Russia's hybrid war in Italy: from sabotage to social radicalization

Russian war can enter Italy without a drone crossing the border. This is the scenario on which Italian intelligence has been working for some time: not a direct military attack, difficult to imagine without triggering much wider consequences and calling NATO into question, but a more subtle, opaque pressure, difficult to attribute. A "hybrid" war capable of shifting the axis of tension from Eastern Europe to the Mediterranean.

The goal is to wear out from the inside. Affecting trust in the European Union, weakening Western support for Ukraine, fueling divisions and radicalization. It is on this terrain that the apparatus attributable to Moscow have built an increasingly complex strategy in recent years: sabotage, hostile information and kinetic actions, energy and economic leverage, political interference, espionage, disinformation campaigns, cyber attacks and support for extremist political groups.

And it is precisely the Mediterranean that widens the field of threat. Here cyberattacks, influence campaigns and exploitation of migratory flows can become just as many tools to exert pressure on the European countries on the Southern front, including Italy. The conflict thus changes geography and means: no longer just the eastern border, but the more distant European societies, their institutions and their internal fragilities.

But one of the most delicate games is now being fought inside phone screens. In recent months, attention has focused on sites, bloggers and influencers, in some cases almost unknown to the general public, but capable of spreading manipulated information and increasingly extreme content on social media. The most sensitive terrain is that of the very young.

There is a dossier that is worrying. Among children still of school age, there is a growing spread of radical ideas spread especially through TikTok by influencers who convey far-right and pro-Russian positions. The point is not just the political message. It's the mechanism: extreme content, polarization, progressive distancing from democratic principles. A pressure that does not pass through official structures and for this reason it can become more difficult to read and intercept. A spotlight has been shone on this phenomenon.