How does the Far Right on Telegram instrumentalise environmental protests?

<jats:p>The analysis explores how far-right Telegram channels instrumentalize opposition to the Rio Tinto project and lithium mining in Serbia to amplify their pre-existing nationalist and anti-Western narratives. Although environmental concerns serve as the entry point, for most of these actors environmental protection is not an end, but rather a tool for delegitimizing the opposition, the government, civil society, and the West, as well as for mobilizing citizens through emotional, apocalyptic, and often inflammatory rhetoric. Such instrumentalization has direct harmful consequences for environmental activists, as it contributes to their delegitimization, increases pressure on them, and creates space for them to be portrayed as a security threat. At the same time, the analysis finds no evidence of organizational or ideological links between local environmental initiatives and far-right groups; instead, it points to an external instrumentalization of legitimate civic discontent.</jats:p>