“Please check this information”: Since September, online disinformation attributed to Russia has no longer just consisted of sharing false anti-Ukrainian information, but also directly asking Western media to check it. A huge “diversion enterprise” aimed at journalists, experts warn.
This approach has been dubbed the “Matriochka” or “Russian Doll” operation by the Antibot4Navalny collective, which tracks Russia-related influence operations on X.
For example, an internet user, “Käthe”, commented on a BFM publication about Eiffel. “I see information like this every day. The official media doesn’t talk about it, what should I believe?” she asks.
Within a few hours, this profile equally addresses dozens of French media outlets such as Le Progrès, Paris Match, Mediapart, Le Point, Franceinfo, Le Figaro, RFI, Le Parisien, etc. The account then remains inactive until December 20th: he then sends a graffiti of Zelensky caricatured as a homeless man in Los Angeles, an image that another report will in turn have the media scrutinize, and so on.
The data provided by “Antibot4Navalny” and examined by the AFP makes it possible to document the existence of dozens or even hundreds of profiles that use this strategy of mass media arrest. Most of these are accounts that were abandoned by their owners and then hacked. A sign that these accounts have been taken over by “bots”: the publications sometimes follow each other at a speed of a minute to better flood the networks.
The AFP analysis also found that accounts that ask the media to fact-check false information then spread it themselves some time later.
Thefts in the Paris catacombs by a Ukrainian, embezzlement of military aid to Ukraine, truncated or fabricated Zelensky graffiti and false advertising in Times Square: these publications always incriminate Ukrainians and try to create the idea of weariness towards Europeans and Americans Kiev.
Most of these images were shared for the first time by Russian internet users, particularly on the Telegram social network and news blogs, AFP research shows.
This campaign appears to come in the wake of another, so-called “Doppelganger” campaign, which in recent months has consisted of spreading false anti-Ukrainian information through images that mimic Western media, a campaign clearly blamed on Russia by French intelligence services is attributed, the experts interviewed note by AFP.
“diversion business”
David Chavalarias, a social sciences mathematician and research director at CNRS, sees this campaign as a “distraction enterprise aimed at fact-checkers” to “keep them occupied with broad, hard-to-verify topics.” For the researcher, this operation can also aim to make this false information visible, using it as a relay without his knowledge.
“The aim appears to be to attract the attention of fact-checkers in order to circumvent their work and have tactical and longer-term impact on points in the history of this ongoing conflict” by testing the virality of certain content, adds Julien Nocetti “ The Russians are learning.” “And there is a kind of agility in testing different methods.”
Speaking to AFP, a French security source admitted that he was “not surprised” by this new operation as “the Russians crave visibility and want people to talk about them, good and bad.”
“Battle of Narratives” – The anti-Ukrainian images used in “Matryoshka” were also promoted on various social networks by the same bots that were part of the doppelganger campaign.
In December 2023, a report from Insikt Group, a unit of the intelligence firm Recorded Future, indicated that the doppelganger campaign was still very active on social networks, with at least 800 bots dedicated to promoting false articles posing as Ukrainian media .
In addition, according to the German press on Friday, Germany identified a huge “pro-Russian disinformation campaign” that used thousands of fake X accounts (ex-Twitter) to publish messages harmful to Ukraine and exploited images from German media make.
“Ukraine remains the country most affected by information manipulation – and this is no coincidence,” Josep Borrell, head of European diplomacy, said Tuesday during a press conference on disinformation and foreign interference, conjuring up a “battle of narratives.” .
“Security is no longer just a question of weapons, but a question of information,” he concluded.