The “Dvoinik” network successfully disseminates false quotes from celebrities about the futility of helping Kyiv, which receive hundreds of thousands of views.
This massive attack writes online publication “Agency. News” on June 15, is designed to reduce support for Kyiv in the war with Russia. Journalists believe that behind the fake posts are bots of the Kremlin-linked network “Dvoinik”, which works for Western audiences.
Statements are published in German, English, French and Polish, and they are supposedly made by world-class stars: Jennifer Aniston and Scarlett Johansson, Elton John and Luc Besson, Alain Delon and Ashton Kutcher, and other famous personalities. Here are just some of the “pearls”:
“All countries began to think about themselves, and EU is falling apart”, “Europe is impoverished. Politicians are getting crazier. There are corrupt officials in the European Parliament”, “We have become impoverished. It's time to forget about Ukraine.”
“Since the evening of Friday, June 14, bots have published X 50 pictures with fake quotes online, after which other “Double” accounts retweeted them more than 120 thousand times,” an unnamed representative of the “Bot Blocker” project talks about the essence of the campaign.
Similar posts with fakes, as evidenced by project statistics, have already collected more than 500 thousand views, writes DW:
“This is the standard intensity of a fake quote campaign. Bot Blocker has detected six such campaigns over the past six months.”
In mid-May, EU officials at a briefing in Brussels, citing the results of research by the EU Foreign Service on disinformation and foreign interference, called Russia the largest distributor of disinformation in the EU.
As one of the officials clarified, since 2015, the EU foreign policy service has recorded 17,000 cases of disinformation related to pro-Kremlin figures. Of these incidents, more than 1,500 will occur in 2024. Moreover, most of this content, over half, was directed against Ukraine and concerned its leaders, the situation in the country, domestic and foreign policy.
The second largest semantic category is praise of the Russian Federation, its leaders, the situation in the country and politics. In third place are anti-Western content, campaigns to denigrate the EU, its politicians, and disinformation about life in the EU countries (such as “Europe is freezing without Russian gas”).
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