moved from reliance on a single dominant supplier to managed interdependence across multiple exporters, including the United States, Qatar, Algeria and intermittently Nigeria. A significant portion of European gas consumption now depends on US liquefaction capacity.

Although exports operate within market logic, they remain embedded in domestic regulatory and political frameworks. Upstream production decisions and export policies therefore influence European supply balance. Energy security is defined by system architecture and exposure management.

LNG: stabilizer or transitional layer

The European Commission’s REPowerEU initiative accelerated LNG infrastructure expansion, including Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs), to increase import capacity. Storage policy shifted from commercial optimization to strategic buffering.

In the short term, LNG strengthened energy systems security by offering high storage levels, additional import capacity, and diversified supply contracts which boost operational flexibility.

LNG infrastructure requires large-scale capital expenditure and operates over several decades not only in terms of payoff but also of contracts that further influence the long-term role of gas under transition policy regulations. A broader mix of contracts reduces the risk that a disruption from one supplier would trigger immediate shortages. Investment decisions under crisis can determine long-term system configuration, creating inconsistencies between supply security and energy security, the latter of which passes through sustainability in the case of the EU.

LNG acts as a bridge fuel with geopolitical significance and system-level implications for infrastructure alignment, sustainability targets that refer not only to climate but also to resilience, and long-term energy system design. The duration of LNG’s role depends on structural substitution pathways.

European policy implications

Diversification must be embedded in system design. Procurement should avoid overconcentration on any single exporter, because resilience depends on distributed supply rather than substituting one dependency with another.

Infrastructure resilience is equally strategic. LNG terminals, pipelines, and control systems require physical and cyber protection within EU security planning. System reliability depends not only on volumes, but on continuous operability. Maritime access remains a technical prerequisite for LNG supply stability. Secure sea lanes therefore link energy security directly to naval presence and diplomatic capacity.

Contract arrangements must support decarbonization pathways. Since LNG infrastructure operates over decades, flexibility is necessary to avoid locking the system into volumes that may exceed future demand.

Regional hubs can strengthen redistribution capacity beyond LNG. Greece, positioned between LNG and future energy entry points and Southeast European transmission networks, facilitates northbound reallocation during supply stress and enhances cross-border stability.

Even if LNG demand declines over time, the need for flexible cross-border flow remains. Integrating energy hubs into a coordinated EU structure strengthens internal system balance and joint negotiating capacity, ensuring that LNG, while transitional, is used efficiently and consistently across the Union.

EU innovation and structural exit

While LNG remains essential for European security of supply, the EU has developed a policy architecture that aims to fundamentally reduce gas dependence through demand reduction, diversification, and accelerated deployment of low-carbon energy systems. REPowerEU placed storage as a strategic buffer rather than an optimisation tool. Currently, innovation is treated not only as technological breakthroughs but also as implementation at scale: ensuring demand flexibility, electrifying technically viable sectors, expanding renewable power generation, utilising advanced biofuels, and developing hydrogen production and transport infrastructure to substitute natural gas in industry and heavy transport.

The key constraint in the adoption of new energy technologies is implementation that can accelerate uptake. Permitting procedures, grid expansion, hydrogen backbone development, and industrial transformation timelines remain underlying bottlenecks. In several member states, renewable and grid approvals still require years. Hydrogen projects face infrastructure gaps, fragmented frameworks, and delayed decisions, as in the implementation of REDIII (Renewable Energy Directive III). Biofuel scale-up depends on feedstock consistency and enhanced conversion technologies. Without regulatory speed in authorising innovative technologies for market reach, well-planned and coordinated infrastructure, especially across borders, and matched industrial acceptance, natural gas and consequently LNG substitution cannot scale at the necessary pace. Otherwise, LNG remains systemically relevant regardless of strategic objectives.

The EU possesses substantial instruments, including Horizon Europe and industrial frameworks supporting net-zero manufacturing. Still, a translation gap persists between research participation and deployment at industrial scale, not due to patent filing or research output, but due to the shift from intellectual property to physical implementation. Moving from IP to permitting, financing, integration, and industrial deployment involves time lags, bureaucracy, and regulatory requirements. Administrative complexity, fragmented markets, infrastructure constraints, and slow financing approvals delay implementation and slow system transformation.

Bureaucracy thus becomes a geopolitical variable. Slow delivery prolongs reliance on gas and LNG. The constraint to the EU’s energy security is not technological capability, but execution speed, infrastructure alignment, and institutional coordination and effectiveness.

Author Bio

*Dr. Panagiota Pimenidou is a Chemical Engineer with a PhD in hydrogen production from the University of Leeds and extensive academic experience in the UK and Greece. She has held academic posts at Ulster University and the University of Bradford and currently contributes to EU-funded research projects on sustainable fuels and advanced materials. Her research focuses on low-carbon fuels, hydrogen technologies, catalyst development and emissions reductions, with particular emphasis on process evaluation and validation, fuel performance, and the technical challenges associated with transitioning energy systems toward lower-carbon pathways.

Bibliography (indicative)

Bruegel. (2022). A grand bargain to steer through the European Union’s energy crisis (Policy Contribution). Bruegel. https://www.bruegel.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/PC%2014%202022_0.pdf

European Commission. (2022). REPowerEU plan (COM(2022) 230 final). European Commission. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52022DC0230

European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG). (2023). Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP). ENTSOG. https://www.entsog.eu/tyndp

International Energy Agency. (2025). Gas market lessons from the 2022–2023 energy crisis. IEA. https://www.iea.org/reports/gas-market-lessons-from-the-2022-2023-energy-crisis

Yafimava, K., Ason, A., & Fulwood, M. (2025). The EU proposal to ban Russian gas imports: Roadblock more than roadmap (NG 199). Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/The-EU-Proposal-To-Ban-Russian-Gas-Imports-roadblock-more-than-roadmap-NG-199.pdf

European Parliament & Council of the European Union. (2023). Renewable Energy Directive (EU) 2023/2413 (RED III). Official Journal of the European Union. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32023L2413

Photo by Andreas Gucklhorn

Our modern industrialized world has thrived in the last 100 years on a simple assumption: energy would be endless, cheap and secure. Obviously, this is not the case anymore. The concept of climate change, economic, political and social instability, wars and decarbonization efforts have been forcing nations into a complex transition. What comes next is not merely a technological shift, but a geopolitical transformation with consequences that will reverberate from the Persian Gulf to the Arctic Circle.

Modern society has staked its future on energy. For decades, the prosperity of the industrialized world was secured by the steady availability of fossil fuels, and we behaved as if these resources were inexhaustible. The abundance and characteristics made them easy to store and capable of delivering large amounts of energy efficiently and consistently. However, the urgent need to reduce emissions and environmental impact, together with various geopolitical factors, has led in recent years to restrictions on their availability and use.

Armed conflicts and political crises have repeatedly exposed the vulnerability of global fuel supplies. At the same time, societies have become aware of the environmental consequences of our dependence on fossil fuels. The era of fossil fuels as an energy source is coming to an end. As states are struggling to achieve the long-term objective of net-zero carbon emissions, renewable energy sources are poised to reshape the geopolitical landscape. Unlike oil and natural gas, electricity is traded regionally. Over the last 15 years, solar and wind power have experienced exponential growth, from being almost nonexistent to contributing 15% of the world’s electricity generation. At the same time, solar panel prices have dropped by as much as 90%.

Nevertheless, during the energy transition period, ensuring supply security, affordability and sustainability are simultaneous objectives. However, during periods of economic downturn, sustainability frequently becomes a secondary priority. A combination of affordability and security, facilitated by energy access, ensures a sufficient supply at reasonable prices.

That said, the transition to another stage of energy will be challenging while we have already been experiencing the effects. The development of an industrial sector that is solely dependent on renewable energy is more costly and technically challenging. For this reason, natural gas is set to remain a pivotal component of the energy landscape, given its status as the fossil fuel with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, provided these emissions are effectively managed.

However, even under the most optimistic circumstances, the rate of decline in the production of the world’s current stock of natural gas wells is faster than the projected decline in demand. Given that oil and gas currently account for 55% of the world’s energy supply and success depends on preserving access to reasonably priced energy both now and during the energy transition, sustained investment is fundamentally necessary.

In the aftermath of the transition phase, hydrogen is expected to be the most promising alternative to traditional fossil fuels, offering a clean and sustainable source of energy. However, one of the major challenges in promoting widespread adoption of hydrogen is its efficient transportation and storage. Fortunately, existing natural gas infrastructure allows for the integration of hydrogen into the existing energy system, leveraging the extensive network of pipelines. While certain modifications and safety measures are necessary, repurposing natural gas infrastructure offers a cost-effective and environmentally friendly approach to hydrogen transport.

Investment and trade in hydrogen will have a significant impact on bilateral relations, leading to the establishment of new interdependency patterns. The production of green hydrogen may have significant geopolitical and economic implications for nations with a surplus of inexpensive renewable energy. In a world of expanding export markets and diversifying economies, hydrogen can present a viable alternative for exporters of fossil fuels.

Another critical aspect of the transition to renewable energy sources is the supply chain, which faces significant challenges particularly regarding rare earth elements and critical minerals that are necessary for batteries and other green technologies.

Resource security and geopolitical dynamics are among the challenges that have been shown to arise, because of these materials’ relative scarcity, geographic concentration of production and processing in a few countries and growing demand. For both producing and consuming countries, the vulnerabilities and uncertainties created by this concentration may affect the adoption, cost, and sustainability of energy transition technologies, while concerns have been expressed about possible manufacturing and supply bottlenecks and interruptions that will lead to serious geopolitical repercussions.

Meanwhile, most of the maritime trade related to energy is expected to involve hydrogen, synthetic fuels, biomass, and renewable energy technologies such as batteries and photovoltaics. This shows that energy dependence can be reduced but not completely eliminated, as it will change form. However, this reform in conjunction with other geopolitical factors and disruptions to international shipping could reshape global maritime networks and alter the landscape of world trade.

Finally, in this context, the energy transformation driven by renewables could lead to partially decentralized energy systems and a dispersion of power, empowering new actors. This shift from global markets to regional networks will occur as countries that currently import oil from the other side of the world will seek to develop renewable sources and connect their networks to those of neighboring markets. Distributed renewable electricity generation can provide a first step on the development ladder and improve the quality of life of the world’s poorest at a reasonable cost, especially if combined with batteries or backup fossil-fuel capacity to manage intermittency. Especially, the countries in the Global South intend to utilize their natural resources to promote economic growth and reduce their reliance on traditional energy imports, thus expanding the renewable energy market in the region. These shifts could transform the global energy landscape and alter the traditional power dynamics that have favored countries which traditionally relied on exporting gas and oil and now are facing significant challenges in the current geopolitical environment.

Author Bio

*Dimitrios-Periklis Giannoulis graduated from the Hellenic Air Force Academy and holds a PhD in Multiphase Flows from the University of Patras. He works as an aircraft maintenance manager. His role involves organizing and supervising the service, repair and periodic maintenance of aircraft and jet engines and developing process improvements for maintenance activities. His research activities include CFD engineering applications, underwater oil and natural gas leaks, alternative aviation and marine fuels.

Bibliography

Pepe, Jacopo Maria, Dalia Ansari, and Robert M. Gehrung. The Geopolitics of Hydrogen Technologies, Actors, and Scenarios until 2040. SWP Research Paper no. 13. Berlin: German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), November 16, 2023.
https://www.swp-berlin.org/publications/products/research_papers/2023RP13_GeopoliticsHydrogen.pdf.

Srinivasan, Sree, Christopher Robinson, Simon Blakey, Claire Mauduit-LeClercq, Julien Bernu, CFA, and Anastasia Pantazopoulou. Hydrogen: New Ambitions and Challenges—Is Low-Carbon Hydrogen Ready for Lift-Off? S&P Global, February 15, 2024.
https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/special-reports/look-forward/hydrogen-new-ambitions-and-challenges.

Finley, Mark, and Samantha Gross. “Navigating Market and Political Uncertainties in the Age of Energy Transition.” Brookings Institution, March 11, 2025.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/navigating-market-and-political-uncertainties-in-the-age-of-energy-transition/.

International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). A New World: The Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation. Abu Dhabi: IRENA, 2019.
https://www.irena.org/-/media/Files/IRENA/Agency/Publication/2019/Jan/Global_commission_geopolitics_new_world_2019.pdf.

United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). Technology Brief: Hydrogen. Geneva: UNECE, August 31, 2022.
https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2022-08/Hydrogen%20brief_EN_final.pdf.

“You wake up to a video of your President declaring martial law. It's spreading like wildfire in the social media, millions of views, panic rising. But there’s just one problem: it’s fake. Welcome to the deepfake era”.

Europe is fragile. Not physically, as many Europeans enjoy living in high standard, advanced and rather safe societies, but informationally. The latter could be characterized as the Achilles Heel of the EU and our competitors and rivals are exploiting this weakness. Revisionist powers, mainly Russia and China, push disinformation, false information to deceive people, as well as narratives to erode trust in our institutions. Propaganda and especially deepfakes amplify the damage, turning information into a weapon and truth into chaos. This has been European reality, not a sci-fi movie, for years now. This real-time mass manipulation is one that we Europeans must defend against.

Who’s Pulling the Strings? Russia, China, and the Battle for Truth

Who has been conducting disinformation campaigns against Europe and why are the key questions. Russia leads the charge. Through the Doppelgänger campaign, Kremlin-linked actors, have produced fake websites pretending to be western media and institutions like the Le Monde, Fox, NATO, pushing anti-EU content aimed at creating unrest to undermine trust in institutions (IISS 2025). Additionally, they have used fake stories to claim Ukrainian refugees are a burden, or that Western sanctions do not work effectively. Additionally, Russia behind curtains financially supports fringe parties across Europe that frequently spread pro-Russian narratives to deepen divisions[1].

But Moscow does more than just spreading disinformation online. The latest report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) shows that Moscow has launched an unconventional war on Europe’s critical infrastructure. More specifically, since 2022, Russia has conducted sabotages against energy grids, railways, undersea cables and even water supplies. The numbers are staggering: the attacks have increased by 250% between 2023-2024 (IISS 2025).

Even though European authorities have uncovered and expelled many Russian spies across numerous EU countries, Russia has changed its approach into a different model of sabotage operations with poorly trained recruits, as ‘disposable agents’ who carry the sabotage operations on behalf of Moscow semi-unofficially (IISS 2025). In Germany, three German-Russian citizens are on trial, accused of spying on behalf of the Kremlin and planning attacks on critical military infrastructure and industry in an attempt to undermine German aid to Ukraine.

China’s playbook is less aggressive but similar, as Beijing has been using state media and Confucious Institutes in Europe to spread narratives. Chinese media outlets also mimicked a lot of Russian propaganda about war on Ukraine to promote pro-Beijing narratives and weaken EU consensus. Oppressive regimes hate democracy, and European open societies are their target (IISS 2025).

China and Russia as authoritarian regimes have a common strategic goal to revoke the Western led world order. In this regard, they focus on exploiting Europe's openness. While Russia has been destabilizing European societies with disinformation campaigns and sabotages, China aims to weaken democratic structures by damaging trust and unity (IISS 2025).

The Achilles’ Heel of Open Societies

Open societies mean open borders, for ideas, information, speech. That makes us plural, diverse, resilient, when the information is real. Open societies and democracies depend on citizens being able to make reasoned choices. When information is accurate and accessible, individuals and institutions can create and judge policies, hold power to account, and live together with a baseline of trust. Nonetheless, open systems are exposed when data and narratives are weaponized. Europe’s centralized media literacy is uneven; many countries lack Finland’s robust curriculum for recognizing. To make matters worse, populations distrust distant bureaucratic Brussels, making them more receptive to emotional, false narratives. Rapid, cheap deepfakes spread before we can debunk them. As Amy Zegart and Michael Morell warn, “Deception has always been part of espionage and warfare, but not with this level of precision, reach, and speed".

Deepfakes: When Lies Look Real

The enemies of open societies have found new information weapons in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deepfakes. A deepfake is hyperreal: AI-generated and manipulated ‑audio, video, or image that puts words in mouths that were never said, or show actions never taken. Deepfakes are a form of synthetic media, audio, images, and/or videos that are either partially or wholly manipulated through artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and used in a maliciously deceptive or misinformative manner. Fake images, videos or news look so real that people cannot tell the actual difference. Here, the problem is not that a deepfake can trick us in a moment but that they can make us start doubting everything we see and read online, which is obviously dangerous. If people cannot easily separate the truth from the fiction, then trust in the whole system of news and information starts to break down.

That is why academics warn deepfakes degrade democratic functions. They hinder citizens from holding leaders accountable, erode mutual empathy, distort deliberative debates, and ultimately corrode legitimacy[2]. They create an environment where you do not know whom, or what, to believe. That’s the liar’s dividend: once disinformation becomes plausible, real events can be dismissed as fake. It's the wet dream of autocratic leaders that want to undermine trust in democracies.

And deepfakes work best when they target receptive subgroups, through microtargeting on social platforms or on closed messaging apps. That accelerates echo chambers: different groups end up believing their own incompatible “facts,” reducing the shared information needed for public deliberation. ‘Alternative facts and information bubbles have already been furthered by social media, algorithms and disinformation. Deepfakes amplifies them like steroids. In the most extreme cases, deepfakes can provide extremists with ideological ammunition, allowing influencers to manufacture “proof” of alleged wrongdoing that justifies extremist view.

From Ballots to Bots: Democracy on the Line

These are not theoretical threats. In Slovakia, two days before the 2023 election, a manipulated audio purportedly captured liberal leader Šimečka admitting election rigging. The damage was done before fact‑checkers even caught on. The Progressive Slovakia party lost[3]. That’s not just a theory but it’s democracy in peril.

In 2024 and the European Parliament elections, the EU’s own values chief warned: AI tools let malicious actors pump out deepfakes and manipulate debate at scale[4]. The bloc has responded with the Digital Services Act (DSA) and its nascent AI Act, setting rules for transparency and labeling of synthetic media.8 The DSA for example requires very large online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to assess and mitigate systemic risks regarding the spread of disinformation. The European Media Freedom Act brings safeguards against state-sponsored disinformation. But these laws and law enforcement agencies are by nature always one step behind fast-evolving technology and malicious actors.

Closing the Gap: Laws, Literacy, and Defense

We can not only blame outsiders. Trust in politics is at all-time low in many countries, disinformation reinforces this, but the low trust was already there, that’s not just because of disinformation and propaganda. Even real content gets rejected as fake, our epistemic foundation erodes.

So, pushbacks must be structural:

• Stronger laws: The AI Act must define deepfake clearly and force labeling of synthetic content used in political contexts. The current definition is too vague[5].

• Better defenses: Platforms must detect, label, down‑rank manipulated media aggressively. The EU’s DSA gives them that power, but they must act fast, consistently[6]. In addition, the European Parliament has called for a new entity to coordinate investigative and strategic response to disinformation, in the form of a ‘knowledge hub'. In her State of the Union Speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to set up a center of expertise and capacity across Member States.

• Media literacy everywhere: Education is the most important antidote, and Finland shows the way in building resilience. All EU nations need curricula that teach citizens how to spot deepfakes and propaganda early[7]. “Pre-bunking” measures have proven effective and may help equip the public with the tools required to dismiss manipulated media once it breaks onto their screens.

• Proactive campaigning: EU’s East StratCom Task Force fights Kremlin disinformation through EUvsDisinfo, but it needs more funding, more reach[8].

When Pixels Threaten Power: A European Security Challenge

Deepfakes represent a real threat to Europe’s security, which extends beyond armies, borders and intelligence; but engulfs the integrity of the information space itself. An EU unable to defend the credibility of its own institutions, leaders, political systems and democratic processes is strategically vulnerable. Its competitors understand the EU’s military strength lies on NATO and thus the U.S. However, the Union’s political cohesion is rooted in trust among citizens, between member states and the transatlantic relationship.

Consequently, deepfakes can hurt trust and undermine the decision-making withing the member-states or the EU itself. Additionally, deepfakes have extremely negative impact on European deterrence, as they open a backdoor to manipulation in moments of crisis like the war in Ukraine. Imagine NATO consultations during an emergency where allies hesitate because a viral fake statement has cast doubt on intentions, or EU responses to a cyberattack delayed because leaders spend hours clarifying whether footage of a declaration of war is real. Disinformation does not need to destroy Europe’s armies to succeed; it only needs to paralyze its politics. That is why defending against deepfakes is not simply about media literacy or content moderation, it is about safeguarding Europe’s strategic autonomy, its unity in the face of external threats, and ultimately its survival as an open, democratic Union.

Trust Is the Battlefield

In conclusion, this is about trust. Once European democracies lose the ability to say that tape is fake, or that article is copied from a Kremlin proxy, once we lose shared truth, that’s when populists win. That's when elections are stolen, not by bullets, but by bots and pixels.

And yes, the threats are big: Russia has already meddled via deepfake-aided discourse; AI makes it cheaper and easier; our systems are porous. But hope remains. The EU has legal tools, DSA, AI Act, strategic communications, and civil society is alarmed. We can act, if we see the threat for what it is.

If Europe wants to remain the open, plural, democratic Union it claims to be, we must close the gap between threat and response. Because if we don’t, we won’t even recognize the death of democracy when we see it, just another fake clip to argue around.

Bibliography

AP News. “AI-Supercharged Disinformation Threatens 2024 EU Elections.” Accessed September 10, 2025. https://apnews.com

Busch, Ella, and Jacob Ware. The Weaponisation of Deepfakes: Digital Deception by the Far-Right. The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, December 2023. https://icct.nl/publication/weaponization-deepfakes-digital-deception-far-right.

East StratCom Task Force. EUvsDisinfo. European External Action Service. Accessed September 10, 2025. https://euvsdisinfo.eu

European Commission. European Media Freedom Act. Accessed September 10, 2025. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/new-push-european-democracy/protecting-democracy/european-media-freedom-act_en.

European Parliament. Report on Deepfakes. Accessed September 10, 2025. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/A-9-2023-0187_EN.html.

International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Europe Needs Both Sword and Shield to Deter Russia. London: IISS, March 7, 2025.

International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The Scale of Russian Sabotage Operations Against Europe’s Critical Infrastructure. By Charlie Edwards and Nate Seidenstein. London: IISS, August 2025.

Meding, Kristof, and Christoph Sorge. “What Constitutes a Deep Fake? The Blurry Line Between Legitimate Processing and Manipulation Under the EU AI Act.” arXiv, 2024. https://arxiv.org

Pawelec, M. “Deepfakes and Democracy (Theory): How Synthetic Audio-Visual Media for Disinformation and Hate Speech Threaten Core Democratic Functions.” Digital Society, 2022.

Reynaud, Florian, and Damien Leloup. “Doppelgänger: The Russian Disinformation Campaign Denounced by France.” Le Monde, June 2023. https://lemonde.fr

Schick, Nina. Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse. New York: Twelve, 2020. https://www.scribd.com/document/801080288/Deepfakes-Nina-Schick.

Wired. “How a Deepfake Audio Clip May Have Altered Slovakia’s Election.” Accessed September 10, 2025.

Zegart, Amy, and Michael Morell. “Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: Why U.S. Intelligence Agencies Must Adapt or Fail.” Foreign Affairs 98, no. 3 (May/June 2019): 85–97. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26798154

[1] Russia channels funding and propaganda toward Eurosceptic populist parties across the spectrum.

[2] Deepfakes degrading democratic norms: empowered inclusion, deliberation, legitimacy, liar’s dividend.

[3] Slovakia’s pre-election deepfake audio scandal undermining campaign.

[4] SEU concerns about AI boosting disinformation ahead of 2024 election.

[5] Legal ambiguity in AI Act’s definition of deepfakes.

[6] Need for platforms to label/down rank AI content under AI Act transparency rules.

[7] Media literacy examples: Finland, Estonia, and EU efforts.

[8] East StratCom Task Force and EUvsDisinfo’s role.