Russian propaganda efforts are leveraging European Union companies to spread disinformation across the continent. The campaign, known as “Doppelganger,” has been operating for two years, exploiting the infrastructure and reputation of EU-based firms to disseminate fake news and manipulate public opinion.
At the heart of this operation are several key EU companies, each playing a crucial role in the propaganda chain.
In the United Kingdom, a web of shell companies has been established to manage the campaign’s online presence. One such firm, TNSecurity Ltd – with Miss Berezina Anastasija as a director, registered at 124 City Road in London, hosts hundreds of domains used in the disinformation effort. Similar companies, including DPKGSoft International and Netshield, have been set up using stolen identities of young individuals from Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, often using the same London address.
German company Aurologic, based in Langen near Frankfurt, has been identified as a critical link in the propaganda network. Aurologic’s owner, Joseph Hofmann, expressed surprise when confronted with evidence that his company’s infrastructure was being used to redirect traffic to fake news sites. “We are not aware of any customer supporting the campaign,” Hofmann stated, highlighting the challenge of monitoring client activities in the hosting industry.
In Finland, a subsidiary of German hosting giant Hetzner plays a pivotal role. Four domains crucial to the Doppelganger campaign’s redirection mechanism are hosted on Hetzner Finland Oy’s servers in Tuusula, north of Helsinki. These domains serve as a bottleneck for the entire operation, filtering and redirecting traffic to the final fake news sites.
Estonian tech firm Apliteni OU has also been implicated. Their software, Keitaro, is used in the final stage of the redirection process, determining which users are shown the propaganda based on their geographic location.
The involvement of these EU companies provides a veneer of legitimacy to the Russian disinformation campaign, making it harder for social media platforms and authorities to detect and block the content.
Despite sanctions imposed by the EU on some individuals behind the campaign, including Russian firms Social Design Agency and Struktura, the use of European companies has allowed the operation to continue largely unimpeded.
European authorities appear to be struggling to address the issue. The Estonian Consumer Protection and Technical Regulatory Authority admitted that “the technical nuances require further investigation on our part,” indicating the complexity of the problem.
The investigation raises serious questions about the vulnerability of EU digital infrastructure to foreign manipulation and the challenges of enforcing sanctions in the interconnected world of internet services.
As the Doppelganger campaign continues to operate, utilizing EU companies as unwitting accomplices, it underscores the urgent need for greater oversight and cooperation between tech companies, hosting providers, and government authorities to combat sophisticated disinformation efforts.
