This report is based on a continuous monitoring process of domestic media in North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina conducted within the framework of the regional project Western Balkans Anti-Disinformation Hub: Exposing Malign Influences through Watchdog Journalism. It presents an overview of disinformation trends and narratives, their distribution between countries, and their sources for the period of January-March 2023.
During the monitoring period, the most frequent theme for disinformation in all Western Balkan countries was “The Russian war in Ukraine”. Narratives such as “Ukraine tries to involve Poland in the war” and “Poland plans to annex western Ukraine” appeared in the monitoring period as part of the Russian tendency to undermine Poland’s relations with neighbouring countries, using the same tactics used in the Western Balkan region.