FIMI, short for foreign information manipulation and interference, is the European Union's term for coordinated efforts by foreign states, or groups acting for them, to distort what people see and share. The EU's diplomatic service, the European External Action Service (EEAS), defines it as “a mostly non-illegal pattern of behaviour that threatens or has the potential to negatively impact values, procedures and political processes”. In practice, that can mean networks of fake accounts that make a fringe view look popular, or websites dressed up as real newspapers. The aim, according to International IDEA, is usually to erode trust in elections and the media and to deepen divisions that already exist.

The scale is considerable. In its latest annual threat report, the EEAS recorded 540 FIMI incidents in 2025, affecting more than 100 countries. The UK was the target of 36 of them, and the report lists it among partners that were “frequently attacked”. The EEAS attributed 29% of all incidents to Russia and 6% to China, and most of the rest showed signs of links to Russian or Chinese networks.

Where the term FIMI comes from

FIMI is a European term. The EEAS developed it and has published a FIMI threat report every year since 2023, alongside a toolbox of responses that includes sanctions. The language has since spread beyond Brussels. The UK government mostly speaks of “foreign interference”, but Foreign Office sanctions papers now use the EU term too, describing the Russian group Rybar as running “FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference) activity”. The EU's foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, put the stakes bluntly in March 2026, calling FIMI “death to democracy by a thousand cuts”.

How is FIMI different from disinformation?

Disinformation is false or misleading content, and anyone can spread it. FIMI is about behaviour: who is running a campaign, and how they coordinate and disguise it. Nicolas Hénin of the research group EU DisinfoLab sums it up in one line: “not all disinformation is FIMI, and FIMI is not only disinformation.” A FIMI campaign can mix false claims with material that is accurate but selectively chosen, and it may aim to confuse or divide people as much as to persuade them. The term is also narrower than disinformation in one respect, since it only covers foreign actors.

FIMI in practice: Doppelgänger, Storm-1516 and Moldova

Russia's Doppelgänger operation is the best-known case. Researchers at EU DisinfoLab first exposed it in 2022, finding fake copies of outlets such as The Guardian and Der Spiegel carrying pro-Kremlin stories. Social media users were steered to these lookalike sites through links in posts. In October 2024 the UK sanctioned the Social Design Agency and Structura, the Russian companies behind the operation, saying they had built “a web of at least 120 sites spoofing existing news and government websites”.

Another Russian network, known as Storm-1516, produces videos making false claims of corruption against European politicians. These are spread through social media and through websites that impersonate real media outlets. The EEAS calls it the only network of its kind capable of “infiltrating authentic public debates”. In December 2025 the UK sanctioned the Centre for Geopolitical Expertise, a Moscow think tank it says coordinated support for the network.

Russia's operations in Moldova are a case of one campaign being reused across several elections. Before the country's 2024 presidential election and its referendum on joining the EU, Russia campaigned against President Maia Sandu and her pro-European policies, spreading its messages through a network of Telegram channels and websites. According to a 2026 working paper by Finland's Crisis Management Centre, Russia then used the same network again for Moldova's parliamentary elections in September 2025. Kaja Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, estimates that Russia spent “between two and three hundred million euro” funding pro-Russian voices in the country.

How AI is changing FIMI

In 2025, 27% of the incidents the EEAS detected involved AI, from synthetic audio to fully generated videos impersonating real people. Some operations now target the chatbots themselves. The EEAS suspects a Russian network called Portal Kombat of “flooding the information space with low-quality multilingual content in an effort to influence AI training data”, a tactic known as “LLM grooming”, after the large language models behind tools such as ChatGPT.

What counts as foreign interference in the UK?

An independent review for the government concluded in March 2026 that “foreign interference in our politics is real and persistent”. Under the National Security Act 2023, foreign interference is a criminal offence carrying up to 14 years in prison. The conduct must be intended to have an “interference effect”, such as manipulating how people take part in politics. It must also use illegitimate means, such as “making a material misrepresentation” or coercion, on behalf of a foreign power. According to the Home Office, the offence captures “state backed disinformation and information operations”.

The EU's definition, though, describes FIMI as “mostly non-illegal”. A foreign state that amplifies real grievances through accounts that do not hide who runs them may be manipulating debate without committing a crime. Much of what the EEAS counts as FIMI therefore appears to sit outside the reach of criminal law, which is why governments rely more on sanctions and on publicly exposing the networks involved.

How Britain is responding

Since October 2024, the UK has sanctioned 106 people and organisations it holds “responsible for delivering Russia's information warfare”, including 56 in a single round in May 2026. Evidence from Europe suggests sanctions can bite. When the EU banned the Russian broadcaster RT in March 2022, visits to its websites from search engines fell by 100% and visits from social media by 70%, according to a July 2026 review by NATO's Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence. RT soon worked around the ban with mirror sites, and the same review admits that “we know remarkably little about what counter-FIMI interventions are effective.”

In September 2026 the Prime Minister announced a National Centre for Information Defence to “detect, attribute and disrupt” hostile state information attacks. The examples he gave, including bots, fake websites and forged branding, fit the EU's description of FIMI closely. The government has not yet said how the centre will work, but its hardest task looks likely to be acting against manipulation that is legal without policing lawful speech.

Is FIMI a useful label?

Not everyone thinks FIMI is a helpful term. Because the definition covers legal behaviour that harms “values”, critics worry it could be stretched to cover opinions that governments dislike. The NATO review also notes that rules aimed at foreign manipulation have faced “accusations of censorship”. The line between foreign and domestic is blurred too. International IDEA, which runs a programme on election-related FIMI, observes that once local actors take up a foreign narrative, “they quickly cease to be strictly foreign.” Attribution is also difficult, as the large share of unattributed incidents in the EEAS's own figures shows.

Frequently asked questions

Is FIMI the same as cognitive warfare?

No, although the two overlap. FIMI, the EU's term, looks at what foreign actors do and how they do it, while cognitive warfare, NATO's term, looks at the effect on how people think and decide. Our guide What Is Cognitive Warfare? explains the difference.

Which countries are behind FIMI?

The EEAS links more incidents to Russia than to any other country, followed by China. In Britain, the government's Rycroft Review cites security briefings that warn of “elements of the Russian, Chinese and Iranian states”.

How can you spot FIMI?

Look at how content behaves as well as what it says. Warning signs include clusters of new accounts pushing the same message to make it look popular, and websites that copy a familiar news brand under a slightly different web address. International IDEA's explainer lists fake accounts and fabricated content disguised as news among the most common tactics.