@Meta 🧵On foiled Russian op targeting Europeans around Russia’s war in Ukraine & the US ahead of the midterms:
In Europe, Russia mostly targeted Germany, France, Italy, Ukraine, UK w/ anti-Ukraine narratives via a sprawling network of 60+ websites impersonating legitimate news orgs.
@Meta#Russia's op began in May. Over 60+ websites IMPERSONATING legitimate news outlets—incl Spiegel, The Guardian, Bild—Russians posted original articles criticizing #Ukraine & Ukrainian refugees, supporting Russia, and arguing Western sanctions on Russia would backfire. per @Meta
@Meta#Russia would then promote their propaganda articles on fake websites impersonating legitimate news orgs with original memes & YouTube videos on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Twitter, petitions websites Change.org & Avaaz, and even LiveJournal.
In 7 languages.
@Meta As Meta blocked the fake websites, #Russia set up new ones, suggesting "persistence & continuous investment in this activity across the internet." They operated in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian. Russian embassies amplified some content on Facebook.
@Meta#Russia's large complex op was a combination of sophistication & brute force: Spoofed websites & many languages showed technical & linguistic investment. But also had crude ads & detectable fake accts. Together, "an attempted smash-and-grab against the information environment."
@Meta Russia's anti-Ukraine op:
▪️Facebook: 1,633 accounts, 703 Pages, 1 Group
▪️Instagram: 29 accounts
▪️Advertising: $105,000 in spent on ads on Facebook and Instagram, in US dollars & Euros
It's infuriating that Russia can still buy ads on Facebook/Insta after 2016. WTF imho.
@Meta#Russia built an echo chamber of fake mini-brands across the internet to post, re-share, like anti-#Ukraine content in 7 languages. Accounts on different platforms made each look more legitimate & amplified each other. Fake engagement, layers of fake entities boosting each other.
@Meta Russian op: Petition in German on change[.]org demanded Germany stop its “unacceptable generosity” toward Ukraine's refugees. Content said sanctions on Russia caused rising prices & accused Ukrainian migrants of theft, vandalism, prostitution, violence, not paying for train tix🤦🏻♀️
@Meta This is nuts: Pages of Russian diplomatic missions in Malaysia, Sweden, Hungary, Slovakia & Bangladesh shared links to the fake sites.
#Russia's embassies are just grotesque #propaganda operations (& grotesque espionage ops). There's gotta be a better way to deal w/ them online.
@Meta By July Russia's focus was Germany—trying desperately to get Germans NOT to support Ukraine. Fake 🇷🇺websites spoofed 🇩🇪mainstream news orgs & portrayed Ukraine govt & armed forces as criminal & corrupt, Russia as victim of Western aggression, sanctions as perilous to Europeans.🙄
@Meta#Russia's fake news sites mixed real content w/ disinformation. Copying the appearance of the Guardian—EVEN its cookie
acceptance page—they posted an article accusing Ukraine of staging the #Bucha massacre, using a real Guardian photo & timestamp of the actual Guardian article.😡
@Meta Russia's operation coordinated across many languages, publishing fake about Bucha on the same day in English on fake Guardian site, in Italian on fake ANSA site, in German on fake Spiegel site. It also appeared in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese on rrn[.]world.
@Meta Meta says #Russia's op was more indirect on sanctions, but um not very. Videos would start out focusing on economic problems but end by linking them to EU sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine: “For the good of Germany, the sanctions against
Russia must be lifted.”
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😮#Russian#mobilization: A man shot the head of the draft enlistment office in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk, Russia. Early reports said the military commissar was killed, but witnesses now say he survived.
Here’s the video of the man opening fire in the military recruitment (#mobilization) office in Ust-Ilimsk, Irkutsk, #Russia. The head was reported to have died from his wounds, but other reports say he survived.
(Via @Andrew__Roth)
Russia’s Theater of the Absurd Propaganda at the UN today was sparsely attended. Seems few are interested in listening to war criminal Lavrov justify genocide in Ukraine.
😂Lavrov's flip-the-script propaganda diatribe at the UN was peak absurd Russia. He said the US forced countries to join in anti-Russia sanctions—w/o giving them the "freedom of choice." "That's not a democracy but dictatorship," and US dictatorship is trying to destroy Russia.🤣
Holier than thou Russian officials love to use the language of democracy, to slam democracies' flaws & to pretend that Russia is more democratic🙄
Isn't Lavrov embarrassed to put on this absurd propaganda show, after his war made🔮clear that Russia is a genocidal criminal state?
Can this be called "voting"?? Russia-installed "election commissioners" accompanied by heavily armed militants go door-to-door to homes of people living under military occupation to collect "ballots."
Russia's sham referendums are a grotesque perversion of a free & fair election.
Russia makes such a mockery of democracy—the core of which is elections, freedom to choose, the dignity choosing gives ppl & the accountability it imposes on govt. Putin's "referendums" remove choice & results are predetermined. Door-to-door armed intimidation completes the sham.
Russia's sham referendums are even more grotesque when you realize Putin's using them to make Ukrainians under military occupation human shields, to intimidate Ukraine from fighting for its land, while making Ukrainians sign off on their own genocide. Evil beyond comprehension.
🤨"Putin promised we’d each get a house and two slaves."— Russian soldiers told villagers in #Balakliya🇺🇦
Most of those liberated in #Kharkiv area villages were elderly, likely unable to flee. They had difficulty talking about the Russian soldiers. Some couldn’t speak w/o tears.
These stories of survivors reveal so much about the poor living conditions in Russia under Putin's kleptocracy.
Russian soldiers were shocked that Ukrainian villages had running water & bathrooms in homes, like in cities. "They said they were going to bring their families here.”
Disturbing trend becomes 'staggeringly common' in Putin's wartime #Russia: @npwcnn reports on the death of #Lukoil Chair Ravil #Maganov—at least the 6th high-profile Russian #energy/#oil executives who Russia says died by suicide cnn.com/videos/world/2…
@npwcnn Lukoil head Ravil Maganov, seen being honored by Putin, died on Thursday after falling from his Moscow hospital window. Suicide, #Russia reported. The energy giant said he died after a severe illness. Lukoil under his leadership came out against the war in Ukraine early in March.
@npwcnn Lukoil's Maganov's death makes him the 6th prominent Russian #oil/gas executive to die from "suicide" in almost as many months.
4 dead execs from Russian state #gas giant Gazprom, currently at the forefront of #Russia's #energy battles with the West since invading #Ukraine.
Hate to see Trump propagandists on @Acosta. They twist language, weaponize ambiguity, conflate words/issues to confuse/sow doubt.
Election denying Chad Wolf went from "There are reports of irregularities, illegalities & fraud," to "Drop boxes were illegal" to "There was fraud"🤢
@Acosta Conflation is a propaganda tactic. Wolf conflated "irregularities"—fuzzy but sounds nefarious—& "illegalities"—bogus arguments that LOST in court! Propagandists pair them, repeat ad nauseam. They're bad-faith interlocutors—not answering Qs but drumming disinformation into brains.
@Acosta Acosta gave Chad Wolf many opportunities to tell the truth. Wolf preferred propaganda & lies. He even discredited the agency he headed, saying DHS CISA only declared the election secure from FOREIGN threats—not voter fraud! Propagandists prove nothing but their lack of integrity.