Operation Zorro: Russian special services begin destabilizing Cyprus ahead of elections
Updated: 2 days ago
A covert phase of the parliamentary election campaign has begun in Cyprus. It is being waged not through party programs and debates, but through Russian-language propaganda and street leaflets.
On October 2, 2025, the pro-Kremlin website Cyprus Butterfly published a manifesto calling for an “uprising” against the Cypriot authorities. The day before, leaflets with the same text had been handed out in Nicosia on behalf of a mysterious movement called Zorro Cyprus, which is linked to the organization Δημοτική Κίνηση Πολιτεία (Politeia). Linguistic analysis shows that the text was first written in Russian and then translated into Greek. It bears every sign of an information and psychological operation run by Russian intelligence.
In Cyprus, an election season normally opens with statements from party leaders, candidate lists and campaign slogans. In 2025 things are going differently.
On October 1, Cyprus Independence Day, leaflets calling for a “popular uprising against corrupt politicians” appeared in Nicosia. The very next day Cyprus Butterfly, a Russian-language portal known for its closeness to the Russian embassy and for openly pushing Kremlin narratives, posted a Russian translation of the full leaflet, adding that “activists of the Zorro Cyprus movement distributed thousands of copies.” The paper copies carry the ZORRO CYPRUS logo. It is the only “signature” under the text.
Here is the full text as Cyprus Butterfly published it:
“Presidents of the Republic of Cyprus, prosecutors, ministers, judges, police chiefs, members of parliament, senior officials, bankers — all of you, old and new. All of you who have spent decades destroying our Cyprus stand accused of betraying Cyprus and its people. Through your pretensions and inaction, your ignorance and corruption, you have driven the citizens of Cyprus to ruin, despair, hopelessness, poverty and even suicide. Because of you, hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of destitution. For years you have put your friends and relatives into key posts — posts that decide the economy and the fate of the whole nation. You have people who are utterly incapable of governing us, people without ambition, without purpose, without patriotism, leading the nation nowhere. You never pay for a single mistake or act of negligence; you make us pay for your stupidity, your blunders, your mismanagement and your theft. But one day you will answer for it. Even those who do nothing and sit in their posts with their mouths shut to keep their status are just as guilty.
Today Cyprus’s national debt looks manageable because we keep earning money from selling our land. But when that stops and the bubble bursts, we will face what Greece has already faced. The creditors will want their money, the ‘troika’ will cut wages and impose pension taxes on everyone, even those close to power, and state institutions such as EAC and CYTA will be sold off. In effect we will stop being an independent state and will be ruled by others. That is the goal: that is why they lend us billions and urge us to keep borrowing until the crash comes. And then what, Mr. President?
In 2013, with a national debt of only 13 billion, Cyprus was rated ‘junk’ and slipped out of the top three at the last moment. Today the debt has reached 27 billion. This new ‘bubble’ is not a stock-market shock or a simple haircut. It threatens the people with complete ruin and poverty.
We are the only country in Europe that has suffered a cut to deposits and securities. Even today, with all our land sales, ‘golden passports’ and billions lost on shares, we remain the worst economy in Europe. And as if that were not enough, $10 billion has been stolen from our social insurance funds.
If we do not react now, it will be too late. It is not enough for 10, 20 or 50 thousand people to take to the streets — that would be a failure. We must all come out: 800,000 citizens, children, students, parents and grandparents. We demand justice, the condemnation of everyone who brought us to this chaos and, above all, a change to the Constitution.
No one can be above the law and justice — no minister, no judge, no president.
Cypriots — Greeks, Pontians, Maronites, Armenians: rise up! Get up from your chairs so you can look your children in the eye. They are drinking your blood; they are ruining your children’s lives.
Young people, students, where are you going? What are you doing? Remember how fifteen-year-olds took to the streets against the English conquerors. Children sacrificed on the gallows, executed by a cruel empire — and still they rose up so that you could be free and independent today. And you? You bow your heads before a few hundred idlers? Before the Freemasons, before the politicians who grow rich and commit crimes against you without ever being punished. Drug dealers are killing our children; they are in the government, in the parties.
You see them every day. They voted to ban protests. They fired at the foundations of democracy. Do not just stand and watch. Do not become accomplices. Rise up! The only thing they know how to do is raise their own salaries illegally! Money for corruption? Yes. For the people — not a cent!
But we will not stay silent! Cyprus is our homeland, our home, and it is our duty to defend it. Cyprus is not France, Greece or America. We can make sure they have nowhere to hide, that they are ashamed to leave their homes. Enough fatalism!
Our children deserve a future. They deserve to live with dignity, to have a family, to build and create.
The worst is yet to come if we do nothing. But we can change the course of events! Justice may be gone, but power is in our hands. (When the law does not serve justice, justice should not serve the law.) Our courts are second in Europe for delays in hearing cases.
As Papaflessas would say: ‘Have heart! Have faith! Rise up! Act! For yourself, for your children, for your children’s children! If not, stay where you have been kneeling like cowards all these years.’
Cyprus could be one of the richest countries in Europe under a fair and honest government. Those whose mistakes, inaction and blunders harm the Cypriot economy and its people must be punished. We demand that all scandals be exposed, including the archives of the last twenty years, and that a European mechanism take over oversight. We demand the return of everything stolen and the conviction of those responsible.
ZORRO is you! Free from parties and organizations, a defender of justice and of Cyprus.
Together we will win. There are 800,000 of us and 400 of them!”
The manifesto uses a whole set of techniques familiar from the destructive information and psychological operations of Russian intelligence: an exaggerated picture of crisis, appeals to national pride, a call for a general uprising, and accusations of corruption and of driving people into poverty.
Where the authors accuse the Cypriot authorities of looting the social insurance funds, they give the sum as 10 billion dollars. Dollars, not euros. The detail looks minor, but it gives a lot away: no Cypriot writing about the country’s own economy would count in dollars here. The text was written not by Cypriots but by people used to thinking in American currency — most likely Russians.
The manifesto promises to punish the elites, to “change the Constitution” and to “return everything that has been stolen.”
The text is a classic agitation pamphlet aimed at the Cypriot political elite and calling for an uprising. It is not a political program. It is an emotional tool for destabilizing the country.
After studying the linguistic markers, structure and vocabulary of the manifesto, language experts concluded that the leaflet was originally written in Russian and later translated into Greek.
Based on stylistic, syntactic and semantic features, and on how emotionally charged words are used, the experts estimate the language of origin as follows:
Russian — 75%
Greek — 10%
English — 15%
The emotional vocabulary — “they drink your blood,” “destroyed our Cyprus,” “Freemasons and drug dealers in power” — is typical of Russian propaganda. It always relies on hyperbole, demonization and the search for an external enemy. This time, apparently through an oversight, the authors forgot the usual “culprits of all evils”: the Jews and the cyclists.
The syntax and sentence structure follow patterns found in RT and Sputnik agitation material. Vocabulary, morphology, style — everything points to Russian origin.
Conspiracy clichés such as “the EU/IMF troika” and “selling the homeland to the West” are a reliable sign of Russian propaganda writing. The order of phrases and the rhythm of the text are obvious calques of Russian propaganda texts.
The text is a clear attempt to manipulate public opinion. It uses the classic tools of Soviet and Russian agitprop: emotional appeals (despair, children’s blood, shame before future generations), a split between “us” (the people) and “them” (elites who are traitors, corrupt officials, Freemasons, drug dealers), historical analogies (the struggle against British colonial rule) and calls for mass action (an uprising of all 800,000 citizens).
The goal is to destabilize the country.
As the experts point out, in genre terms this is a political manifesto meant to stir up humiliation, resentment and anger and to whip up protest. Its syntax and stylistic markers look like calques of Russian propaganda material.
Almost identical texts, in the same style and with the same set of manipulation techniques, circulated before Moldova’s parliamentary elections in September 2025. There they were part of Moscow’s push to get pro-Russian candidates into parliament and to discredit the government.
Now Russian intelligence is running exactly the same scenario in Cyprus.
The aim is plainly to set up a “Cyprus People’s Republic” on the island, which would of course be a Russian puppet. As usual with Russian intelligence, the work is done through local proxies and a fifth column: the large and very influential Russian-speaking diaspora, together with the Cypriots it has recruited.
Then would come what the Kremlin wants so badly. The “new people’s government” would take Cyprus out of the European Union, close the British military bases and open Russian ones. It would restore direct flights to Russia, scrap visas for Russian citizens and start handing them Cypriot passports en masse. Very soon Russian intelligence and organized crime would take over the island and run it on the Kremlin’s behalf.
The same psychological techniques, in exactly the same kind of manifestos, were used on the eve of the invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014 and before the full-scale war of 2022.
The destabilization scheme Russian intelligence has used in other countries is being copied in Cyprus down to the last detail: build a sense of apocalypse, proclaim “people’s power,” split society, and offer yourself as the “protector” against threats from outside and within. A classic.
In essence, the manifesto is part of a hybrid operation by Russian intelligence, designed to push society toward a change of government in Cyprus and to shift the country’s political course.
In practical terms, the operation aims to promote pro-Russian candidates under the banner of “fighting corruption”; to create “popular movements” such as Zorro Cyprus as cover for a seizure of power by force; and to prepare the ground for Cyprus to leave the EU, loosen its ties with NATO and replace the British bases with Russian ones in the name of “independence.”
Leaflets like this are more than agitation. They are a weapon of hybrid war, meant to undermine trust in the authorities, intimidate the elites and polarize society. The message could not be clearer: if you do not obey your “elder Russian Orthodox brother,” we will replace you with our own people.
For Cyprus, which has lived through the 2013 economic crisis, a string of corruption scandals and hard reforms, a provocation like this could end in disaster. It could bring political chaos, mass unrest and a divided society. That is always what Moscow wants, because it gives Moscow more leverage over the country. Turkey would not stand aside either and would certainly exploit political instability in Cyprus.
The Zorro Cyprus leaflet, and the publication of its text on a website controlled by Russian intelligence, is no coincidence. It is a carefully built Moscow technique for interfering in Cyprus’s internal affairs.
Russian intelligence always uses the same method: appeals to “popular anger,” emotional slogans, demonization of the elites and the promise of “justice” through a change of power by violence and chaos. What we are seeing now is the first stage of an operation to destabilize Cyprus. Before the parliamentary elections there will be many more such operations, with the same goals and different methods. Moscow is doing everything it can to take full control of the island.
Cyprus has become the latest target in Moscow’s chain of hybrid operations, after Georgia, Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and the Czech Republic. Parliamentary elections give Russian intelligence and its agents of influence inside the country an ideal moment to replace the current government in Nicosia with people loyal to Moscow.
Russia is posing a deadly challenge to the people of Cyprus and to Cypriot democracy.
