European security agencies believe acts of sabotage have been carried out around the continent by Russian intelligence before being amplified by President Vladimir Putin’s army of Twitter bots.
On the morning of 14 May, about 20 spray-painted red hand symbols were discovered on the wall of a Holocaust memorial in Paris, which is dedicated to honouring individuals who saved Jews from persecution during the Nazi occupation of France.
Emmanuel Macron condemned the act of “odious antisemitism”. France’s President wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the vandalism damaged “the memory” of those who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
About a week after the incident, investigators in France said they believed the vandalism was ordered by Russian security services who allegedly recruited two Bulgarian citizens identified by the police as suspects.
Bot Blocker/Anti-bot for Navalny, an organisation that exposes Russian social media attacks, claimed that on the day of the incident, a swathe of Russian bots took to X to express disgust at the desecration. The fake accounts, posing as ordinary social media users, blamed Mr Macron and his government “for not doing enough to fight antisemitism”.
Experts say there is growing evidence that Mr Putin has ramped up attempts to escalate tensions across Europe – tying together his network of disinformation with real acts of sabotage to destabilise governments in the West.
Ciaran O’Connor, a senior analyst with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that researches online hate and disinformation, told i: “The use of disinformation in combination with acts of sabotage like this would fall in line with previous Russian state activities.
“In the context of Russian disinformation, these Twitter bots are often managed by troll farms, which are professional organisations operating at the behest of the state which manage large quantities of fake accounts. These operations work to create or promote disinformation, engage in co-ordinated behaviour to attempt to shift public opinion, and target critical voices, figures or policies using online accounts.”
Ahead of the upcoming European elections, Russia has apparently sought to manipulate public opinion in France using disinformation, with Bot Blocker identifying Russian bots sharing an article that claimed Mr Macron was a puppet of Brussels and Washington.
The X posts claim the French President is spending too much on the war in Ukraine, while the article endorses far-right French candidate Marine Le Pen, claiming she would restore French sovereignty ahead of the EU elections on 6-9 June.
Security forces around Europe believe a series of other incidents are also the result of Russian sabotage, including a string of mystery fires and attacks on infrastructure in the UK, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia. European intelligence networks believe Moscow has used social media to find and hire vandals, while saboteurs are paid a few hundred euros or in cryptocurrency for their troubles.
Nato members have said they are “deeply concerned” about the spate of attacks: “These incidents are part of an intensifying campaign of activities which Russia continues to carry out across the Euro-Atlantic area, including on Alliance territory and through proxies,” the alliance said in a statement earlier this month.
Intelligence agencies claimed last month that two British men were recruited by a Russian agent after they were charged with orchestrating an arson attack on two units linked to a Ukrainian businessman in an industrial estate in Leyton, east London.
The Crown Prosecution Service claimed one of them was “engaged in conduct targeting businesses which were linked to Ukraine in order to benefit the Russian state”.
The case was one of those cited by Home Secretary James Cleverly when he announced that Britain would expel Russia’s defence attache, remove diplomatic status from some properties and limit the length of Russian diplomatic visas. Addressing Parliament earlier this month, Mr Cleverly said Britain was already “an extremely challenging operating environment” due to Moscow’s “malign activity”.
Russian bots were also found to be promoting a recent “impressive” victory by German far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the central region of Thuringia, according to Bot Blocker.
Articles shared by the Russian bots attached a link to a website that, according to Facebook parent company Meta, is part of “the largest and most persistent pro-Kremlin influence campaign since 2017”.
European media has reported that a member of the extreme right AfD party had allegedly received money from the pro-Russian media site, an accusation the politician denied.
Anna George, who researches online disinformation at the Oxford Internet Institute, told i this is “part of Russia’s information tactics, they flood the information ecosystem with lots of narratives, even conflicting narratives, to sow confusion.
“There are different goals for different campaigns, but the common goals seem to be trying to spread pro-Russian narratives, and other times when they are trying to sow division, while seeking to erode democracy and add to the populist rhetoric that democratic institutions can’t be trusted as they are.”
It follows a wave of cyber-attacks in Germany, including an attempt to breach the online security of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in 2023 by a hacker group linked to Russian intelligence. Last month, two German-Russian nationals were accused of plotting an explosion, arson and maintaining contact with Russian intelligence after a foiled plot to attack a military base in Bavaria.
Russian bots are everywhere in french tik Tok comments, praising him and everything.