Information & Ethics committee  I'm not really sure that you would find legislative measures targeted only at disinformation campaigns that targeted elections. I think it would be more broad. I think it would be regardless of the election cycle. We saw the most aggressive measures, like outright bans. Most of them have been in Ukraine, but also, in the EU, there was a ban on Russia Today and Sputnik.

Information & Ethics committee  We definitely see the information aggressors adapting to these measures and migrating to different platforms, but there has been some research, although unfortunately just anecdotal, that they always lose at least some of the audience, not all of it, but at least some of it, and this is sometimes—

Information & Ethics committee  I'm afraid that with five seconds to think, I can't really give you a proper answer.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. I will be happy to think about it.

Information & Ethics committee  In case you would be interested in more detail, I will be more than happy to share with you one report on these four lines of defence. It's about 20 pages. In this repairing of the systemic weaknesses, I think we have tools like media literacy. We see in countries where they have a higher level of media literacy—Finland, Sweden, Denmark—that there is a smaller problem with disinformation.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm afraid I will have trouble fitting the answer in the limited time frame, because this is a very complicated subject. I cannot tell you what the level of coordination is between Alex Jones and the very big disinformation players, by which I mean mainly Moscow; however, it seems very much like exactly the kind of work that Russia loves to do everywhere in the world.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much. Before I talk about the fourth line, let me briefly touch upon the first question you had. I'm sorry that I won't manage to give my reply in French. My French is horrible, despite my having spent three years in Brussels.

Information & Ethics committee  Okay. What is the course? For Russia, this is seemingly a non-military measure to achieve military goals. They are very obvious about this. For them, it's a measure to facilitate military operations. The annexation of Crimea, to which there was close to no reaction, is probably the biggest example of that, but we have also seen them succeed in influencing our decision-making following the full-scale invasion in 2022.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm not aware of any inauthentic campaigns in this regard, but it might just be that I haven't paid enough attention.

Information & Ethics committee  Russia is always happy about any single opportunity where they can increase the polarization of the audiences. Obviously, this conflict is one of the most polarizing topics, so they will be using it to do their work. The aim with which they are doing it is probably to spread more of the anti-western, anti-American sentiment, with the U.S. still being the chief target of their disinformation campaigns, and probably with the logic that Israel is perceived as the biggest ally of the U.S.

Information & Ethics committee  I have to admit, I do not have good information on how they co-operate. There have been some reports about Russia co-operating with China in the information space, but I'm not aware of reports about the co-operation with Iran. However, I would not be surprised if it was happening.

Information & Ethics committee  This will be definitely part of the reason why they're doing that. If more people focus on what's happening in the Middle East, fewer people will be focusing on what's happening in Ukraine. The way they'll try to increase the polarization will be to spread very extreme messaging, but sometimes they're doing it from both sides of the barricades.

Information & Ethics committee  I agree with you that they would be doing that, but sometimes they are just following the news cycle. When we had the COVID pandemic, they were focusing on COVID. Now, because media focuses so much on what's happening in the Middle East, they use this, but it might be something different in a few weeks again.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm sorry about that.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, and let me thank you also for inviting me here. It is an honour both for me and for the centre of excellence. In the limited time, allow me to address only two very brief points: one, what the hybrid CoE is and what we are trying to do to help our participating states to counter the threat of disinformation; and two, what the best practices are in countering disinformation that we have identified.