I. Introduction

Last year, French intelligence services discovered that at least 49 fake articles had been published on cloned versions of Le Parisien. The goal was not simply to spread false information, but to erode public support for Ukraine by making readers doubt what they were reading. This operation was one visible manifestation of a broader and more sophisticated phenomenon: the growing convergence between Russia and China in the field of cognitive warfare.

This article argues that Russia and China now operate with a clear division of labour in cognitive warfare. Russia specialises in metapolitical disruption and the production of cognitive fog, while China focuses on long-term narrative construction and elite capture. Together, they create a synergistic effect that exploits existing ideological blind spots and selective moral frameworks in both Western societies and the Global South.

Over the past year, this convergence has become more structured. TASS and Xinhua signed a formal five-year cooperation strategy running through 2030. RT deepened its ties with China Media Group. Gazprom Media and National Media Group concluded parallel agreements with their Chinese counterparts. These were not isolated deals. They reflected a growing strategic convergence in the information domain.

Cognitive warfare refers to the deliberate contest for control over how reality is perceived, interpreted, and acted upon. Unlike traditional propaganda or psychological operations, it targets the mechanisms of perception and judgment themselves. It seeks to shape the interpretative frameworks through which societies make sense of events, rather than simply persuading people of one particular viewpoint.

This article examines that convergence. It draws on NATO doctrinal developments, documented media cooperation agreements from 2025, and two contrasting empirical cases — France and Brazil — to show how cognitive warfare operates in practice and why it represents a structural challenge rather than a purely tactical one.

II. Conceptual Foundations: Cognitive Warfare and Cognitive Distortion

Cognitive warfare refers to the deliberate targeting of perception, interpretation, and decision-making processes in order to shape strategic outcomes without necessarily relying on kinetic force. It operates upstream of visible conflict, targeting belief structures, interpretative reflexes, and collective representations that precede political action.

A central mechanism here is what I call cognitive distortion : the structured fragmentation of reality through selective framing, emotional hierarchization, and moral simplification. The goal is to generate adherence rather than genuine comprehension. Unlike crude propaganda, distortion does not rely primarily on outright falsehood. It works through contextual omission, selective amplification, narrative asymmetry, emotional saturation, and moral polarization.

The result is structural disorientation. People feel informed, yet lack the architectural coherence needed to integrate information into a stable analytical framework. Distortion is effective precisely because it reduces cognitive load while increasing emotional intensity. It simplifies complexity without appearing to suppress information. In this sense, confusion often proves more efficient than silence.

Cognitive warfare must be distinguished from psychological operations (PSYOPS). While PSYOPS primarily target beliefs and attitudes, cognitive warfare seeks to alter the very mechanisms through which perception and judgment are formed. It treats the human brain and the social processes of meaning-making as strategic terrain — what some doctrines describe as the human domain.

This domain has been formally recognized in transatlantic strategic thinking as a distinct operational environment. The objective is no longer simply to win battles, but to structure interpretative environments. Political sovereignty without cognitive sovereignty — the capacity of institutions and populations to preserve analytical autonomy, resist induced polarization, and maintain interpretative coherence — becomes increasingly fragile.

III. The Russian Model: Metapolitical Disruption and Cognitive Fog

Russia’s approach draws on deep historical roots: Soviet active measures, maskirovka, and the theory of reflexive control. In the contemporary period, these traditions have been updated through state media (RT, Sputnik), content farms, and sophisticated digital operations such as Doppelgänger.

A particularly influential vector has been the work of Aleksandr Dugin. Since the early 1990s, Dugin has cultivated sustained relationships with the the French Nouvelle Droite (often referred to as the GRECE). He invited de Benoist and Robert Steuckers to Moscow in 1992. His journal Elementy was explicitly modelled on the French review Éléments. In 2012, he publicly described de Benoist as “the foremost intellectual in Europe today.”

This influence is metapolitical. It does not primarily spread discrete falsehoods. It shapes the conceptual grammar through which certain political positions become thinkable. As I have analysed elsewhere, this dynamic has contributed to a red-brown temptation in certain Western intellectual circles: a convergence, in the name of anti-Americanism, between segments of the identitarian far right and the anti-imperialist left. Anti-Americanism functions as ideological glue that dissolves moral responsibility and absolves allied regimes.

Russia’s digital operations complement this intellectual work. Between February and June 2023, French services (VIGINUM) documented at least 49 fake articles published on cloned versions of Le Parisien, alongside imitations of Le Monde, Le Figaro, and 20 Minutes. The operation sought to undermine French support for Ukraine and amplify narratives of Western decline. These efforts create immediate disruption; Dugin-style metapolitics provides longer-term interpretative legitimacy.

IV. The Chinese Model: Long-Term Narrative Construction and Elite Capture

China’s approach is more patient and constructive. It draws on the doctrine of the Three Warfares (psychological, media, and legal), expanded under Xi Jinping into a broader cognitive domain. The emphasis is less on immediate disruption than on gradually shaping the international information environment so that a China-centred order appears legitimate, stable, and morally preferable to Western hegemony.

China invests heavily in elite capture, united front work, academic partnerships, and economic leverage. It integrates artificial intelligence and big data for micro-targeting and narrative calibration. Its objective is to make its preferred interpretative framework — multipolarity as historical justice, the West as declining hegemon — appear as common sense rather than propaganda.

China rarely engages in the crude cloning operations favoured by Russia. Instead, it provides the economic and institutional infrastructure (BRICS, investment, trade) that makes pro-Chinese or non-aligned positions materially and politically rewarding for local elites.

V. Narrative Synergy: How Russia and China Amplify Each Other

The most significant development since 2022 has been the acceleration of direct media cooperation between Russia and China. During Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow in May 2025 and Vladimir Putin’s visit to Beijing in September 2025, at least a dozen formal agreements were signed. TASS and Xinhua adopted a five-year strategic cooperation plan for 2026-2030. RT concluded memoranda with China Media Group. Gazprom Media, National Media Group, and VGTRK signed parallel deals.

These agreements create infrastructure for narrative synergy. Russia supplies disruptive, emotionally charged content that polarises and delegitimises Western positions. China supplies the broader framework of “multipolarity” and Global South solidarity that offers a seemingly constructive alternative. The result is a division of labour: Russia creates cognitive fog; China offers cognitive order.

This synergy is particularly effective because it exploits pre-existing vulnerabilities rather than creating them from scratch. It amplifies selective outrage, moral asymmetries, and ideological blind spots already present in Western and Global South societies.

VI. Two Empirical Cases: France and Brazil

France: Metapolitical Subversion and Digital Cloning

In France, Russian cognitive warfare has operated on two interconnected levels. Intellectually, Dugin’s long-term engagement with the Nouvelle Droite has helped legitimise a multipolar, anti-hegemonic grammar that relativises Russian actions in Ukraine and presents the West as the primary source of global disorder. This has contributed to a red-brown convergence in certain intellectual and alternative media spaces, where anti-Americanism serves as the lowest common denominator.

Simultaneously, Russia has conducted large-scale digital operations. The Doppelgänger campaign, documented by VIGINUM in July 2023, created cloned versions of major French newspapers and published at least 49 fabricated articles in the cloned Le Parisien alone, plus additional fakes in other titles. These articles pushed narratives designed to erode French support for Ukraine and amplify perceptions of Western hypocrisy and decline.

China has remained more discreet in the French digital space. However, certain intellectual relays influenced by Duginian frameworks have begun to echo Chinese talking points on Western decadence and the legitimacy of a multipolar order. The combination produces a layered effect: immediate disruption from Russian operations, longer-term conceptual reframing from both Russian metapolitics and Chinese narrative infrastructure.

Brazil: Economic Interdependence and BRICS-Mediated Amplification

In Brazil, the dynamic is different but complementary. China is Brazil’s largest trading partner. This structural economic interdependence creates powerful incentives for political and media elites to adopt cautious or favourable language toward Beijing. The vocabulary of multipolarity and South-South solidarity provides a convenient narrative frame that justifies close relations while downplaying concerns over human rights or Chinese expansionism.

Russia compensates for its weaker economic footprint through targeted media partnerships. TV BRICS has established concrete distribution and content-sharing agreements with several Brazilian outlets, including Brasil de Fato, Metropoles, Brasil 247, and TV Cultura. These partnerships allow Russian or co-produced content to circulate under the respectable banner of “BRICS cooperation” or “plurality of viewpoints.”

During the war in Ukraine, a significant segment of Brazilian coverage — particularly in left-leaning and alternative media — adopted framings that echoed Russian narratives: the conflict as “provoked by NATO expansion” or as a “European war.” This was not the dominant position in mainstream outlets such as Folha de S.Paulo or O Globo, but it was prominent enough in influential alternative spaces to shape parts of the public debate. Lula’s own positioning as a potential mediator, combined with Brazil’s BRICS membership, provided institutional cover for this narrative ecosystem.

The synergy is clear. Russia supplies the disruptive, anti-hegemonic content. China supplies the economic and institutional framework (BRICS, trade dependence) that makes such content politically and economically functional. The result is a symmetrical cognitive distortion: the same event is interpreted through radically different moral and causal grids depending on whether one operates within a Western or a BRICS/multipolar interpretative framework.

VII. Strategic Implications and Recommendations

The convergence described above poses three primary challenges to democratic institutions and societies in the Global South.

First, decision vulnerability. Distorted informational environments affect elite decision-making as much as public opinion. Policymakers operating with fragmented or selectively framed information are more likely to miscalculate.

Second, regulatory and reputational exposure. Narrative framing can alter compliance landscapes, sanctions interpretation, and the perceived legitimacy of partnerships.

Third, erosion of cognitive sovereignty. When interpretative frameworks are increasingly structured by external actors, formal democratic procedures can persist while analytical autonomy erodes.

Resilience cannot be limited to cybersecurity or fact-checking. It requires strengthening cognitive resilience through education in narrative literacy and bias recognition, protecting intellectual and media spaces from metapolitical infiltration (particularly the red-brown temptation and selective outrage mechanisms), improving attribution and transparency regarding foreign media partnerships, and developing targeted cooperation between democracies and like-minded partners in Latin America and the Indo-Pacific.

VIII. Conclusion

China and Russia are not merely coordinating in the information space. They are developing a synergistic model of cognitive warfare that combines Russian disruptive capacity with Chinese long-term narrative construction. This model exploits existing fractures — ideological blind spots, moral asymmetries, and the fragmentation of shared interpretative frameworks — rather than creating them from scratch.

The first sovereignty that must be defended in the twenty-first century is no longer solely geographical. It is cognitive. Societies that lose the capacity to maintain analytical autonomy and interpretative coherence will find their political sovereignty increasingly hollow, regardless of their formal institutions.

The response required is therefore not only technical or military. It must also be intellectual and metapolitical: a deliberate effort to restore conceptual rigour, reject easy syncrétismes, and defend the possibility of shared, evidence-based interpretative frameworks against the strategic production of structural disorientation.