Apples of discord: how Russia is supporting and instrumentalizing farmers' protests in Europe - a research by Artur Koldomasov for Detector Media

In 2023 and early 2024, Central and Eastern Europe saw a series of strikes and protests by farmers against decisions related to the agricultural industry in the region’s countries. Farmers' protests in Europe have been ongoing over the last 15 years. Still, with the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, they intensified and gained a new meaning due to the decisions of EU institutions regarding benefits for Ukrainian agro-industry in trade on the EU market, such as the introduction of additional transit corridors for the circulation of Ukrainian agricultural products in May 2022 and the abolition of customs duties on the import of Ukrainian agricultural products in October 2022. After a temporary embargo imposed by the EU and lifted in September 2023, protests are again active in Poland, France, and Germany, even though some countries, including Poland, have decided to extend the embargo. News about the scattered Ukrainian grain on the Polish-Ukrainian border was published a few days ago. Right-wing radical movements support pickets and blocking of roads and checkpoints. Meanwhile, Russia, in every possible way, feeds them with propaganda and, with the help of favorable theses, strengthens Euroscepticism among these countries’ populations. Russian propaganda is spread mainly through anonymous Telegram channels, which use various EU languages, as well as Russian and Ukrainian. Their number of subscribers varies from four to several hundred thousand.