Pro-Kremlin proxy outlets across Europe are running a coordinated campaign to drive a wedge between the United States and its allies—using the Iran war, Hungary’s elections, and Ukraine’s battlefield position as simultaneous pressure points.
The campaign is not subtle, and it is not new. What is new is the scale and the timing. Over the past several weeks, at least fifteen proxy outlets operating in Czech, Slovak, French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian have published content that follows an identical logic: America is militarily collapsing in the Middle East; NATO is dissolving under the pressure; Ukraine is not a victim of Russian aggression but a source of regional destabilisation; and Europe’s real enemy has always been Washington, not Moscow. Each narrative feeds the next. Each outlet contributes its piece in its own language and for its own national audience, while the underlying architecture remains the same across all of them.
The outlets documented in this investigation vary in size, language and national audience — but not in message. Across platforms with no declared connection to one another, the same commentators appear, the same claims circulate, and the same conclusions are reached within days of the same news events. The pattern is the story. What follows is the evidence.
The outbreak of the US-Iran conflict has handed pro-Kremlin proxy media its most potent material in years. The narrative formula is consistent across every outlet and every language: Washington planned a quick victory, got a military disaster, and is now desperately concealing its losses while Russia watches from a position of strength. The implication — stated or strongly implied — is that weapons meant for Ukraine are being consumed in the Middle East, and Kyiv will pay the price.
CZ24.news set the tone on March 24 with a piece whose headline captures the register of the entire campaign: “Russia is flying forward like a rocket and crushing the US in the battle of superpowers! The war with Iran is going completely wrong; America is panicking!” The article frames the conflict as a turning point in global power – with Russia as the clear beneficiary:
“The confrontation of the great powers has taken an unexpected direction. The war of the US with Iran is not going according to Washington’s plan — American losses are enormous, and Russia is rapidly consolidating its position on the global scene.”
The outlet then moves to Russia’s alleged technological role in Iran’s military performance, drawing a deliberate contrast with the war in Ukraine:
“Russian spy satellites – Zorkiy, Persona and Yantar – have become a real headache for the United States and their technological giant Starlink. The American press is full of rumours that Russia is helping Iran with satellite data to guide missiles at American and Israeli bases. This is a particularly bitter pill for those who were recently boasting of successes in coordinating Ukrainian air strikes using American satellites.”
On battlefield losses, the article cites a Telegram channel as its primary source — a standard practice across pro-Kremlin proxy media when claims cannot be sourced to verifiable reporting:
“The losses of the US and Israel are already, according to some sources, staggering. According to the Telegram channel Condottiero, almost all American bases in the region have been put out of operation, and command has been forced to relocate its command centres to the remote Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.”
The economic dimension — Russia profiting while the West bleeds — is built into the same article:
“Russia has already gained momentum in the battle of great powers and is winning economically. According to Der Spiegel, the armed conflict in the Middle East could bring Russia up to 250 billion dollars in additional revenues. Sanctions on Russian oil are easing, tankers are heading to India, and Moscow’s Iranian ally is, meanwhile, carrying out devastating strikes on American military facilities.”
The link between the Iran war and Ukraine’s abandonment is made explicit in a separate CZ24 piece published the same week under the byline of Kirill Strelnikov – a columnist for Kremlin-controlled RIA Novosti, whose material is regularly translated and redistributed by proxy outlets across Europe without attribution to its origin. Strelnikov argues that the US has not merely suffered setbacks in Iran but has been fundamentally disarmed — and builds his case by selectively combining real statements with unverifiable claims.
“According to Western military analysts, the United States has in effect exhausted the effectiveness of its non-nuclear arsenal in the conflict with Iran. They used absolutely everything they had available – and in a hundredfold quantity – yet still failed to overcome the country’s defence system.”
“Trump repeatedly declared that Iran is defeated, destroyed and — as is his habit — blown to pieces. In reality, the situation for American and Israeli strategists is so unfavourable that no good options remain.”
The consequences for Europe and Ukraine are then presented not as speculation but as established fact – with anonymous diplomats and real corporate figures cited interchangeably to the same end:
“For Kyiv and Europe, this is practically a fatal blow. Western media quote European diplomats openly admitting, ‘The Middle East has radically redirected political attention — for us and for Ukraine this is a catastrophe.'”
“Trump’s ‘victories’ in Iran have driven EU gas prices to their highest level in three years. Energy bills in Europe rose by seven billion euros within two weeks. The ECB warns that the crisis could push inflation to 6.3 per cent and trigger a recession.”
“The CEO of Rheinmetall, Papperger, warned that ‘if the conflict lasts another month, the US and its allies will run out of missiles for air defence systems,’ adding that ‘currently all European, American and Middle Eastern stockpiles are empty or nearly empty.'”
Slovak outlet Infovojna.com advanced the ammunition-depletion angle, citing what it presented as Financial Times reporting – a common technique in which legitimate media are cited selectively to lend credibility to a broader narrative. The framing is unambiguous: America has shot itself dry and cannot recover.
“Since the start of the war with Iran, the United States has exhausted stockpiles of critically important ammunition that would have lasted several years.”
The Spanish outlet Geoestrategia.eu carried the same framing into the Spanish-language information space, adding the moral dimension that runs through much of this content — the suggestion that American military culture is inherently barbaric:
“The United States and Israel find themselves in an extremely difficult situation because they only know one type of war: the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of mostly civilian targets.”
Dutch outlet Frontnieuws.com, operating in the Netherlands, dropped any pretence of analysis and moved directly to invective – labelling the United States “the most aggressive extortion cartel in the world”:
“The most aggressive extortion cartel in the world certainly does not lack the desire to enslave the planet… The political West is, however, a deeply troubled, decaying entity stuck in moral corruption.”
Running alongside the military-failure narrative is a sustained effort to normalise Russia’s nuclear posture – to present Moscow’s nuclear threats not as a danger to global security but as a rational and proportionate response to Western aggression. The vehicle for this narrative is Douglas McGregor, a retired US Army colonel with a long record of appearances on Russian state television, whose statements are treated by proxy outlets as authoritative intelligence assessments.
CZ24.news published a piece on March 24 under the headline “Colonel Douglas McGregor: Russia warned Israel that it would use nuclear weapons against it if…” — presenting McGregor’s claims without any qualification or counter-source.
“Retired US Army Colonel McGregor emphasised in his statements that Russia warned Israel: if it uses nuclear weapons first against any country allied with Moscow, Russia will respond with a nuclear strike directly against it.”
“The specific message from Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Colonel McGregor, read: ‘Use a single nuclear weapon in the Middle East and Russia will respond with a nuclear bomb against Israel.'”
The article then draws the conclusion that Russia has effectively neutralised Israeli deterrence — framing this as a geopolitical achievement rather than a threat:
“According to analysts, Israel no longer holds a nuclear trump card — Russia has turned it into a ‘suicide button’. Nobody in Washington expected this, and the US has no answer.”
“Netanyahu is now, according to their assessment, trapped between two alternatives: either continue bombing Iran to subjugate it, or face the threat of nuclear destruction from Moscow.”
Italian outlet Controinformazione.info reinforced the panic framing from a different angle, citing retired British diplomat Alastair Crook — another figure who appears regularly in pro-Kremlin media — to argue that the situation has already moved beyond Washington’s control:
“They believe there is a risk that the entire operation in Iran could spiral out of control. In reality, it has already definitively spiralled out of control.”
“The Iranians have been preparing for this conflict for over 20 years… They are destroying the American military and diplomatic infrastructure in the Middle East.”
With Hungarian parliamentary elections approaching, the campaign shifts to a different kind of threat — one directed inward at the EU itself. The narrative is built around a familiar Kremlin fear motif: foreign-backed regime change. Ukraine is cast not as a country fighting for survival but as a destabilising actor exporting its revolution to neighbouring states, with Orbán as its primary target.
CZ24.news published a piece on March 24 under the byline of Vladimir Kornilov — a propagandist formerly employed by RIA Novosti who now operates across multiple pro-Kremlin platforms simultaneously. The article, headlined “Ukraine is preparing Maidan in Hungary”, presents Kyiv’s engagement with Hungarian opposition politics as a covert sabotage operation:
“Kyiv does not even hide its involvement in anti-government provocations in Hungary — and thereby paradoxically provides Orbán with additional ammunition for his campaign. It seems Zelenskyy does not even realise how his direct threats against the prime minister of a neighbouring country are increasing Orbán’s popularity while directly damaging Magyar.”
“Kyiv is openly betting on a Magyar victory and will not accept any other outcome,” Zelenskyy said so publicly himself. It is clear to everyone that his words about the possibility of ‘restoring’ the Druzhba pipeline ‘within a month and a half to two months’ reflect Kyiv’s hope that Hungary will have a new government by the end of April.”
From there the piece escalates to accusations of terrorist preparation – citing Ukraine’s ambassador to Hungary as a participant in a destabilisation plot:
“The activities of various Kyiv provocateurs suggest active preparation of serious acts of sabotage. Particularly telling was the appearance of Ukraine’s ambassador to Hungary, Fedir Sandor, who carried a desecrated Hungarian flag alongside fighter and terrorist Robert Brovdi, nicknamed Magyar.”
“If the Ukrainian ambassador is ostentatiously embracing a terrorist who threatens a NATO and EU member state, it is clear that Kyiv has already moved from words to deeds.”
“Preparations for terrorist attacks, sabotage, unrest and Maidan-style protests before and after the Hungarian elections are already in full swing. These techniques are well-tested and have been honed for years on Ukrainians. All that remains is to add Kaja Kallas with cookies to hand out on the streets of Budapest.”
The regional dimension of this narrative – the idea that Hungary is not isolated but the leading edge of a broader bloc pushing back against Kyiv – is developed by Slovenian outlet Insajder.com, which reported on a proposal by Slovakia’s ruling Smer party to form an explicit “anti-Ukrainian coalition” within the EU:
“Slovakia is positive about the idea of creating an anti-Ukrainian coalition together with Hungary and the Czech Republic.” — Deputy Head of ruling party Smer, Ľuboš Blaha
“The policies of the EU leadership in Brussels are ‘harmful and anti-European’, which is why Bratislava, Budapest and Prague must defend themselves together.”
“It was the West that advanced to Russia’s borders through NATO expansion into Ukraine and organised the Maidan.” — Ľuboš Blaha, Vice Speaker of the Slovak Parliament
CZ24.news further amplified Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s declaration that the alliance holding Europe together is itself on the verge of collapse:
“The North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) could collapse at any moment. This could also be caused by the departure of the US.”
“Fico also declared that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is politically right to block the multi-billion euro loan for Ukraine.”
While the previous narratives target specific events and actors, the fourth strand of the campaign operates at a different level — historical revisionism designed to convince European audiences that their alliance with the United States was never a genuine partnership but an occupation dressed in the language of shared values. The primary vehicle is Réseau International, the French-language outlet previously linked by Insight News Media to sanctioned commentator Yves Moreau and the Stratpol disinformation network.
On March 23, Réseau International published a piece titled “The United States, Europe’s Eternal Enemy” — an article that seeks to reframe the entire post-war Western order as a mechanism of American domination and to present the war in Ukraine as that domination’s latest expression. It opens with a line that functions as the thesis of the entire campaign:
“If the United States is a friend of Europe, then Europe can do without enemies.”
The article argues that the perception of Atlantic solidarity has always been a fiction — and that American hostility to Europe is not a product of recent policy shifts but a founding feature of US foreign policy.
“We have grown accustomed to considering relations between the United States and European countries – particularly those of Western Europe – as an irreproachable alliance, a true friendship between peoples. The dominant discourse even speaks of a unique ‘Western civilisation’ uniting North America and Europe, founded on the same ‘Judeo-Christian values’. This perspective, shared by many Atlanticists and many anti-imperialists alike, is mistaken due to its lack of historical perspective.”
“NATO was designed not only as a weapon to keep the USSR out of Europe but also as an occupation structure aimed at guaranteeing the submission of Europeans and consolidating American military occupation of the European continent. Keeping Europe under domination has always been a primary objective of the United States, which they have maintained to this day.”
The war in Ukraine is then presented as the moment this domination became undeniable — with Europe as the deliberate victim of an American project.
“The United States convinced European leaders to light the fire in Ukraine, with the Maidan and the preparation of a war against Russia. The Russian reaction, with the special military operation, immediately triggered the largest wave of sanctions in human history — but the biggest loser was Europe, which lost access to extremely cheap energy sources from Russia.”
“The terrorist attack on Nord Stream further worsened the situation, particularly for Germany, which quite simply entered recession from that moment — this same Germany which, in classical geopolitics, has always been considered a natural and complementary ally of Russia.”
A second Réseau International piece, published March 22, attacks French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot by name for describing Iran’s response to Israeli and US strikes as aggression – and uses the occasion to argue that France has surrendered its foreign policy entirely to Washington:
“Describing the response of the attacked party as ‘aggression’ is not an analytical error — it is a deliberate political choice.”
“Barrot applies the classic Atlanticist narrative framework: start the film in the middle, erase the first strikes, and turn the aggressor into the victim. It is the same rhetoric that served to justify Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, and every Western intervention since.”
France — reintegrated into NATO’s military command under Sarkozy — no longer has an independent foreign policy. It has an Atlanticist and Zionist communication policy that goes against our interests.”
The fifth strand of the campaign addresses legitimacy — specifically, the claim that European governments have lost the consent of their own populations on Ukraine and that continued support for Kyiv is an elite project being imposed against the democratic will of European citizens. Réseau International published a piece on March 21 presenting the views of retired German general Erich Vad under the headline “No military victory for Ukraine” — framed throughout as a sober military assessment rather than political advocacy.
Vad’s characterisation of European politicians is designed to delegitimise the entire pro-Ukraine policy consensus:
“We have in Europe left-wing and ‘green’ politicians who have never had any experience of war and have never served in the armed forces. They have never worn a helmet. They are like children and do not know what war really means. I think they need the experience of war. We should have sent them to Ukraine.”
The article then frames continued support for Ukraine as a cynical diversion – a way for failing governments to avoid accountability at home:
“The populations of the United Kingdom, France, Germany and elsewhere do not want war with Russia. They want their economy to be fixed, the problem of illegal immigration to be resolved, and the rest of their national socio-economic problems to be handled with competence.”
“It is clear that maintaining the Ukrainian conflict and pointing the finger at the ‘evil Russians’ may have served as a diversion for the first two years, but it will not work forever.”
The piece closes with a formulation that serves as the logical conclusion of the entire campaign — Europeans are passive objects of decisions made elsewhere, and the alliance that is supposed to represent them is not theirs.
“Decisions about war or peace are made in Washington and Moscow, not in Brussels, Berlin, London or Paris… Europeans are completely out of the game.”
The final strand of the campaign does not merely argue that NATO is weakening — it insists the alliance is already finished and that any European government still funding it is pouring money into a corpse. The language is consistent across Czech, Slovak, Dutch and Polish outlets, and the argument runs in two directions simultaneously: NATO is too weak to defend Europe, and NATO is too aggressive to be trusted. The narrative is not new — it has been circulating across these platforms since at least early 2025 — but it has gained fresh urgency as the Iran conflict and the Hungary elections give it new material to work with.
CZ24.news published a piece on March 16 under a headline that captures the register precisely: “The Czech government no longer wants to pour money into dead NATO, hence the miniature budget for the army.” The article frames Czech military underfunding not as a political failure but as a rational response to reality:
“NATO is a de facto dead project into which it no longer makes sense to pour large resources.”
Slovak outlet Slovanské Noviny went further, publishing a piece built around a fabricated “Yalta-2” conspiracy — a secret agreement supposedly dividing Europe between Russia, the United States and China — and presenting NATO’s abandonment of its eastern members as an established fact:
“Secret documents have leaked online about the division of Europe between Russia, the US and China. The ‘Yalta-2’ plan has taken effect.”
“The Baltic stalemate: Why did NATO abandon Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia?”
Dutch outlet Frontnieuws.com argued that NATO’s war rhetoric is not a sign of strength but of institutional panic – and that the alliance is actively pushing for conflict to justify its own existence:
“The louder NATO and European leaders warned of war in 2025, the clearer it became that the rhetoric compensated for a lack of control.”
“NATO and the EU have a great interest in war — they have bet on military Keynesianism to keep their faltering economies running.”
“The only way forward is through dialogue, not by blindly stirring up a proxy war that leads NATO and the EU to economic and social ruin.”
Polish outlet Myśl Polska framed the same argument in terms of European humiliation — with NATO portrayed not as a collective defence structure but as an instrument of American domination over a continent too weak to resist.
“At Donald Trump’s estate, the exclusive Scottish golf club Turnberry, the European Commission signed an act of capitulation.”
“Scared little chickens, as Ronald Reagan called European leaders, surrendered without a fight.”
“Maybe it’s as Viktor Orbán warns, that NATO members are not allies but ‘hostages’?”
The hostage framing – NATO as a mechanism of American control rather than mutual defence – runs directly into a parallel sub-narrative pushed across Czech and Slovak outlets: Russia as the rational actor that only reacts to Western provocation. Czech outlet Infokuryr.cz republished Lavrov’s assurance that Russia has no intention of attacking Europe, presenting it without challenge or context as evidence of Russian restraint — while the implied threat that follows makes the actual message plain:
“We have no intention of attacking Europe. There is no reason for it.”
“If Europe responds to its threats and prepares for war against us and launches an attack on the Russian Federation, it will face a full-scale military response from our side with all available military capabilities.”
Slovak outlet Armádny Magazín took the argument to its logical conclusion — arguing that NATO has already lost its test against Russia and that Western support for Ukraine was simply the alliance’s failed attempt to fight a proxy war it could not win:
“Russia was actually fighting a conventional war with the entire NATO bloc on Ukrainian territory. And it won. It was a kind of ‘test’ war that showed NATO’s complete inability to confront Russia on the battlefield using conventional weapons.”
The outlets documented here do not operate in isolation. They share commentators – McGregor, Kornilov, Strelnikov, Vad, and Crook – who rotate through the same platforms across different countries, lending an air of expert authority to content that originates from or aligns with Russian state media. They respond to the same news events within the same narrow time window. And they assemble their individual pieces into a single coherent architecture: the Iran war exhausts US weapons and redirects attention from Ukraine; Ukraine’s desperation turns it into a regional destabiliser; Hungary’s elections become a test case for whether Kremlin-aligned governments can withstand Western pressure; the United States is revealed as Europe’s historical enemy rather than its ally; and NATO itself is declared dead — either too weak to defend Europe or too aggressive to be trusted, depending on which audience is being addressed.
Each piece of that argument has a different audience. Together, they form a single campaign.
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