Analysis/How the Israel-Hamas conflict has been covered in the media in 5 Black Sea countries for a year/ The most common disinformation topics

Countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are particularly vulnerable to disinformation campaigns due to the high level of cognitive capture among the population, political elites and the media, according to a report published by experts from the Romanian Center for European Policy (CRPE) and the Center for the Study of Democracy (Bulgaria), within the framework of the „DISINFO4BLACKSEA” project.

The report analyzes how the Israel-Hamas conflict has been reflected in the media in 5 countries: Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Georgia, and especially the main disinformation themes.

ROMANIA

Over 54,000 articles were published in Romanian on news portals and online media from the beginning of the conflict (October 2023) to the fall of 2024 – the period analyzed in our report. The media analysis reveals a fragmented coverage, with consistent articles and reporting in mainstream media, but also a significant presence of websites and portals known for amplifying disinformation.

BULGARIA . Data collection utilized the media intelligence tool Sensika, which provides access to a vast catalog of over 2500 news web-sites in Bulgaria, to gather content from these sources and analyze its volume and reach.
8,493 online media articles were published between October 7, 2023 – October 31, 2024.
Key Amplifiers: Online Media Outlets and Social Media Platforms
Among the top monitored pro-Russian outlets on the topic of the Israel-Hamas conflict in Bulgaria Pogled.info emerged as the leading source of disinformation both in terms of traditional media and as a domain shared on Facebook (Figure 1 & 2). The outlet consistently republishes nearly all of its Ukraine war coverage from Russian sources banned in the EU, including Katehon, Tsargrad, and RIA Novosti.

UKRAINE.In Ukraine, the main proliferator of locally targeted is Russian controlled media targeting Russian-speaking audiences. 

Two dominant disinformation narratives have been at the forefront of the disinformation campaign related to the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Ukrainian information space. The first alleges that Ukraine, due to widespread corruption, is diverting Western-supplied military aid to Hamas. The second claims that the “collective West” is shifting its geopolitical focus toward Israel, leading to a decline in political, military, and economic support for Ukraine (Figure 2). These narratives appeared in a total of 3,039 articles within the monitoring period, accounting for 34% and 66% of the total coverage, respectively.

Nonetheless, 571 articles in Russian language (or 19% of all) belong to the lowest ranking, indicating a significant presence of sham websites producing large volumes of automated or semi-automated republished content that stems from top-ranking propaganda outlets such as Mupzem-pushkino.ru, News.rambler.ru, Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru. The top-ten sources spreading disinformation function as key amplifiers of pro-Kremlin content, with the top-three sources accounting for 45% of the total volume of articles.

GEORGIA.

Media Coverage and Bias. While mainstream Georgian media has not been directly implicated in disinformation, pro-government outlets such as ImediNews and PosTV subtly reinforce Kremlin-aligned narratives by omitting key facts and framing Israel as the aggressor. Russian-linked platforms, such as Sputnik Georgia and For.ge, are more overt in their dissemination of misleading content. Nevertheless, predominantly the sentiment among the Georgian population is pro-Israeli.

Between October 1, 2023, and February 15, 2025, the Georgian media published a total of 7,049 articles on the Israel-Hamas conflict. The top 20 sources accounted for 78% of this coverage, with the top 10 sources contributing 58%. Among the top 20 sources, none have been identified as disseminating disinformation about the conflict, a practice typically associated with Russian-aligned actors. However, Kvira, Accent, and NewsHubGeorgia have frequently faced criticism for exhibiting a pro-government bias.

MOLDOVA

The independent media in the Republic of Moldova has generally met professional and ethical standards in its news and reporting on the Middle East conflict, according to a 2024 assessment by the Moldova Independent Journalism Center based on an analysis of 250 pieces on the subject in the mainstream media. Journalistic materials in Moldova’s independent media have maintained their fairness even after Israel’s invasion of Gaza. Palestinians were not portrayed in the Moldovan media as all supporters of Hamas. There were no anti-Semitic demonstrations. On social media, however, there was criticism that resonated with the suffering of Palestinians.

Russian propaganda and disinformation have been the order of the day in Moldova for decades. As a result, the Moldovan journalistic profession has, over time, managed to develop tools to cushion the effects of disinformation on society. Specialized teams of fact-checkers have been set up in media NGOs as well as in some editorial offices to quickly analyse and debunk falsehoods so that the damage caused by Russia’s hybrid attacks is minimized. However, in the context of the Israel-Hamas war, several Russian-coordinated media attacks have penetrated the Moldovan media space and have become topics of widespread discussion.

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Material publicat în cadrul proiectului „Investigarea impactului dezinformării care vizează războiul Israel-Hamas în regiunea Mării Negre”, finanțat de Fondul European pentru Media și Informație (EMIF).

Unica responsabilitate pentru orice conținut susținut de Fondul European pentru Media și Informație (EMIF) revine autorului și nu reflectă în mod necesar pozițiile EMIF și ale partenerilor Fondului, Fundația Calouste Gulbenkian și Institutul Universitar European.

The sole responsibility for any content supported by the European Media and Information Fund lies with the author(s) and it may not necessarily reflect the positions of the EMIF and the Fund Partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute.