🧵 Russia’s transnational influence operations: The Netherlands as an information distribution environment 1/8 · Why the Netherlands matters After Ireland, the Netherlands is the next useful case study in Russia’s European influence ecosystem. This week we watched accounts across Europe and elsewhere repeat: "I am [nationality], living in [country], and Russia is not my enemy." That matters because on 1 September, the official Russian Embassy in The Hague had already published "Russia is not my enemy", alongside Dutch/Russian imagery and #NietOnzeOorlog. By 24–25 September, essentially the same formulation was circulating through Dutch, Swedish, British, Polish, German, Belgian, Italian, Portuguese and other accounts on X. That does not establish that every participant is Russian-directed. It does give us a narrative pathway worth tracing.

2/8 · This is not speculation: Dutch intelligence documents Russian influence operations AIVD and MIVD describe Russia as conducting continuing disinformation, espionage, sabotage and covert influence operations against European states, including the Netherlands. The AIVD says Russia uses events inside the Netherlands to push narratives favourable to Moscow. Demonstrations are then magnified through Russian state media and social media to create the impression that Western opposition to NATO or support for Ukraine is much larger than it actually is. The services also report Russian approaches to European parliamentarians, both openly and covertly, and say Dutch MPs and MEPs have been briefed about the threat of Russian covert influence. This is the official Dutch intelligence assessment, not social-media speculation.

3/8 · Russia already has Dutch-language distribution infrastructure Russia does not need every amplifier to be a Russian troll. The Pravda/Portal Kombat network already operates Dutch-language information infrastructure designed to recycle and distribute Kremlin-aligned material. Justice for Prosperity’s investigation of the March 2026 Dutch municipal elections found that the network amplified Dutch political material selectively. FvD and Thierry Baudet appeared in 288 articles, considerably more than other Dutch parties. Importantly, researchers did not conclude that FvD was being directed by Russia, nor that Russian activity decisively affected the election. The mechanism is more subtle: take domestic political material compatible with Russian strategic narratives, amplify it, and feed it back into the Dutch information environment.

4/8 · The Russian Embassy itself is now part of that ecosystem This month Justice for Prosperity analysed 200 posts from the Russian Embassy in The Hague. It assessed roughly 40% as displaying characteristics associated with foreign information manipulation and interference, while about 45% directly addressed Dutch domestic affairs. The account reportedly accumulated around 20 million views in ten months. JfP also documented Dutch domestic amplification. It found that Jan Bennink, a podcast maker associated with Ongehoord Nederland, had shared Russian Embassy material more than 50 times across two accounts. The embassy also interacted with him. That is significant because modern influence operations do not necessarily require Moscow to invent a story. Russian state actors can identify existing grievances, amplify sympathetic domestic voices and push the resulting material back into the information space.

5/8 · Netherlands as a transit point We have already seen how quickly foreign disinformation can move through Dutch networks. Ahead of Germany’s 2026 elections, a forged Politico video entered the Dutch information environment through dissident.one and Dutch-language Telegram channels. Justice for Prosperity reports that one resulting X post exceeded three million views. This is important operationally. The pathway was not simply: Russia → Dutch public. It was closer to: foreign influence operation → apparently independent distributor → Telegram/alternative media → X → European audiences. That layered distribution obscures the original source while allowing the narrative to acquire the appearance of independent domestic confirmation.

6/8 · Now look at this week’s "Russia is not my enemy" wave One highly visible Dutch amplification point this week was Brian Geertshuis, whose official FvD profile identifies him as the party’s faction leader in Hengelo. fvd.nl/gemeentes/hengelo Geertshuis quoted a Swedish account saying: "I’m Swedish, living in Sweden, and Russia is not my enemy". He changed it to: "I am Dutch, living in the Netherlands, and Russia is not my enemy." At the time captured, his post had reached roughly 156,000 views, 749 reposts and 3,900 likes. Then came the variants: "I am Polish…" "I am German…" "I am English…" "I am Belgian…" "I am Portuguese…" "I was born in Kyiv, I live in the USA…" One participant even tagged the Russian Embassy in the Netherlands directly. What we are documenting here is cross-border narrative amplification. Bear in mind that the responses do not prove that Geertshuis or every account reproducing his post was being coordinated by Russia. However, I will add this, I challenged Brian's assertion that russia was not his enemy, and he asked for sources. When I provided sources from his own government, he then blocked me, and the replies to my reply started to fill up with spam insults and denials from a secondary amplification layer of trolls from various countries, which does suggest some level of coordination...

7/8 · The network effect is more interesting than any single account This is where the pattern we saw in Ireland, and also in my next thread on Sweden becomes relevant. An account pushes a narrative. Larger accounts amplify it. Smaller accounts reproduce it. Quote-posts translate or nationalise it. When challenged, additional accounts may enter the conversation, dispute sources or redirect the argument. In the interactions we monitored this week, secondary and tertiary accounts appeared from the Netherlands, Canada, Britain and elsewhere after factual challenges were made. That behaviour is not sufficient by itself to prove central coordination. But repeated convergence by the same accounts across separate conversations would be a meaningful network indicator. The questions are therefore: Who repeatedly amplifies whom? Which accounts consistently arrive together? Which URLs, images and narratives recur? And does the same cluster appear around unrelated pro-Kremlin campaigns? That is how an amplification network is distinguished from a single viral political post.