List of abbreviations  v

List of figures and tables  v

Executive summary  vi

1 Introduction  1

2 Conceptualisation of hybrid warfare in the context of EU enlargement: Conceptual apparatus  3

3 Patterns of Russian interference: Exploiting the vulnerabilities across the Western Balkan countries and the Eastern neighbourhood  6

4 Russian hybrid interference: Exploring the tactics - discussion of individual instruments and their use in empirical context  13

4.1 Covert and illicit political financing  13

4.2 Disinformation, propaganda and information space  14

4.3 Legal and constitutional obstruction via proxy elites  17

4.4 Energy, economic and oligarchic leverage  18

4.5 Cyber operations and technical sabotage  19

4.6 Security-sector penetration and support for proxy violence  20

5 Russian hybrid interference in practice: Comparing Georgia, Moldova and Serbia  23

5.1 Moldova: Elections as a laboratory of hybrid interference  23

5.2 Georgia: Internalising the Russian authoritarian playbook  25

5.3 Serbia: Hub, hybridisation and partial escape  26

5.4 Lessons from the three cases  28

6 The EU response to Russian hybrid interference and its effectiveness  29

6.1 EU's response on the ground in enlargement countries  29

6.2 Assessing the effectiveness of the EU's response  31

7 Conclusions and recommendations  33

Bibliography  36