From Russia With Blogs
GRU operators leveraged blogs, social media accounts and private messaging to reach audiences across Europe.
This report examines several campaigns manned by Russian military intelligence operators using fake accounts to influence audiences around Russia’s borders, with a primary focus on Ukraine. The accounts were initially identified and taken down by Facebook on February 12, 2020. While most of this activity occurred around 2016 and 2017, some of these accounts were still active in 2020 at the time of the takedown. The content of these campaigns is aligned with narratives traditionally promoted by Russian state-sponsored media, and with the types of content that has been promoted in previous information operations attributed to Russian operators: promoting pro-Kremlin politicians in foreign countries, attacking public figures advocating for closer ties with the West, attacking humanitarian groups involved in documenting war crimes occurring in the Syrian conflict.
Ben Nimmo
Head of Investigations
Ben Nimmo was Head of Investigations at Graphika, where he led an expert team of OSINT investigators in detecting, identifying and analyzing inauthentic behavior and information operations online. He specializes in analyzing patterns of online disinformation and influence operations across varying platforms and geographical regions. He is now the Principal Investigator, Intelligence & Investigations at OpenAI.
Camille François
Chief Innovation Officer
Camille François works on cyber conflict and digital rights online. She was the Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, where she led the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment.
C. Shawn Eib
Analyst
L. Tamora
Analyst
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The full report includes the complete network graph maps, raw attribution indicators, cross-platform topology analysis, and the full takedown timeline with platform-level data.
- Full network graph visualizations
- Attribution indicators with confidence scores
- Raw behavioral modeling data
- Takedown coordination timeline
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