Welcome to Disinfo Bulletin, your daily update from the EDMO network. Today's most relevant stories: 

🇸🇰 Disinformation about the presidential election in Slovakia. The final round of the presidential elections in Slovakia, held last weekend, was characterized by rampant disinformation and various attempts to discredit the two candidates, Ivan Korčok and Peter Pellegrini, even using deepfake videos. According to local fact-checking organizations and NGOs, the debate was highly polluted by Russian propaganda and Pellegrini's victory may have been facilitated by a campaign based on false narratives. Other false stories have suggested alleged vote rigging during the first round and have also targeted Korčok in particular.

A few days before the election, it was falsely claimed, including by members of the government, that if Korčok had won, he would have sent Slovak soldiers to fight in Ukraine or abolished Slovakia’s veto right in the EU. Both claims were false: the president does not have such powers. To better understand the narratives that were at play during the elections, read the CEDMO election brief, a dedicated analysis from the regional EDMO Hub.

🪖 False narrative: the EU is directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
A broader involvement of the West in the war in Ukraine is a false message that disinformation has tried to vehiculate since the early stages of the invasion. However, some recent false stories try to link more specifically the EU to the battlefield. Recently, false claims circulated in Germany that a tank with an EU flag had been spotted on Russian territory (suggesting the EU involvement and trying to victimize Russia) and in Bulgaria that the country is “getting ready” for the war. This narrative was detected in: BG, DE.  

🎯 Check out the EDMO Task Force’s analysis of what kind of AI-generated disinformation to expect ahead of the elections. The Task Force has published an article analyzing the different disinformation techniques using AI tools, and assessing the risks each of them poses ahead of the June elections. Read the full article here: Preventing AI-generated disinformation ahead of EU elections.

If you have suggestions, comments or requests about this newsletter, you can write to edmo.tfeu2024@eui.eu