An Intelligence Digest Tracking Global Threats to Democracy

An Intelligence Digest Tracking Global Threats to Democracy

Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin praised Nathan Gill for recruit­ing British MEPs in a Russ­ian influ­ence oper­a­tion. On 23 Novem­ber 2025, The Sun­day Times report­ed that What­sApp exchanges between Gill and alleged Russ­ian agent Oleg Voloshyn showed Vik­tor Medved­chuk told Gill that Putin was impressed by MEP com­ments. The arti­cle begins: Pres­i­dent Putin is said to […]

Vik­tor Orbán’s anti-war road­show has launched as the Hun­gar­i­an prime min­is­ter trans­forms oppo­si­tion to Euro­pean sup­port for Ukraine into his cen­tral cam­paign mes­sage. On 15 Novem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that Orbán kicked off a week-long series of ral­lies sched­uled for five cities before the year’s end, posi­tion­ing “peace” as the core nar­ra­tive for Fidesz’s re-elec­tion bid […]

For­mer Inter­na­tion­al Union of Mus­lim Schol­ars (IUMS) Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Moham­mad Sal­im Al-Awa has called for stead­fast resis­tance to Trump’s Gaza plan, urg­ing Pales­tini­ans and Mus­lim nations to reject it as a threat to Pales­tin­ian rights and uni­ty. On 22 Novem­ber 2025, MEMRI report­ed that Al-Awa had called the Trump Gaza plan a dan­ger­ous scheme aimed at […]

Nihad Awad, the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR), has strong­ly reject­ed Texas Gov­er­nor Greg Abbott’s recent des­ig­na­tion of CAIR as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, stat­ing that that he oper­at­ed accord­ing to an “Israeli agen­da par excel­lence.” On 19 Novem­ber 2025, MEMRI report­ed that Awad had called Abbott’s procla­ma­tion an “anti-Mus­lim approach,” alleg­ing […]

The AfD is urg­ing Berlin to fol­low the US antifa ter­ror­ist des­ig­na­tion in a dis­play of transat­lantic nation­al con­ser­v­a­tive coor­di­na­tion. On 14 Novem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that AfD deputy fed­er­al spokesper­son Stephan Brand­ner wel­comed the US State Depart­ment deci­sion to clas­si­fy Ger­man Antifa Ost as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion and called on Euro­pean gov­ern­ments to […]

Rus­sell Vought serves as OMB direc­tor and Project 2025 archi­tect, wield­ing unprece­dent­ed influ­ence in the Trump admin­is­tra­tion. On 20 Octo­ber 2025, ProP­ub­li­ca report­ed that Vought has used the Office of Man­age­ment and Bud­get to cen­tral­ize deci­sion-mak­ing pow­er to such an extent that insid­ers describe him as the shad­ow pres­i­dent, freez­ing $26 bil­lion in fed­er­al fund­ing […]

The Coun­cil of Europe’s Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion is fund­ing the Forum of Euro­pean Mus­lim Youth and Stu­dent Organ­i­sa­tions’ (FEMYSO ) inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ties. On 28 July 2025, the Coun­cil of Europe report­ed that the Euro­pean Youth Foun­da­tion con­duct­ed a mon­i­tor­ing vis­it on 24–25 July to FEMYSO’s inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ty titled The essen­tials of organ­i­sa­tion­al sus­tain­abil­i­ty in youth […]

The UK For­eign Affairs Com­mit­tee heard tes­ti­mo­ny about a Russ­ian dis­in­for­ma­tion net­work oper­at­ing auto­mat­ed accounts on a mas­sive scale. On 18 Novem­ber 2025, the Com­mit­tee heard Nina Jankow­icz of Amer­i­can Sun­light Project tes­ti­fy that her orga­ni­za­tion iden­ti­fied 1,100 like­ly auto­mat­ed accounts in 2024 that post­ed hun­dreds of times dai­ly, with more than 800 accounts still […]

Rus­sia has launched an elec­tion inter­fer­ence oper­a­tion tar­get­ing Arme­ni­a’s June 2026 par­lia­men­tary elec­tions through an unusu­al­ly ear­ly dis­in­for­ma­tion cam­paign. On 19 Novem­ber 2025, the Foun­da­tion for Defense of Democ­ra­cies report­ed that News­Guard iden­ti­fied Krem­lin-linked net­works Storm-1516 and Foun­da­tion to Bat­tle Injus­tice, which have been push­ing false nar­ra­tives since April to erode trust in demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions […]

Chi­na’s gray-zone influ­ence oper­a­tions are tar­get­ing Japan through unau­tho­rized con­sulate activ­i­ties at non­des­ig­nat­ed diplo­mat­ic facil­i­ties. On 19 Novem­ber 2025, The Japan Times report­ed that PRC con­sulates in Japan have con­duct­ed at least 60 gray-zone activ­i­ties across 25 pre­fec­tures and 21 cities since 2017, oper­at­ing one-day con­sulate events at club­hous­es, cul­tur­al cen­ters, hotel meet­ing rooms, and […]

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment is resist­ing Bel­gian cor­rup­tion probes linked to Huawei influ­ence oper­a­tions. Eurac­tiv report­ed that Par­lia­ment has refused to lift immu­ni­ty for four MEPs six months after Bel­gian pros­e­cu­tors request­ed waivers in a Chi­nese influ­ence inves­ti­ga­tion, with Legal Affairs Com­mit­tee mem­bers ques­tion­ing pros­e­cu­tor cred­i­bil­i­ty in tense exchanges with fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Ann Fransen. The arti­cle […]

Google’s Threat Analy­sis Group ter­mi­nat­ed 18,532 YouTube chan­nels dur­ing Q3 2025 as part of coor­di­nat­ed influ­ence oper­a­tions inves­ti­ga­tions. On 13 Novem­ber 2025, PPC Land report­ed that TAG removed chan­nels span­ning nine coun­tries, with Rus­sia account­ing for the major­i­ty, and Chi­nese oper­a­tions remov­ing 11,506 chan­nels across July through Sep­tem­ber. The arti­cle begins: Google’s Threat Analy­sis Group […]

Rus­sia is inten­si­fy­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion oper­a­tions in the Baltic states through sys­tem­at­ic recruit­ment of local res­i­dents. On 19 Novem­ber 2025, Anadolu Agency report­ed that Russ­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices recruit Lat­vian res­i­dents via Telegram chan­nels and dur­ing trips to Rus­sia, tar­get­ing low-income groups and young peo­ple seek­ing mon­ey. The arti­cle begins: Rus­sia is alleged­ly inten­si­fy­ing its dis­in­for­ma­tion and […]

The Left Par­ty and AfD both oppose a DITIB mosque project in Wup­per­tal, Ger­many, cre­at­ing unusu­al polit­i­cal alliances over dif­fer­ent con­cerns. On 21 Octo­ber 2025, The Euro­pean Con­ser­v­a­tive report­ed that the Left Par­ty oppos­es the Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union’s mosque on city-owned land because of DITIB’s ties to Turkey’s state reli­gious author­i­ty Diyanet and poten­tial loss of […]

Iran’s influ­ence oper­a­tions via its Paris embassy have coor­di­nat­ed a decades-long cam­paign to infil­trate French polit­i­cal, aca­d­e­m­ic, and media spheres. On 4 Novem­ber 2025, the oppo­si­tion media out­let Iran Inter­na­tion­al report­ed that French think tank France2050 released a 120-page report detail­ing Tehran’s struc­tured sys­tem of infil­tra­tion through diplo­mats and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, with embassy num­ber two […]

Texas Gov­er­nor Greg Abbott declared CAIR and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood to be ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions in an unprece­dent­ed state-lev­el des­ig­na­tion. On 18 Novem­ber 2025, Newsweek report­ed that Abbott des­ig­nat­ed both the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood as for­eign ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal orga­ni­za­tions in a procla­ma­tion allow­ing height­ened enforce­ment and pre­vent­ing prop­er­ty […]

AfD leader Tino Chru­pal­la claimed Putin’s Rus­sia pos­es no threat to Ger­many while warn­ing that Poland poten­tial­ly does. On 12 Novem­ber 2025, Politi­co report­ed that the Alter­na­tive for Ger­many co-leader stat­ed on Ger­man pub­lic tele­vi­sion that Putin has­n’t done any­thing to me and I don’t see any dan­ger to Ger­many from Rus­sia, cit­ing Poland’s refusal […]

The rise of Europe’s far-right accel­er­at­ed with the for­ma­tion of Patri­ots for Europe through a man­i­festo signed by Vik­tor Orban, Her­bert Kickl, and Andrej Babis. On 15 Novem­ber 2025, Deseret News report­ed that on June 30, 2024, the three lead­ers signed the Patri­ot­ic Man­i­festo for a Euro­pean Future at Vien­na’s Inter­con­ti­nen­tal Hotel, cre­at­ing what became […]

Den­mark’s far-right Dan­ish Peo­ple’s Par­ty has pro­posed a rem­i­gra­tion pol­i­cy to deport tens of thou­sands of legal for­eign res­i­dents receiv­ing wel­fare ben­e­fits. On 6 Novem­ber 2025, The Local Den­mark report­ed that par­ty leader Morten Messer­schmidt called for expelling between 50,000 and 100,000 legal res­i­dents on dis­abil­i­ty pen­sions and unem­ploy­ment sup­port, mark­ing the first time a […]

Israeli influ­ence oper­a­tions are tar­get­ing US evan­gel­i­cals and AI chat­bots fol­low­ing sharp declines in con­ser­v­a­tive sup­port for Israel. On 9 Novem­ber 2025, Haaretz report­ed that Israel signed con­tracts worth mil­lions with Trump-linked firms to con­duct the largest geofenc­ing cam­paign in US his­to­ry map­ping church perime­ters to iden­ti­fy and track eight mil­lion church­go­ers, while attempt­ing to […]

Rus­sia is shift­ing toward infor­ma­tion war­fare in its 2026 bud­get, cut­ting mil­i­tary spend­ing while dra­mat­i­cal­ly increas­ing fund­ing for pro­pa­gan­da. On 6 Novem­ber 2025, the Jamestown Foun­da­tion report­ed that Rus­si­a’s draft bud­get reduces mil­i­tary spend­ing by $2.4 bil­lion com­pared to 2025 while increas­ing state-run media fund­ing by 54 per­cent, sig­nal­ing inten­si­fied infor­ma­tion war­fare using AI-gen­er­at­ed con­tent […]

Plans by pan-Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir to hold a nation­al con­fer­ence have prompt­ed wide­spread con­cern among Aus­tralian polit­i­cal lead­ers fol­low­ing a stark warn­ing from the nation’s top secu­ri­ty chief. On 12 Novem­ber 2025, Sky News report­ed that ASIO Direc­tor-Gen­er­al Mike Burgess had warned of “provoca­tive behav­iour” and pos­si­ble rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion risks. The arti­cle begins: Pan-Islamist group […]

Chi­nese influ­ence oper­a­tions in the Czech Repub­lic’s invest­ment net­works to acquire media hold­ings and cul­ti­vate polit­i­cal rela­tion­ships dur­ing the pro-engage­ment era under Pres­i­dent Miloš Zeman. On 10 Novem­ber 2025, the Atlantic Coun­cil report­ed that CEFC Chi­na Ener­gy’s chair­man became Zeman’s eco­nom­ic advis­er while the com­pa­ny acquired stakes in promi­nent Czech media out­lets, with inves­ti­ga­tions rais­ing […]