While starting at the grassroots level, the protests have been keenly exploited by Russia to sow division and undermine popular support for Ukraine’s defense.
March 13, 2024 4:00 am CET
Nicolas Tenzer is a guest professor at Sciences-Po Paris, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis and the owner of the blog “Tenzer Strategics.” His new book is “Notre Guerre. Le crime et l’oubli (Our War. Crime and Oblivion).”
On Feb. 26, European leaders met in Paris to display public unity and show their continued solidarity with Kyiv. It was a welcome act of reassurance at a time when EU politicians have been waffling on further military aid to Ukraine, and struggling to juggle their ongoing support for the embattled nation with domestic issues — namely the vast farmer protests taking place across the bloc.
While starting at the grassroots level, the protests have been keenly exploited by Russia for disinformation purposes, as the Kremlin has been eager to sow division and undermine popular support for Ukraine’s defense.
In recent weeks, pro-Russian social media accounts shared a sophisticated yet fundamentally misleading video, purporting to show French farmers dumping manure outside the Ukrainian embassy in Paris, which has since gone viral. In another recent incident in Prague, a farmer protest was quickly taken over by rowdy pro-Kremlin activists, leading one of the original organizers to lament that the demonstration had been “stolen.”
In short, Europe’s farmer protests are proving fertile for Russian propaganda, with the Kremlin persistently seeking to amplify them — in some cases even hijack them — all to the detriment of European decision-makers and farmers alike. And it’s time we start paying attention.
Moscow’s attempt to weaponize a diverse array of protest movements for its own propaganda purposes shouldn’t come as a surprise — this is Russia’s time-tested modus operandi. The same pattern has played out with everything from Black Lives Matter and the Jan. 6 insurrection in the U.S. to the Pegida anti-migrant movement in Germany, the Yellow Vests in France and a swath of anti-vaccine movements in between.
While the Kremlin wasn’t directly behind the emergence of any of these movements, it did seek to maliciously fan the flames, amplifying them through social networks and other digital channels, often spreading disinformation in the process. And this is exactly what’s happening with the farmer protests.
Of course, this doesn’t invalidate the legitimacy of farmers’ grievances. However, it’s crucial to understand how Moscow is spinning these events for its own ends.
Regardless of the protest movement in question, the Kremlin’s first objective is always the same: Stir up unrest to spread anxiety and discord, and undermine national cohesion. Distracting, and thereby weakening, Western governments in this manner then serves the dual purpose of leaving them less able to cope with Russian threats, while also strengthening extremist parties, which are generally more complacent, even sympathetic, toward Moscow.
In the case of the farmer protests, the Kremlin’s immediate aim is to weaken Western support for Kyiv by overemphasizing certain niche issues — particularly, imports of Ukrainian agricultural products, most notably chicken and grain, into the European market.
After the EU dropped tariffs on specific Ukrainian goods in solidarity with the war-torn country, European farmers complained bitterly, with some French groups taking particular aim at Ukraine’s main poultry producer, MHP. However, the increase in imported poultry from Ukraine has had little practical impact on French chicken farmers, especially given it represents less than 1 percent of the total imports on the French market. Indeed, Ukraine’s chicken imports are taking market share away from other exporting third-country producers — not from European farmers (93 percent of the chicken exported to France is from EU countries).
But considering MHP’s role in Ukraine’s “soft” defense, attacks on the conglomerate may well be no coincidence. At the start of the war, and throughout 2022, MHP was the Ukrainian military’s biggest food supplier, undertaking the role at cost, and to the general population for free. It has also spent €20 million to support the families of its many employees fighting in the trenches since the war began. And as such, the company has become one of the many providers of both physical and psychological support that underpin the resilience of Ukraine.
So, naturally, Moscow has a vested interest in continuing to amplify farmers’ concerns regarding Ukraine by burying the facts under a barrage of disinformation.
But this engineered uproar about chicken falls into a wider pattern of decrying Ukrainian agricultural produce more broadly. Farmers from Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria have been aggressively lobbying their governments to continue bilateral bans on grain imports from Ukraine, ever since the EU let a bloc-wide ban lapse in late 2023. And these farmers have not let up, going as far as “blocking the passage of humanitarian aid, fuel, and food” into the country, and spilling Ukrainian grain.
But while such discord within the bloc has certainly helped Russia increase friction between the national and EU levels, a closer look once again exposes the superficiality of its scaremongering.
In the case of wheat and maize — Ukraine’s two main grain import items — there’s little statistical evidence to support claims of their massive influx into the EU, as their import volumes “were declining from their peaks in Q4 2022 and Q1 2023 already before the introduction of the temporary ban.” These findings shouldn’t be surprising, considering Ukraine’s agricultural goods are largely directed toward third countries and aren’t staying in the EU.
Moreover, the exports issue is but one of many in relation to agriculture and EU-Ukraine relations. For example, Russian trolls have proven adept at linking Ukraine’s potential EU accession to concerns about its impact on European agriculture more broadly, focusing on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and exaggerating prominent misconceptions. But the truth is, Kyiv can’t hope to join the bloc before 2030 at the very earliest, and by that time, the EU will have a new CAP regime. The negotiation process in the run-up to the 2027 expiry of the current framework would be the opportune moment to consider such impact — not now.
And let’s not forget that it will also take Ukraine a long time to get back to its former production levels: The country has suffered an ecocide, and a large part of its land, mined by Moscow, won’t be exploitable again for decades.
Thus, the oft-pushed narrative that Ukraine, which currently has environmental and phytosanitary standards that are less restrictive than those for European agriculture, will lead to unfair competition needs to be put into perspective. Furthermore, this argument is absurd because if Ukraine is to join the European bloc, its agriculture sector will have to apply the same standards as other members. The same will apply to labor costs as well — Ukraine will have to adapt to EU standards, and historical advantages linked to low wages will diminish.
Supporting Ukraine extends beyond providing lethal aid to include bolstering its crucial agriculture sector. Allowing imports of chicken, grain and other products isn’t just a gesture of solidarity but a strategic move to sustain Ukraine’s resistance.
We must see through the Kremlin’s web of lies. And if Europe is to safeguard both Ukraine and its farmers’ interests, policymakers must address farmers’ concerns while also guarding against Kremlin disinformation.