Russian botnet begins sending out fake European articles defending Putin’s decision not to meet with Zelensky in Istanbul

The Russian bot network Matryoshka has begun distributing fake articles presented as editorials by major Western media outlets. The stories feature headlines about Vladimir Putin supposedly outplaying Volodymyr Zelensky with regard to peace talks in Istanbul. The narratives focus on the ostensibly falling approval ratings of the Ukrainian president, along with the purported humiliation that Zelensky suffered after Putin refused to take up his counterpart’s offer to engage in direct dialogue regarding a potential diplomatic solution to the ongoing war.

For instance, a headline on a fake front page of “The National” reports that “Zelensky is ready to beg Putin to stop Russian forces,” while a fake headline by “The Independent” claims that “Putin has nothing to talk about with the liar in Istanbul.” Another headline claims that “Zelensky is trying to divert attention from the monstrous losses suffered by the AFU” by demanding a personal meeting with Putin.

The campaign was revealed to The Insider by the Bot Blocker project (@antibot4navalny), which tracks the Kremlin's hybrid operations on social media. The distribution of fakes began on X and Bluesky shortly after the Kremlin published the composition of the Russian delegation, which is led not by Putin, but by Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia's Writers' Union and its former Minister of Culture. Each X post earned between 500 and 700 likes at the time of publication, while the Bluesky posts have attracted single-digit likes so far. According to Bot Blocker, those engagements are merely reposts by other accounts in the same disinformation network.