'It's craft to speak, art to listen'

Wise words from Oscar Wilde: "It's craft to speak, art to listen,” 

Isn’t that what Pope Francis is trying to do with the Catholic Church, more specifically, with the clerical caste?

Difficult days for Russian BBC journalists

From yesterday’s Guardian newspaper. 

We are living in dangerous times. It’s unnerving.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/04/russian-bbc-journalists-foreign-agents-label?CMP=share_btn_url

Cars, cars, more cars and armaments, worrying days

Chinese car maker BYD topped $100bn for the first time last year after revenues rose 29 per cent.

Tesla’s sales fell for a second consecutive month in February, down more than 40 per cent on the previous year.

The Porsche-Piëch family is exploring the acquisition of a defence company as part of plans to invest up to $2bn and diversify its holdings beyond VW and luxury-car maker Porsche 

What must Harry S Truman be thinking of Donald J Trump?

Isn’t ironic that on this day in 1948 US President Harry S Truman signed the Marshall Plan, handing out $5 billion worth of aid to 16 countries.

Surprising no media outlet has picked up the significance of this on the day that’s in it with President Donald Trump castigating what all his previous post war US presidents have done.

Netflix’s Adolescence tells a tale of our time

Netflix film Adolescence is certainly the talk of the town and understandably.

The four-episode miniseries tells the story of 13-year-old Jamie who kills a schoolmate, stabbing her multiple times.

His parents had no idea what he was doing in his room on his computer into all hours of the night.

But there is much more to it than that. He’s scared he may be ugly, other boys maybe laughing at him and girls might not be interested in him.

What’s his relationship with his father?

There are aspects about the last episode that are difficult to understand. How could mother and father have been so happy early in the day on the father’s 50th birthday.

Jamie’s father is a working class man. What does that say to us about what happened? Would a more middle-class father have got into similar rages, at least in the public place?

Little Jamie is not interested in his Dad’s football, nor is he any good at playing the game. Most of all he likes sketching and drawing. And that too is interesting.

A film well worth a viewing.

A hospital should do the sick no harm

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper 

Michael Commane

Impressions come fast and furiously. The person who answers the door, who sits at the reception leaves their mark on us, for good or bad.

I spent many years working in a hospital and saw firsthand how important the job is. Invariably the receptionist is the first person with whom the patient speaks. We ignore the importance of the job at our peril.

It’s always those little, maybe even insignificant moments of help and kindness, that leave their mark on people. Visitors too get their first feel of a hospital at the reception.

 

I’ve been visiting a patient in north Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital over the last few weeks. I arrive on my fold-up bicycle. Instead of locking it outside I fold it up and ask the receptionist if it’s ok to leave it at the desk. Without hesitation I have always been told no problem and am allowed leave it in an anteroom. In case you ask why not leave it outside, it’s easy to steal parts of a fold-up bicycle. Last Saturday when thanking the receptionist we got into a conversation about the importance of her job. Top marks to those at the reception at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.

And now to the downside. There’s no perfection on this earth of ours.While chatting to the patient I was visiting we decided we’d go for a snack. I wheeled them down to the cafe. This time first impressions were not great, nothing inviting or simply nice about the ambience, no special touch about the place. I imagine it would be easy to make the space attractive. 

We each had a cappuccino. I could not believe the price we were charged. Two cappuccinos in paper cups cost €8.50. Some days earlier I had a cappuccino in an upmarket café costing €3.95. The cup might have been smaller but at least it was a proper cup. 

Anyway, in Beaumont I simply asked for a cappuccino, maybe they did have a smaller size but I was not given the option. Oh, I can hear you say fighting over 30 cent, he has little to annoy him. I don’t think that’s the point. I associate a hospital as somewhere which cares for vulnerable and sick people. It’s a special place, where patients and visitors deserve to be treated with kid gloves. Patients are vulnerable, visitors are anxious and nervous, they too are under pressure. To charge such a price in a hospital simply sounds mean. Maybe the coffee shop is a franchise, if so management should have a word with them about their prices. For that matter is €2.75 a little on the high side for a cup of tea?

People regularly criticise hospital management for car parking fees and again it looks and sounds awful but at least that money is presumably a significant amount of cash that goes back into financing the hospital.

And before I forget: the poor quality of hospital signage right across the State would make a great topic for a doctoral thesis.

Florence Nightingale’s thoughts about a hospital make sense: ‘It may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm’.

RTÉ’s Tommy Tiernan Show at its best

The Three guests on RTÉ’s Tommy Tiernan Show on Saturday night were Martin O’Neill, Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Marti Pellow.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell hails from Lurgan, Co Down, works in Oxford, where she is an astrophysicist or astronomer.

She spoke of how our picture of the universe has dramatically changed over the last 50 years.

Jocelyn subscribes to the Big Bang theory, explaining that the universe is constantly expanding, having started from a tiny ball in a state of extreme unsteadiness.

The Milky Way is our own galaxy. Stars are grouped into galaxies and there are a hundred thousand million galaxies. And probably one hundred thousand million stars per galaxy. One hundred thousand suns.

The Lurgan woman gave the viewer the tiniest of glimpses into the vastness of the universe. It was brilliant television.

Jocelyn is a Quaker and spoke about her belief in the Holy Spirit.

Tommy did not ask her how her faith complements her work as an astrophysicist.

While for the viewer, who knows zilch about the subject, listening to this extraordinary Lurgan woman, one gets the sense there is no contradiction between science and faith in God. But one might well be inclined to scratch one’s head and wonder really was it ever a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday or to miss Mass on a Sunday.

It was the Tommy Tiernan Show at its best.

It’s available for viewing on the RTÉ Player.

A plea to TFI to make public transport quieter

Probably it was in the 1950s and maybe 1960s also, there was a notice on double deck buses in Dublin and Cork that smoking was only permitted on the upper 'saloon'. Years before that there was a notice saying: ‘No Spitting’.

It’s time for Transport For Ireland to place a notice on all buses and trains that passengers/customers must wear headphones if they are listening to their mobile phones.

It’s becoming unbearable on public transport having to listen to non-stop nonsense.

Irish Rail has successfully introduced a ‘Quieter Coach’ on its InterCity trains.

Great confusion as to the remit of CIÉ, NTA and TFI

There was a half page advert in the national press yesterday looking for a new Chief Executive Officer at the NTA, (National Transport Authority).

Until 1987 CIÉ (Córas Iompair Éireann) directly ran all national rail and bus services in the State.

In that year, February 1987, Iarnród Éireann, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann were set up as three separate companies with CIÉ the holding company for all three subsidiaries.

Now we have the NTA and TFI (Transport For Ireland).  What exactly is the remit of all three entities, CIÉ, NTA and TFI?

It is not good for the health of a democracy when people have not a clear idea what statutory bodies do.

Who owns the buses and trains? Who decides on timetables? What’s the role of CIÉ?

What person, who uses buses or trains, has a clue about what all three statutory bodies do?

In fear of being rounded up by the police in the USA

A Dublin woman, now living in the United States with her husband and two adopted children, has instructed her children always to take their passports with them when they leave the house.

The children were born in Asia, legally adopted and are US citizens. The parents are concerned/worried that because of the colour of their skin they could easily be rounded up by the police.

The United States of America in March 2025.

An insight into Trump and his team of incompetents

This from yesterday’s Guardian by Moira Donegan. If she is accurate then the Trump administration is even worse than we could ever have imagined.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/26/trump-signal-chat-middle-east-opinion?CMP=share_btn_url

Michael O’Hare RIP (1957 - 2025)

Michael O’Hare joined the

Michael O'Hare

Dominican Order after his Leaving Cert at Synge Street CBS. On completion of the noviciate in Pope’s Quay in Cork he moved to Tallaght to begin his studies. About the same time his 18-year-old brother died and Michael made the decision to leave the Order. 

I lost contact with him until approximately 2005 when one day I met him outside the offices of Concern Worldwide, where I was working. Michael was the postman in the area. Over a period of 10 years we regularly met. Because both of us were at our jobs when we met, we never could spend too much time chatting. 

But in all that time I never once heard Michael say a negative word about anyone. His smile was infectious. It was impossible to walk away from him without having a spring in your step.

At his Requiem Mass in St Kevin’s Harrington Street yesterday it was made abundantly clear that his smile, positive thinking and genuine care for others was greatly appreciated by the large attendance at his funeral Mass.

Michael died suddenly and unexpectedly last week. And up to that time he was caring for his mother who is in her 90s.

The eulogy was delivered by his brother Bernard and the parish priest Fr Gerard Deighan preached the sermon. Both men spoke in glowing terms about the kindness, love and faith of Michael, who had close links to his parish church, where he read on Sundays and spent some time as a member of  the parish council.

Present in the church yesterday I had no choice but to keep thinking what a loss Michael was to the Irish Dominicans.

On our last time to chat we decided we’d meet ‘shortly’ for a coffee. Unfortunately, it never happened.

Michael died in St Vincent’s Hospital on Sunday, March 12.

May he rest peace.

Irish Rail’s ‘Breaking Barriers’ can be confusing

Irish Rail emailed its followers today. The heading to the email ran: 'Breaking Barriers: Accessibility & Mental Health Awareness'.

Was that an intended pun or someone not awake in the cab?

Barriers is synonymous with level crossings? And then the homophone breaking and braking.

Just a thought.

Urgent need for better behaviour on our roads

This week’s article in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Anyone who reads this column knows that I cycle a bicycle, have been doing so for 70 years with the exception of two years in Rome, where I was simply scared to pedal. But had no problem getting up on the bicycle while living in Berlin or indeed, anywhere else in the world with the exception of Tehran.

I still manage in Dublin but there are places in the city where it is positively dangerous to be in the saddle. 

I’ve a vested interest in cycling and my bias is inevitably with the woman or man on the rothar. However, these days I’m learning and learning quickly the downright arrogance, cheek and misbehaviour of some cyclists.

You may remember last Saturday week was a darling of a day, or indeed a handsome day as we say in Castlegregory. I was a passenger in a car traveling from Castlegregory to Tralee. We came across a group of cyclists, there may have been 10 or 15 of them. 

The N86 Dingle Tralee road is dangerous and busy. The cyclists were bunched together and had no intentions of cycling two abreast, never mind in single file. I’d say we were behind them for a good five minutes. 

Never once did they have the good road sense or manners to break into single file. Had I been driving I think I would have stopped the car and explained to them how dangerously they were cycling. It didn’t appear to me that they were taking part in a race. 

Honestly, I’m tired and sick to my teeth with the lycra gang. I might be completely wrong, but I get the impression they have jumped out of their Beamers and Teslas, fitted into the lycra and must show the world they are the men, the masters of the human race. 

We are forever being reminded by many State agencies of the importance of driving and cycling safely on our roads. People regularly give out about the state of our roads but I am convinced if we behaved as we should our roads would be far safer.

I’m often on the upper deck of buses and I can’t believe some of the bad driving I see down below me. 

Have you noticed how at times drivers are slow to move when the lights turn green? Guess what? I’ve seen only in the last week why this is happening. They are on their phones. 

Bus drivers are forever telling me of the bad behaviour they experience every day: drivers watching videos, electric scooters weaving in and out between traffic at speeds they are forbidden to travel, pedestrians on the phone while crossing the road.

I cannot believe how there are not more fatal and serious accidents on our roads because of the manner in which we are driving, cycling and scooting. And should you say anything, the offending driver or cyclists is most likely to scream and roar at you, women and men.

Can I plead with all of us to drive, scoot and cycle more carefully. Why are there not more gardaí protecting us on the roads?

This is the perfect time of the year to be scooting and cycling. Please, stay safe and enjoy the spring air.

Recalling direct rule in Northern Ireland

On this day, March 24, 1972 direct rule was imposed in Northern Ireland by the United Kingdom Government. Edward Heath was prime minister.

In those first days the nationalist community welcomed the troops.

Cafe at Beaumont Hospital charges €4.25 for a cappuccino

People often complain about the parking fees that hospitals charge. And everything about it looks and sounds mean. It’s catching people at a vulnerable time. On the other hand it helps finance the hospital. Are parking fees at hospitals cheaper than the going rate?

But that a public hospital, indeed, any hospital charge over the going-rate for a cup of coffee looks, sounds and is obscene. 

A cappuccino in Beaumont Hospital costs €4.25. It must be the most expensive cappuccino in Dublin City.

It’s extortion, it’s an abuse, and what a way to treat patients and visitors. Patients, who are able, like to be brought down to the cafe with their visitors.

Management at Beaumont Hospital should immediately talk to the franchisee and see to it that patients and visitors are not being fleeced. Overcharging vulnerable people is invidious. Please stop this abuse now.

 

Today is World Water Day

Try this: Pour yourself a glass of water and stare at it closely. Take a moment to appreciate it. When you’re ready, take a sip and feel how your body willingly accepts it. Be gracious for this experience and acknowledge the fact there are people today who cannot enjoy the same privilege. Finally, pledge your support in making sure that everyone may have access to fresh water in the near future!

More than half of Irish households admit to wasting water even though four out of five know it is important to take steps to conserve it, a new survey has found. Uisce Éireann has asked us to be mindful of our water usage moving into the summer period. 

According to research conducted by B&A polling company on behalf of the utility, some 53 per cent of Irish households admit to wasting water. This is despite 78 per cent of households knowing it is important to try to conserve the resource.

Benedict Gerard Hegarty OP (1937 - 2025) - an obituary

Benedict Gerard Hegarty was

Fr Benedict Hegarty OP

born in Passage West, Co Cork on February 13, 1937. He attended Christian Brothers College Cork before joining the Dominican Order in St Mary’s Priory, Pope’s Quay, Cork in September 1955.

He never lost touch with his old school, CBC, where he was chaplain for a number of years. 

Ben, as he was known in the Order, made simple profession the following year and was ordained a priest on July 8, 1962. 

He did post graduate studies in the University of St Thomas in Rome, while living in the Irish Dominican community at San Clemente. Ben went on to study Scripture in Jerusalem and obtained his LSS degree in biblical studies at the Biblical Commission.

He was regent of studies in Tallaght in the 1970s, finishing in the job in 1981. 

There was a strike in the studentate during his time as regent, which naturally caused stress and division in the community. Like all strikes it was eventually settled but the wounds remained. 

I was only reminded some weeks ago that I attended class on the one-day strike. The strike was not of Ben’s making. During his time as regent he introduced a new style of lecturing. He was always brave enough to search for new and fresh ideas.

He was librarian in Tallaght, which houses the main library of the province.

On one occasion while teaching in Tallaght, the students were tired and bored, Ben sensed it and famously said: ‘...like, I demand enthusiasm’. And he could say it with a flourish with his fabulous voice, with his silver hair swirling in the air. Ben had enthusiasm in buckets.

He also taught at the Mater Dei Institute of Education and at Clonliffe College and lectured the Dominican Sisters of the Cabra Congregation.

While on the teaching staff in Tallaght he was a regular member of the Thursday cycling/walking gang. 

On one of those outings he and I locked our bicycles inside the gates of the Augustinian Priory at Orlagh. When we returned four or five hours later, my bicycle was gone but Ben’s was still there. He looked at me and said: ‘oh, isn’t that grand’. It was anything but. Whatever way he said it, we both laughed and went on our way. After a day’s walking in the hills it was no short walk back to the priory in Tallaght. He had a fabulous way of saying the word ‘grand’. And regularly used it.

He loved being in the hills and it is said he had the walking track in Tallaght worn away to nothing. He kept fit, walking and cycling was his way of doing so as he did not play football. 

He was a heavy smoker. He noticed one day on removing a painting from the wall in his room in Tallaght how clean the space behind the picture was compared to the rest of the room. On seeing that, he was shocked and never smoked again. And his method of giving up the dirty habit was quite amazing, indeed brilliant.

Ben moved seamlessly from academics to pastoral work. He was parish priest in St Dominic’s in Tallaght, where he built up close relationships with the people in the parish. Later he was prior in Newry and Ennismore.  At one stage he was elected prior in San Clemente in Rome but dismissed it out of hand. 

Ben spent some time as chaplain at Tallaght University Hospital, a job he loved doing. He was  dedicated to caring for the sick and elderly.  

He succeeded Fr Gus Doherty as prior in Newry. A few days after his arrival in St Catherine’s, a long-standing member of the Dominican Third Order/Lay Dominicans, said to a member of the community that Fr Ben was a lovely man but unlike Gus, he felt Ben was an ‘epidemic’.

Ben was a voracious reader, he was seldom without a book in his hand and everywhere he lived the walls of his room were filled with bookshelves. On moving in to his room in Newry a local man installed extra shelves. Alas, they were poorly secured and one night, while all were asleep, one shelf, stacked with books, came tumbling down. The late Fr Norbert Barry ran out on to the corridor convinced that a bomb had exploded.

He had a special eye for people on the margins and on a number of occasions he took people under his care, who were generally considered a liability.

He had a lovely touch of affirming his fellow Dominicans. On one occasion he phoned me to compliment me on a newspaper column I had written. I received the call on a Saturday afternoon at Connolly Station. At the time Ben was an elderly man and I was so chuffed that he took the trouble to call. They were the sort of quiet acts that Ben did.

He could easily give the impression of being ‘terribly gránd’, but in reality and in his soul he was anything but. Ben was a man without a hint of airs and graces. 

While he was prior in Ennismore he was greatly appreciated by the wider community and introduced many new forms of ministries. He was upset when the province decided to close and sell Ennismore. He rightly saw Ennismore as one of our flagship apostolates.

Ben was a kind man, a scholar, who wore his scholarship easily. He was a class act, a character, the sort of Dominican who would have the ability today to inspire and impress those who have little or no time to talk and think about God.

On hearing of his death a parishioner in St Dominic's wrote: "Those who were privileged to be in Fr Ben’s company always left with a new piece of knowledge of Christ and the Scriptures. He will be remembered by all in St Dominic’s (Tallaght) for his care and devotion and  his role as chaplain in Tallaght Hospital”.

May he rest in peace.

Benedict’s body will be lying in state in St Mary’s Church, Pope’s Quay, Cork tomorrow, Friday, March 21 from 4pm to 6pm, followed by Vespers.

Funeral Mass in the church on Saturday, March 22 at midday, followed by burial at St Joseph’s Cemetery, Ballyphehane.

Benedict Gerard Hegarty OP, RIP

Dominican priest Benedict Gerard Hegarty died today at Care Choice Nursing Home, Montenotte, Cork.

An obituary to follow. 

May he rest in peace. 

Is it bogus to talk about the faith of our ancestors?

It’s easy to criticise, we all do it from time to time.

In The Irish Catholic of March 12 Fr Chris Hayden is given three pages of the newspaper. What exactly is Fr Hayden saying? Has it something to do with the demise of faith in Ireland? 

I have worked for over eight years as a hospital chaplain, have been around the block many times, working in different jobs, engaging with many people over 50 years. 

Administering Holy Communion on Ash Wednesday this year, I ran out of hosts, so broke one in two. I gave the last half to a woman who grew up in a ‘holy’ Ireland. When she realised she was receivng half, she asked me where the other half was. Maybe that tells the true story of where we have been with our faith at least this last 100 years. 

Someone else asked for a second helping of ashes, not to take away but for his own forehead.

What’s the difference between that and the examples of so-called non-faith Fr Hayden mentions in his writing in The Irish Catholic?

Fr Hayden talks about liturgical freefall, what exactly is that?

In any attempt to inspire people towards the mission of the Gospel story it can never make sense to patronise or preach down to us. 

Doubtful we are less Christian today than 65 years ago

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

I’m interested in words and how we put them together. I’m forever casting my eye over adverts, whether on billboards, on buses, wherever. I’m regularly intrigued by the meanings of words and how new words enter the language. 

The dictionary definition of gentrification is the process whereby the character of a poor urban area is changed by wealthy people moving in, improving housing, …… The word has been on my lips these last days. 

A new fashionable café has opened near the estate where I live. The queues have been out the door. All I can see in the neighbourhood is people walking about with delicacies in paper bags emblazoned with the smart café logo.

Sixty five years ago who in Ireland knew what a latte or a flat white was? But that same 65 years ago there was a successful petition to the then CIÉ, to provide a Sunday bus service to the same estate to bring people to Mass in their parish church.

I imagine the majority of people drinking flat whites and lattes today are not regular Mass goers. I’m wondering could one say that moving from the church to the café is another aspect or element of gentrification? But I think it’s accurate to say that 65 years ago our churches were visited by a cross-section of Irish society. 

The majority of women and men, rich and poor, young and old were attending church services. Churches in poor parishes were as busy as churches in rich parishes. Indeed, at the time, the church was a place where rich and poor felt they belonged. That has changed in the era of the coffee shop. While the clerical sex abuse scandals have not helped church attendance it is only part of the story.

Has it something to do with gentrification, something to do with style and fashion or something to do with faith and belief?

How much of our lives is decided by the prevailing fashions, opinions and styles? I think far more than we realise. 

We talk about people losing their faith. What actually does that mean? What exactly was the faith of the people 65 years ago? Are people genuinely further away from God today than they were 65 years ago? I keep thinking, no we are not. To say anything about God, the dissimilarity is greater than the similarity. It’s easy and lazy to use clichéd language about God. 

Fashions and styles have changed. Our way of expressing our faith and belief has changed. I look at gentrification with a jaundiced eye. 

I’m inclined to laugh at the nonsense that surrounds it. And at the same time I also look with a jaundiced eye at those who bemoan the loss of our faith. I don’t for a moment believe we are any less Christian today than we were 65 years ago. 

Today we wrap it up in a different type of package. Whatever about the current style being right or wrong I certainly don’t want to go back to the bleakness and control of 65 years ago.

Guess what, right now there seems to be a growing new nostalgia for the church of 65 years ago. It’s confusing, worrying too.

Blessings and happiness to readers on St Patrick’s Day

 ‘Words must be weighed, not counted’

- The late Fr Ronan Drury, longtime editor of The Furrow.

A blessed and happy St Patrick’s Day to all readers of this blog.

But for the good St Patrick the writer of this blog could easily have found himself in prison in the former German Democratic Republic on March 17, 1985.

Putin is undermining the west through propaganda

Lara Marlow in the weekend edition of The Irish Times. What Russian Television did is scary.

Soldiers from the German Bundeswehr knock on the door of a typical German house and tell its inhabitants: “You are aware of the terrible war in Ukraine and how horrible life has become for people there? We must take all your belongings and send them to Ukraine.” In the video, which went viral in Germany, the soldiers pack up the family’s belongings. When they have emptied the house, they salute a photograph of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, saying “Heil Zelenskiy”.

The video was made by RT, the state-owned Russian international news network, using actors with impeccable German accents. “I don’t know what the impact was, how many people believed it, but it was a crass example of fake news produced by Russia to manipulate our public opinion and turn it against Ukraine,” says Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven, a former head of Nato intelligence and former German ambassador to Poland.

Von Loringhoven recently published Putin’s Attack on Germany: Disinformation, Propaganda, Cyberattacks with the German media scientist Leon Erlenhorst. “Our central thesis is that Germany is the main target in Europe of Russia’s information war,” he says.

Germany is targeted because of its prominence in Europe, and what von Loringhoven calls its “track record of pacifism and sympathies towards Russia”. He traces the latter back to the success of Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik. Later, Germany’s good relations with Mikhail Gorbachev led to reunification and helped end the cold war.

Putin was determined to reverse Russia’s cold war defeat, but Germany clung to its illusions. The German term Putinversteher – literally, “Putin understander” – became a derogatory term for Germans who were soft on the Russian dictator.

In an address to the Russian Academy of Military Science in 2013, Gen Valery Gerasimov, the chief of staff of Russia’s armed forces, emphasised “the importance of controlling the information space and the real-time co-ordination of all aspects of a campaign.”

Hybrid warfare

Western analysts have been parsing the Russian concept of hybrid warfare, which combines military and non-military means, ever since.

Putin’s Russia has, von Loringhoven says, sought to undermine western power through a vast campaign of disinformation and sabotage.

Russia uses Doppelgänger websites – near identical replicas of well-established media, filled with pro-Russian content – to manipulate public opinion in western countries. Articles from these fake websites are then spread by bots. It usually takes a digital forensics expert to notice the fraud.

“Content is sent in pulses, 24/7,” says von Loringhoven. “Humans would not spread information that way on social media. In the end you have a massive, one-sided accumulation of pro-Russian, pro-Kremlin content. This is not media freedom.”

Russia used such methods to favour the election of Calin Georgescu, an ultranationalist, pro-Russian candidate, in Romania’s presidential poll in December. US vice-president JD Vance portrayed the election’s annulment as a violation of freedom of expression.

NewsGuard, a US company which rates the reliability of online information, reported this month that the Russian website Pravda has infected the outputs of leading western artificial intelligence systems with 3.6 million articles containing Russian disinformation and propaganda.

Von Loringhoven says western societies must do more to protect themselves from Russia’s hybrid warfare. Regulation, he stresses, does not mean censorship, but “giving context to content”. Rather than take down misleading or inflammatory content, the platform should indicate its origin and stop one-sided amplification of narratives. Authorities should react early to disinformation campaigns, before they become viral, and raise public awareness of Russian methods of manipulation of the internet and social media.

Western governments should retaliate with facts, not lies or fake news. “For example,” says von Loringhoven, “Russia does not tell its people the real cost in dead and wounded of the war in Ukraine. We have those figures.”

Facebook, X and TikTok have all been linked to Russian disinformation campaigns. “The regulation of social media platforms is extremely important, because this is now the main battlefield,” von Loringhoven says.

The EU’s Digital Services Act, which is intended to prevent distortions of free speech, is vehemently opposed by Trump and his tech executive allies. “The EU and US have fundamentally different opinions on this, and we are going into a conflict,” says von Loringhoven. “I am very much in favour of not backing down.”

On February 28th, the day Trump and Vance humiliated Zelenskiy in the Oval Office, the cybersecurity reporter Martin Matishak reported in The Record that Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, had ordered US Cyber Command to stand down from all planning against Russia.

“I cannot understand this at all,” says von Loringhoven, “because there is very clear evidence that Russia has been manipulating the US in many ways, through social media platforms and the internet. To protect American democracy, it is vital to fend this off.”