A cache of leaked documents has exposed what investigators describe as a coordinated Russian influence campaign stretching across Europe, involving acts of vandalism, disinformation operations, and efforts to sway elections in former Soviet states.
The files, obtained by journalists and shared among a network of European media partners, detail dozens of operations planned and executed by a Russian public relations firm that has faced sanctions from the United States, Britain, and the European Union for previous influence campaigns. The documents also show direct involvement by officials from the Russian Presidential Administration.
Among the most striking operations detailed in the leak was a September 2025 attack on nine mosques and cultural centers in and around Paris, where severed pig heads marked with the word “Macron” in blue ink were left outside their entrances. Three Serbian nationals were later convicted in their home country for carrying out the attacks, with a court finding they had acted under the direction of Russian intelligence structures.
The leaked documents provide internal planning records for that operation, including photographs of the prepared pig heads that had not previously been made public. According to the files, a six-person team arrived in Paris on September 7, conducted reconnaissance the following day, carried out the attack overnight, and then left the country. The documents boast of widespread international media coverage of the incident.
Other operations recorded in the leak include a coordinated campaign of vandalism against synagogues and the Holocaust Museum in Paris, where green paint was splashed on buildings, and the placement of plastic skeletons at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Court documents in Serbia found the goal was to incite religious and national intolerance and destabilize public order in France and Germany.
A separate operation involved hundreds of pro-Armenian stickers appearing across Paris on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day in 2025, which according to Serbian court records was designed to inflame tensions between Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in France.
The documents also shed light on planned operations that either did not materialize or went unreported. One such plan outlined the desecration of a Paris monument to Charles de Gaulle, to be carried out in a manner intended to make the perpetrators believe they were acting on behalf of Ukraine. Another unrealized operation involved launching sex dolls into the Seine River bearing anti-migrant messages.
Beyond vandalism, the leaked files detail influence operations targeting elections. A media outlet focused on the Armenian diaspora in Russia was to be used to shape the outcome of Armenia’s parliamentary elections, which are widely seen as a test of whether the country will continue its shift away from Moscow’s orbit. The outlet was tasked with generating negative coverage of the incumbent prime minister while promoting candidates aligned with closer ties to Russia.
Other documents describe disinformation campaigns targeting Ukrainian leadership, including false claims about property purchases abroad, and provide internal acknowledgments of fact-checks that later debunked these narratives.
Security experts who reviewed the leaked material described it as evidence of a pattern of reckless escalation by Russian influence operations, noting that the true impact may take years to fully materialize.