At the launch of a report on Russian and Serbian disinformation in Kosovo, speakers said the country’s media and institutions are struggling the respond to fake news, which is becoming increasingly hard to detect due to AI.
Disinformation spread by Russian state-backed media is increasingly visible on social media and websites in Kosovo, a report published on Friday by BIRN Kosovo and Internews Kosova says.
“Mapping Disinformation: Russian and Serbian Narratives in the Media and on Social Networks in Kosovo” highlights growing attempts to exert influence on the media in Kosovo and the weak institutional and legal capacity to respond.
The report analysed thousands of Russian media articles and tens of thousands of links shared by Kosovo-based online platforms and social media networks.
Jeta Xharra, director of BIRN Kosovo, explained that “aim of this project was to produce a map of the disinformation in Kosovo, by mapping out how disinformation is distributed”.
The report traces the dissemination of disinformation in Kosovo, taking as a sample four Kremlin-controlled media outlets that produced 1,323 news items about Kosovo from September 2025 to February 2026. Data was also extracted from 150 online platforms and social media accounts in Kosovo, with over 20,000 suspicious links produced during this period. A total of 2,361 articles were selected for in-depth analysis.
Kreshnik Gashi, editor-in-chief of BIRN Kosovo and Internews Kosova’s publication, Kallxo.com, one of the report’s authors, said much of the disinformation that reaches Kosovo originates from Russian state-linked outlets and is then republished or adapted by Kosovo media outlets and social media.
The report highlights the growing vulnerability of Kosovo’s media sector, which is increasingly exposed to external content due to financial crises and limited resources. “In less than six months, over 1,300 articles funded by Russia – mainly from Sputnik and Russia Today – were produced,” Gashi said.
The articles are disseminated via “official [Russian] state media [Sputnik, Russia Today] and alternative proxy platforms, including networks such as Project Pravda, often using AI-generated translations and distribution through messaging platforms, like Telegram,” he noted.
Project Pravda, also known as Portal Kombat, is a network of websites that push Russian propaganda. According to the report, such content frequently enters Kosovo’s media ecosystem through unclear or unattributed sources, sometimes in edited or translated form.
“The aim is to undermine security and provoke tensions, particularly inter-religious ones,” Gashi said, noting that minor incidents are often reframed as ethnically or religiously-motivated attacks.
Report co-author Visar Prebreza said: “The Kremlin continues to show interest in everyday events in Kosovo but frames them through a disinformation lens. Russia exploits existing tensions and acts as a catalyst for increasing distrust and intolerance.”
Prebreza explained that “even a traffic accident can be portrayed by Kremlin-linked media as ‘torture’ by the government of Kosovo against ethnic Serb citizens, suggesting systematic persecution”.
Speaking at the report’s launch, the British ambassador to Kosovo, Jonathan Hargreaves, warned that disinformation is becoming harder to detect, particularly with the rise of AI-generated content.
“This report gives us a call to action, both for the benefit of people in Kosovo and the wider continent. A dramatic finding I think is that nearly 40 per cent of these are generated by AI, deepfakes,” Hargreaves said. He added: “A while ago, we thought, ‘we know when this is fake’ – I think we are far past that point.”
Albulena Haxhiu, speaker of Kosovo’s parliament, said the traditional architecture of information distribution has been eroded, with content now circulating through fragmented and often unregulated channels.
“The distinction between news, interpretation and manipulation has become increasingly blurred,” she said.
Source: BalkanInsight
