A trove of leaked records from a Russian disinformation campaign reveals how Moscow sought to discredit Ukraine and Western governments that support it while also trying to boost support for far-right political parties in the European Union.
The documents obtained by a consortium of European media outlets and shared with Schemes, the investigative unit of RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service, highlight the internal operations of the Social Design Agency, a Moscow-based company that the United States says has led the propaganda campaign at the Kremlin’s behest.
The campaign included a diverse mix of memes, falsified videos and government documents, and a network of websites impersonating legitimate news outlets across Europe to disseminate fake stories aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The records state that one meme denigrating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that was shared on X by its billionaire owner, Elon Musk, and garnered 86,000 reshares was a creation of the Social Design Agency.
The leaked records, some of which were made public this month as part of a U.S. indictment, were first obtained by the German outlets Sueddeutsche Zeitung, NDR, and WDR, which then shared the documents with Schemes and several other news organizations. They were leaked by an anonymous source who told reporters the Social Design Agency had been hacked.
The Social Design Agency is led by Ilya Gambashidze, who was hit with U.S. sanctions along with the company and its associates in March over the company’s influence operation, dubbed Doppelganger.
Gambashidze did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
U.S authorities, who seized 32 Internet domains linked to Doppelganger earlier this month, said the effort was overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko, a top Kremlin official and confidant of President Vladimir Putin.
In a video presentation included among the leaked records, Gambashidze addresses the camera wearing a hoodie emblazoned with patches reading “Russian ideological troops” and “commander of special forces.”
According to the video presentation, Gambashidze’s team had produced 39,899 pieces of content from January to April this year, including more than 30,000 “posts,” more than 4,600 videos and video memes, and some 1,500 articles.
These include a fake story made to look as if it had been published by the German newspaper Bild claiming that Ukrainian refugees in Germany, while trying to burn a Russian flag, had set fire to the home of Germans who had given them shelter.
The influence operation, Schemes found, also produced falsified Ukrainian government documents, including a forged order purportedly issued by the country’s top military commander, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy, equating surrender by Ukrainian military personnel to treason.
Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskiy was appointed Ukraine’s top military officer earlier this year.
The stated purpose of the forgery, according to the leaked records, was to “discredit the military-political leadership of Ukraine and demoralize the armed forces.”
The influence operation also targeted Europe’s political landscape, including the June European Parliament elections, with the goal of helping right-wing forces that would promote pro-Russian narratives, the leaked records show.
One document suggests “conducting a complex counter-campaign against the liberal globalists, their platform, and prominent representatives,” including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, with a primary focus on Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Poland.
The plan included efforts to paint “liberals and globalists” as fearmongers, including about a possible Russian attack on the EU; to portray support for LGBT rights as detrimental to children’s mental health; to stoke discontent over high inflation and unemployment; and to accuse “EU globalists” of trying to transform Europe into a “totalitarian military camp…like Ukraine.
A document detailing the Social Design Agency’s strategy for influencing European elections, including boosting support for far-right parties.
The records also show the influence operation sought to boost the electoral fortunes of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party and France’s right-wing National Rally.
One stated goal was to make more than half of German citizens “unwilling to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of defeating Russia” and promote the narrative that the United States is using Germany in an economic and hybrid war against Russia.
The operation also bombarded Ukrainian state institutions and media with comments via an online bot network that produced nearly 34 million comments from January to April, according to one internal document.
By RFE/RL
