Russia trolls undermine support for Ukraine in the United States

WASHINGTON (AP) — Russian specialists and trolls have launched a disinformation campaign to undermine support for Ukraine in the United States. This was reported by the Washington Post, based on internal Kremlin documents. It was allegedly obtained by the European intelligence service.

According to the newspaper, this concerns more than a hundred documents from the period between May 2022 and August 2023. This indicates that thousands of fake news reports and posts on social media were attempted to influence political discussions. For example, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reportedly been portrayed as corrupt. There have also been calls to prioritize funding for security measures on the US border with Mexico over support for Ukraine.

According to the newspaper, Western officials say that propaganda is no less important to Russia than the military operations themselves. This is because Ukraine needs Western weapons to defend itself. A Republican source told the newspaper, “Russia’s top priority is to stop supplying weapons. So they are trying everything and seeing what works.”

Russian plans

The Washington Post revealed, among other things, Russian plans to hide the origin of disinformation on social media. The intention was to “use accounts for a short period of time” for example Facebook, YouTube and Twitter then, which is now called

The Washington Post also cites an example of a message ordered by a Russian political strategist from a troll. There had to be a maximum of two hundred characters of text that supposedly belonged to an American. The newspaper quoted this non-existent person as saying, “He should not support American military support for Ukraine, but rather believes that money should be spent on defending America’s borders, not Ukraine’s borders.” “He also realizes that Biden’s policies will lead the country to ruin.”