Analysts monitoring kremlin hybrid operations on social media have identified a large-scale disinformation campaign conducted by the \u201cMatryoshka\u201d bot network, launched following the publication of new documents in the Epstein case by the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n
\u25ab\ufe0f Under the guise of content from well-known Western media outlets, fake videos, posts, and newspaper covers are being widely circulated on social media. These materials blend real facts with fabricated allegations against Western and Ukrainian politicians, as well as international institutions.<\/p>\n
\u25ab\ufe0f The botnet has disseminated a series of false narratives linking Ukraine and Western leaders to the Epstein case, including fabrications about \u201cthe use of Ukrainian children\u201d and false claims that French President Emmanuel Macron allegedly visited Epstein\u2019s island.<\/p>\n
The fake materials are published under the names of influential media outlets. However, verification confirms that none of these materials were ever published by the outlets the bot network uses as cover. All videos, quotes, and covers are falsified and distributed synchronously through the bot network on X, Telegram, and BlueSky.<\/p>\n
The campaign aims to exploit a high-profile topic to discredit democratic institutions, Ukraine, and Western leaders, and to sow distrust in governments and media. A particular focus is on linking Ukraine to toxic narratives and inserting a Ukrainian context into conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n
The Center previously reported\u00a0on the activities of the \u201cMatryoshka\u201d bot network, which is systematically used for kremlin hybrid operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Analysts monitoring kremlin hybrid operations on social media have identified a large-scale disinformation campaign conducted by the \u201cMatryoshka\u201d bot network, launched following the publication of new documents in the Epstein case by the U.S. Department of Justice. \u25ab\ufe0f Under the guise of content from well-known Western media outlets, fake videos, posts, and newspaper covers are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","wds_primary_category":932,"footnotes":""},"categories":[932],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpd.gov.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}