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 Јuly-September 2023.

During the monitoring period, the most frequent disinformation topic in all of Western Balkans countries was the Russian invasion in Ukraine. Kremlin’s propaganda machinery concentrated its’ efforts on discrediting not only the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but the whole of Ukraine in the eyes of the international community in order to cause discord between the West and Ukraine, and reduction in the political support, but also military aid on which Ukraine depends in its defense.