{"id":5147,"date":"2026-05-30T10:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T07:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/factcheck.lt\/?p=5147"},"modified":"2026-06-02T13:23:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T10:23:44","slug":"eu_belarusian_media_april2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/factcheck.lt\/eng\/news\/eu_belarusian_media_april2026\/","title":{"rendered":"How Belarusian State Media Talked About Its EU Countries: April 2026","raw":"How Belarusian State Media Talked About Its EU Countries: April 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Monitoring of 9 EU countries in three clusters: the Baltic States, the Weimar Triangle and the Visegrad Group.<\/i><\/p>\n

TL;DR: From the Baltics and Weimar to the Visegrad Group<\/strong>This monthly monitoring issue continues to monitor how Belarusian state media cover European Union countries, but for the first time expands the analytical framework to include the Visegrad Group (V4): Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia. The occasion was the GLOBSEC 2026 conference and the shift in the center of gravity of Central European policy, which Belarusian state propaganda could not ignore.<\/p>\n

Poland is analyzed in two cluster contexts simultaneously. It remains a pivot point of the Weimar Triangle, along with Germany and France, and is also a member of the Visegrad Four. This is not double counting, but rather two analytical lenses: the same materials about Poland are read differently depending on whether they are viewed alongside Western European partners or alongside Central European neighbors.<\/p>\n

The analysis is based on 3,843 unique materials from ten state sources for April 2026, of which 1,433 were subjected to in-depth analysis using a language model. Opposition media and media in exile were excluded from the sample, as their content is contradictory and, if combined, would distort the picture of state propaganda.<\/p>\n

Key findings<\/strong><\/p>\n

France remains the most frequently mentioned country by volume (1,223 materials), followed by Germany (1,044) and Poland (802). However, the volume of mentions and the intensity of propaganda are two different things.<\/p>\n

The main result of the month was the dominance of the narrative of the European Union’s internal division. This framework, in which individual countries are presented as “voices of reason” against the “Brussels dictate,” turned out to be the second-largest category in the entire dataset (211 materials) and the most prevalent in the Visegrad cluster. Of the 1,433 materials analyzed, 592 (41.3 percent) were classified as high risk.<\/p>\n

Emotional tonality of the array:<\/strong>483 articles were negative, 464 were openly hostile, and only 102 were positive. TASS was cited in 87 articles, remaining the primary conduit for relaying Russian state narratives.<\/p>\n

Three clusters, three different strategies<\/strong><\/p>\n

A comparison of the three clusters reveals not a difference in intensity, but a difference in the very logic of the attack. The Baltic states are subjected to a monotonous military attack. The Weimar Triangle is facing a diversified attack without a single dominant narrative. The Visegrad Group is being attacked in a fundamentally different way: here, the narrative of internal EU division is unconditionally dominant.<\/p>\n

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The Visegrad Group is attacked through the narrative of the EU’s internal division (177 materials), far outpacing militarization (97). Instead of portraying its neighbors as a hostile military bloc, propaganda uses them to demonstrate that the European Union is divided from within. Hungary and Slovakia play the role of “sensible” states in this construction.<\/p>\n

Narrative profiles of the Visegrad countries<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each V4 country has its own profile. Poland is the most balanced, with no dominant narrative. Hungary is sharply tilted toward EU division. Slovakia is focused on energy. The Czech Republic received the least attention.<\/p>\n

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