January 2025
Since 2022, when coordinated campaigns with artificially generated content were registered during the war in Ukraine, the use of artificial intelligence in information wars has stopped being an experiment. It has become an instrument of power. By 2025, AI has become an integral part of conflicts in the Middle East, Caucasus, and the Balkans. Digital propaganda is not communication anymore. It is the code that defines behavior, emotions, and decisions.
The Balkan information space acts as an open-source system without a firewall. Fragmented media, low levels of trust in institutions, and strong historical narratives are setting up a suitable stage for the spread of propaganda to new generations. In these systems, algorithms are becoming new intermediaries of power. They do not transmit messages – they code them. The geopolitical narratives of grand powers are being encrypted into local topics, from “defending the tradition” to “resistance to global structures”. This is an encryption of power in real-time.
Artificial intelligence is no longer used for the automation of campaigns. It models consciousness. The systems for discourse and sentiment analysis enable algorithmic politics – precision targeted, adaptive, noiseless. In low-intensity conflicts, such as the ones in Gaza or Nagorno-Karabakh, AI is already defining the sentiment of the public, calculating reactions, and altering content long before human attention can register the change. The border between the truth and simulation is becoming a technical parameter, and not a moral category.
Deepfake technologies represent the most dangerous form of this process. Simulated statements of leaders, footage that seems authentic, imagery that causes panic – all this is creating a reality that is faster than the real one. The platforms are reacting slowly. Detection algorithms are late. In crises, even a few hours of lagging are enough to permanently change the perception. The information space is becoming a battlefield with no return.
The geopolitics of digital influence functions under the principle of a distributed network. The US, China, and Russia have developed their own models of algorithmic policies. The Russian model uses emotional polarity and disinformation. The Chinese one constructs a controlled narrative of positive order. The Western models offer a counter-code – narratives based on “factual reconstruction”. In the Balkans, all these models intertwine. Platforms, under different influences, are combining real and simulated content, using local actors as transmission nodes. Rhythms of disinformation are far faster than the rhythms of fact-checking.
In more than 40% of analyzed campaigns carried out in 2024, we have recognized the AI signature — generated texts, graphics, and video footage distributed through real networks. The digital sovereignty of the region is practically nonexistent. The Balkans are the testing zone. Weak regulations, limited verification abilities, and high political fragmentation are making it an ideal laboratory environment for testing new propaganda protocols.
Mid-2024, the European Union adopted the AI Act, but its implementation in the region remains slow. The Baltic countries are already adopting mechanisms for monitoring information flow in real time. Contrary to that, the Balkans are still reacting post festum. We need a regional center for digital resilience – nodes that connect technical analytics, regulatory framework, and intelligence assessment. Prevention must take the place of reaction. The transparency in the state’s use of AI systems is becoming an issue of security, not ethics. If the argumentative policies are used unattended, the border between state communication and manipulation is diluted. The loss of trust becomes a strategic risk.
In January 2025, it is clear that digital propaganda is not a media phenomenon but a security parameter. AI accelerated the evolution of disinformation, but at the same time, it discovered weaknesses of democratic societies – slow adaptation, institutional inertness, and digital naivete. For the Balkans, situated in between the networks of grand powers, the key question is not how to control information, but how to preserve trust.
In the era of encryption of power, the truth is not a fact anymore, but a process. And the one who controls the algorithm also controls the perception of reality. The future conflicts will be led not with tanks, but with codes – silent, precise, self-taught.
Author: Aleksandar Stanković