Telegram from The Kremlin and its Readers: External information intervention is effective when it resonates with real dissatisfaction with the political and economic situation

Organised in clusters, pro-Kremlin channels on Telegram have become a significant tool of influence during electoral campaigns in Georgia and Moldova. In small post-Soviet countries, where cultural and informational ties with Russia remain an important factor and the choice in favour of Eurointegration is still a subject of ongoing debate, propaganda campaigns on Telegram prove to be quite effective.

In Moldova, 75% of the 133 most popular political Telegram channels were critical of President Maia Sandu and her pro-European course. The total number of subscribers to Moldovan channels opposing Sandu was nine times larger than those supporting her. The main narrative was the discrediting of Sandu and her policies, alongside discussions in favour of the benefits of 'eastern' economic integration with Russia and the EAEU, as opposed to the 'western' path.

The reach of the Telegram army supporting the ruling 'Georgian Dream' in Georgia was somewhat smaller, but here, too, 70% of political Telegram channels supported the ruling party, criticising the path of Eurointegration and the opposition that supports it. Thus, in both countries, Telegram largely acted as a broadcaster of what are commonly referred to as 'pro-Russian' views.

While the impact of these campaigns appears significant, it is achieved because the messages resonate with the fertile ground of disillusionment with the prospects of Eurointegration and dissatisfaction with domestic political factors – such as corruption, the failure of the opposition, and weak economic dynamics. Therefore, campaigns aimed at counteracting 'foreign influence' often fail to achieve their intended goal and even have the opposite effect. Voters dissatisfied with the political and economic situation, who sympathise with anti-European narratives, perceive the attribution of their discontent solely to external influence as manipulation, and as a result, they become even more deaf to, and hostile toward, arguments from the opposing side.

Moldova: Eastern instead of Western integration, fake news and diagnoses

The European Union and the strategy of Eurointegration are losing ground in post-Soviet countries. This is evidenced not only by Georgia’s drift, where the announced shift away from EU membership by the authorities has not, seemingly, led to a full-scale crisis, but also by the unexpectedly narrow victory of the pro-European coalition in the elections and referendum in Moldova. The minimal margin by which supporters of including EU accession in the country's constitution prevailed (50.35% 'for') was largely achieved thanks to the votes of the Moldovan diaspora and the lack of sufficient polling stations in Russia. The relatively small gap between President Maia Sandu and her opponent in the second round of the presidential elections (55% to 45%) can also be described as shocking.

Although Moldovan authorities have emphasised Moscow’s interference in the elections, justifying the weak election results by this, such an explanation seems at least insufficient: surveys show that faith in the success and advantages of Eurointegration among the population is declining, while the narratives spread by Russian propaganda are falling on fertile ground (→ Re:Russia: The Contested Underbelly). However, for relatively small countries like Georgia and Moldova (3.5 million and 3 million voters, respectively), external information interference can have serious consequences. Understanding the situation is all the more important since the main battle for Moldova's future direction is yet to come, and will take place this summer during the next parliamentary elections. As the experience of Georgia shows, including the goal of Eurointegration in the constitution is no guarantee against a sharp political turn.

A large study by OpenMinds, which tracked publications from political Telegram channels in Moldova and Georgia from 1 June to the first week after the elections, demonstrated the effectiveness and key mechanisms of Telegram-based information campaigns. In Moldova, the researchers analyzed the 133 most popular political Telegram channels, of which 98 (75%) took a critical stance toward President Maia Sandu and actively campaigned against her re-election in the autumn elections. More than three-quarters of the channels critical of Sandu were aimed at a Russian-speaking audience, with 10 channels targeting the audience in Transnistria, whose residents hold Moldovan passports and also vote in elections. The total audience of the channels in the sample, according to the study's results, exceeds 1.13 million (more than a third of all voters), while the audience of the 20 most popular political channels amounted to around 703,000.

The total number of subscribers to Moldovan channels opposing Sandu was nine times larger than those supporting her, according to the study's authors (these figures may include overlapping subscriptions if a single user subscribes to multiple channels). Nevertheless, the researchers note that channels critical of Sandu had a significantly larger audience: the total number of views for their posts during the observation period was 645 million, which is 14 times greater than the views of pro-government channels (45 million). Thus, it can be said that Telegram is the primary tool for spreading opposition and pro-Russian narratives and viewpoints.

As the study showed, much of the political content in these channels consisted of posts aimed at portraying the Moldovan authorities in a negative light. In addition to general criticism of the ruling government and Euroskepticism, the main topics of posts were energy security (11% of all posts) and economic problems (7%). Sandu was accused of continuing to purchase electricity from Romania, despite rising energy prices in Moldova, implicitly suggesting that it would be better to buy cheaper energy from Russia. Another recurring theme was a reminder that most of Moldova's electricity is generated by the Kuchurgan power plant, located in the unrecognised Transnistria region. Pro-Russian Telegram channels also accused Sandu of wanting to leave Moldova poor, of being responsible for rising food prices, and of generally conducting short-sighted foreign policy, ignoring the economic power of the BRICS countries. Thus, the central theme of this campaign became the promotion of the economic advantages of 'eastern' integration as opposed to the 'western' one.

An important feature of pro-Russian channels during the elections in Moldova was their deep cluster-based coordination, which allowed for a significant increase in content distribution. Researchers identified three main clusters. The first (the largest of them) included Telegram channels linked to the TV6-Moldova channel, controlled by pro-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor, the Moldovan version of 'Channel One,' and the media outlets Argumenty i Fakty and Sputnik. The second cluster was associated with former Moldovan journalist Gabriel Călin, who previously worked for the fugitive Moldovan oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc. Finally, the third cluster of channels, which actively reposted each other's publications, consisted of anonymous resources whose content was virtually indistinguishable from the well-known pro-Russian channels in the first and second clusters. This tactic allows for 'anonymising' the sources of the narratives to distance them from the negative baggage of media brands that the opposing side labels as Russian or pro-Russian. At the same time, Meta (Facebook) blocked the Facebook pages associated with the third cluster, accusing them of spreading disinformation, while no such moderation takes place on Telegram.

The clustered channels reprinted content from Russian state media over 1200 times and actively copied and pasted posts from one another. A typical example of such cluster activity was the false information published on 18 October by the ‘curentmd’ channel, claiming that Maia Sandu was diagnosed with 'schizophrenia' in Austria and suffers from regular panic attacks (the channel and website curentmd.com are currently inaccessible, but the publication is archived). This story, referencing a supposedly reliable medical report from an Austrian clinic, quickly spread through Telegram channels like Genius of the Carpathians and Gagauznews, as well as the pro-Kremlin resources EADaily, Reporter, the entertainment site Pikabu and other sites. In total, the researchers identified at least eight similar fake stories (including one claiming that the Moldovan army had been 'sold' to Romania and another alleging that the 'European Commission' had called for LGBT flags to be flown on government buildings in Moldova), which were actively spread by pro-Russian Telegram channels to discredit the current government.

Georgia: avoiding war and discrediting the opposition

In Georgia, pro-Kremlin channels pursued a fundamentally different objective than in Moldova – they did not undermine trust in the ruling government, but instead supported it. In total, researchers found 96 political channels in the Georgian segment of Telegram, 38 (40%) of which supported the ruling Georgian Dream, which, unlike in Moldova, roughly corresponds to the proportion of Georgians who support the party. More than half of the political channels were Russian-speaking. The total audience of Georgian political channels, based on the study's data, amounted to over 492,000 people (out of 3.5 million voters), with the audience of opposition channels constituting over 343,000 (70% of the total audience of political Telegram channels).

The most active cluster of channels was linked to the pro-Kremlin media holding Alt-Info, created in 2019, which accounted for 35% of the publications in Georgia’s political Telegram segment. Alt-Info positions itself as an anti-systemic force, criticising both the Georgian Dream's policies and those of its opponents (such as former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili). This cluster is the main distributor of anti-European content in the Georgian-language Telegram segment: materials from Alt-Info included claims that Georgia's European future would lead to depopulation and extinction, as well as to the spiritual decay of the population. Meta removed Alt-Info resources from Facebook in 2020 for spreading misinformation and inciting hatred against LGBT people. However, as a result, their audience migrated to Telegram.

In the Russian-speaking segment of Georgian Telegram channels, almost a third of all content was aimed at discrediting the pro-European opposition, accusing them of provocations and separatist negotiations with the pro-Western president Salome Zurabishvili. The weakness of the opposition and the low level of trust in it are indeed significant resources for the Georgian Dream to maintain its positions. Both Georgian- and Russian-language political Telegram channels frequently (17% of the content) emphasised the need to avoid war with Russia, highlighting the central election narrative of the Georgian Dream, which accused its opponents of starting the 2008 war with Russia and presented itself as a force capable of preventing the country from being drawn into a new conflict with Moscow. Pro-government channels in Georgia also highlighted the economic achievements of the government and its strong ties with the Georgian patriarchate in defending traditional values. Another important narrative they promoted was the superiority of the Russian military over the Ukrainian one and the inability of Ukraine's allies to provide substantial assistance in the war, as well as the resilience of the Russian economy against sanctions.

Alongside Telegram, pro-Kremlin bots on the social network 'VKontakte' were also highly active during the election campaigns in both Georgia and Moldova, as noted in the OpenMinds study. From June to October, they made almost 900 posts about the elections in Moldova and 1,600 about the elections in Georgia (90% of these were comments on news stories). The peak of activity occurred on 21 October (the day after the first round of Moldova’s elections) and on 28 October (the second day after Georgia's elections), when bot activity increased fourfold. Nearly 80% of comments about the Moldovan elections focused on criticising President Maia Sandu and her pro-Western course, accusing her of working 'underground' for the United States, dragging Moldova into the confrontation between the West and Russia, and claiming that the EU integration referendum was likely unfair. Similarly, 70% of comments about the elections in Georgia centered around Western attempts to influence the vote results, with claims that only the victory of the Georgian Dream would prevent the country from going to war.

External tools and internal factors

Once the first platform to be blocked by Russian authorities, Telegram has now become a key tool for the Kremlin in organising influence campaigns on social media. As noted by experts at the Digital Forensics Research Lab (DFRLab) of the US Atlantic Council, although Telegram is only the third most downloaded messaging app in the world, it moderates content minimally and allows account owners to remain anonymous, making it a convenient channel for spreading unverified and unconfirmed information to a broad audience. This often allows Telegram channels to serve as points for injecting propagandist narratives that then spread across other platforms. For example, in August this year, amid the successes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region, Russian Telegram channels began mass-disseminating messages claiming that Ukraine was allegedly planning a nuclear disaster. Over time, this information spread to the X platform and quickly gained traction in French- and Arabic-language accounts, facilitated by the platform's recommendation algorithms, which promote popular content even without users needing to follow it, DFRLab experts noted.

The use of Telegram as a platform for promoting pro-Russian narratives during the elections in Moldova and Georgia also demonstrated the significant flexibility of this platform, according to OpenMinds. While the propagandist narratives in both republics shared certain similarities (they were directed against EU integration, called for 'neutrality,' and actively exploited the potential threat of escalating territorial conflict with Russia), they were used in fundamentally different ways. In Moldova, the narratives were aimed against the incumbent President Maia Sandu, while in Georgia, they were used to support the status quo—namely, in favour of the dominant Georgian Dream party. In Moldova, pro-Kremlin propaganda via Telegram criticised the transparency and fairness of the elections, whereas in Georgia, it defended the legitimacy of the electoral process.

The ability of Telegram to serve as a conduit for propaganda was also noted by OpenMinds during the US elections in November of this year, network of 279 English-language Telegram channels spread conspiracy theories and pro-Russian narratives. Of these, 52 channels directly transmitted Kremlin propaganda through reposts and quotations, while the others did so indirectly. The pro-Russian channels were also organised into four clusters: the first (30% of channels) primarily focused on domestic issues in the US; the second (25%) covered the war in Ukraine from a pro-Kremlin perspective; the third (11%) spread conspiratorial content; and the fourth (10%) addressed international politics. During the election campaign, pro-Russian channels portrayed Trump as a strong figure, whose assassination attempt demonstrated the inability of U.S. law enforcement to ensure the safety of even a presidential candidate, while the incumbent president, Biden, was portrayed in a negative light, with doubts raised about his cognitive abilities. As noted by DFRLab in another report, throughout 4 and 5 November, numerous Russia-linked accounts on the X network published fabricated videos aimed at discrediting the US presidential election. These videos, featuring the logos of the FBI and national news agencies, spread narratives about vote fraud, destroyed ballots, malfunctioning voting machines, and dead voters allegedly casting ballots. At one point, a network of bots linked to the Chinese government joined in the dissemination of these videos.

However, it is important to emphasise that, in terms of influencing the outcome of the U.S. elections, this campaign had a rather modest impact, although it could potentially contribute to the crisis related to contesting the election results. A much more significant challenge posed by coordinated social media use is for the electoral process in small post-Soviet countries, where Russia’s cultural and informational influence traditionally remains significant, economic ties are long-standing and extensive, and a significant portion of the local population speaks Russian. At the same time, the success of such campaigns here is largely determined by the domestic political dynamics – the presence of internal opposition to the pro-European course and the lack of significant benefits from the EU integration process.

In a certain sense, the narrative that is successfully transmitted and replicated in these campaigns is not even accurately described as ‘pro-Russian’ – its foundation consists of a set of arguments and ideologies that today have gained traction among a significant portion of European voters. This was once again demonstrated on 24 November by the results of the first round of parliamentary elections in Romania, where the ultra-right-wing 'Alliance for the Union of Romanians' of ultra-nationalist Călin Georgescu unexpectedly won, which came as a real shock to the EU. It is believed that his popularity surged from 1% to 23% in just three weeks before the election day, thanks to TikTok campaigning. As the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) explains, Georgescu used TikTok’s algorithms during the campaign, promoting his content using a mixture of fake and real accounts, as well as paid Influencers, which helped make his content go viral.

Ultimately, Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the election results after the country’s intelligence services revealed information about large-scale Russian interference. However, as the experience of other countries has shown, such a strategy is not always an effective tool against information interference, even when it does occur. The frustrations and discontent that such interference activates and mobilises have deeper roots, and therefore interpreting them as the result of foreign influence only radicalises the sentiments of the corresponding part of the electorate, who then see these counter-propaganda efforts as information manipulation, reducing their trust in any narratives and arguments from the opposing side. This is why an extremely balanced and thorough analysis is required to assess the contribution of both factors – external interference and the internal causes of its success.