{"id":31260,"date":"2026-08-07T11:23:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T11:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/?p=31260"},"modified":"2026-08-07T11:23:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T11:23:34","slug":"backpedaling-and-fabrication-how-russian-state-media-invented-a-fake-eu-statement-to-cover-up-the-ceuta-hybrid-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/?p=31260","title":{"rendered":"Backpedaling and Fabrication: How Russian State Media Invented a Fake EU Statement to Cover Up the Ceuta Hybrid Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Caught red-handed orchestrating a malicious disinformation campaign to fuel the migrant surge in Ceuta, the Kremlin has resorted to outright fabrication. Following high-level EU confirmations\u2014reported by <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.berlingske.dk\/politik\/eu-saa-tegn-paa-russisk-hybridkrig-under-migrantstroem-til-ceuta?referrer=RSS\">Berlingske<\/a><\/em> and <em><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2026\/aug\/04\/eu-criticises-spain-migrant-plan-ceuta-crisis-meeting\">The Guardian<\/a><\/em>\u2014detailing how Moscow weaponized social media to destabilize Europe and disrupt Algerian gas routes, Russian state media panicked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Propaganda outlets rushed to push a fabricated narrative claiming the European Commission found &#8220;no Russian footprint&#8221; in Arab social networks, falsely attributing this quote to EC spokesperson Guillaume Mercier. In reality, Mercier never made such a statement. On the contrary, EU officials confirmed they are actively tracking these hybrid attacks, noting that the operational investigation into the border breach is being handled directly by Spanish law enforcement. A textbook case of creating a crisis and manufacturing lies to cover the tracks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Caught red-handed orchestrating a malicious disinformation campaign to fuel the migrant surge in Ceuta, the Kremlin has resorted to outright fabrication. Following high-level EU confirmations\u2014reported by Berlingske and The Guardian\u2014detailing how Moscow weaponized social media to destabilize Europe and disrupt Algerian gas routes, Russian state media panicked. Propaganda outlets rushed to push a fabricated narrative [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,55,1,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-politics","category-uncategorized","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31260"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31262,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31260\/revisions\/31262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsreporters.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}