Russian internet trolls are discrediting Ukraine in the EU
The American publication The Washington Post gained access to EU intelligence documents, revealing that Russian political technologists and internet trolls launched a campaign to discredit Ukraine in order to hinder the approval of aid for Kyiv.
Journalists analyzed over a hundred documents created between May 2022 and August 2023, consisting of internal correspondence of individuals involved in the disinformation campaign. According to these documents, the Kremlin in France and Germany is exerting significant efforts to weaken support for Kyiv and destabilize the situation within Ukraine itself.
The metadata of the documents suggest they were produced by a team working for Ilya Gambadze, the head of the Moscow PR company Social Design Agency. In March, the United States imposed sanctions on Gambadze for his participation in a “foreign malicious influence campaign” at the direction of the Russian government.
Journalists also cited examples of tasks given by one of the political technologists to a bot farm employee, including writing comments that America should spend money on protecting its own borders, not funding the war in Ukraine; and that “Americans are not ready to sacrifice their well-being for a conflict in Ukraine,” among others.
According to The Washington Post, the Kremlin seriously focused on undermining American support for Ukraine in January 2023.
