Kremlin's ‘cocaine' chaos: How Macron's tissue was twisted into a propaganda attack

The Age

13-05-2025

This would all be laughable – if it weren't part of a very real and deliberate strategy to discredit European leadership and fracture the public's trust in Ukraine's allies. In this information war, the Kremlin isn't chasing truth, but traction.
Paris's new posture reflects an overdue recognition: the old playbook – ignore and rise above – no longer works when lies travel faster than truth. Macron's team is done letting ridiculous rumours metastasise unchecked.
What may have once been dismissed as beneath response – claims about Macron's sexuality, his wife's gender, George Soros-fuelled puppet strings, or Zelensky's imaginary yachts – has had measurable consequences.
French intelligence says Russia's GRU military agency has ramped up cyber warfare, targeting Europe's information landscape, not just to surveil, but to seed chaos.
These fabrications often find their way across the Atlantic, where they mutate into tools of US domestic sabotage. A Russian-originated rumour that Zelensky used US aid to buy yachts was repeated by elected members of Congress during critical debates over Ukraine's military funding. That delay cost Ukraine battlefield advantage. The lie became policy.
So while a tissue on a table might seem innocuous – or even funny – it fits squarely into the Kremlin's broader strategy: ridicule, delegitimise, destabilise.
Zakharova's Telegram post – long, unhinged and characteristic of her social media screeds – recycled old tropes about Zelensky being a drug addict. Now she claims a 'Western diplomat' told her that cocaine is standard fare among European elites.
It is classic Russian propaganda: sexually charged, drug-laced and always heavy with innuendo. Less intelligence brief, more high school rumour mill. But it works because it is relentless.
The French, after years of restraint, are now leaning into a counter-disinformation strategy that calls lies what they are – and shows receipts. It's not about arguing on the Kremlin's terms, but undercutting their theatre of absurdity with surgical clarity.
This is more than a public relations pivot. It's a recognition that digital warfare is no longer a future threat – it's happening in real time and it shapes perceptions faster than traditional diplomacy can catch up.
Zakharova didn't pull this claim from nowhere. She built on posts by anonymous pro-Russia bloggers on Telegram, many of whom specialise in doctoring footage and crafting narratives that appeal to anti-elite sentiments across the West.
These stories spread in fringe corners first – but like so many before, they can be legitimised with a single quote from a Russian official, and then laundered into mainstream discourse by bad-faith actors and conspiracy-curious commentators.
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One French-language pro-Kremlin account quipped, 'Coke is going to take decisions on the third world war.' As satire, it's dull. As strategy, it's effective.
The diplomatic train trip that sparked the controversy – bringing Macron, Starmer, Merz, and others to Kyiv to meet Zelensky – was in fact a powerful symbol of European unity.
The leaders stood shoulder to shoulder, pledging fresh sanctions and urging a ceasefire. Russia's answer was to reduce it to a farce, hoping that distraction would win out over diplomacy.
But Paris is no longer playing along. The new doctrine is call it early, call it clearly, and don't dignify it with a delay.