Kremlin botnet launches wave of disinformation claiming Havana Syndrome doesn't exist

As with other disinformation campaigns, 1efay0[.]cfd was again used as a “spacer” website. Redirects to clones of Western media outlets Der Spiegel and Fox News — the counterfeit websites being spiegel[.]ltd and fox-news[.]in — were previously made through the “spacer.” Meta has included these websites on the list of fake media used by the Doppelgänger network (source for Der Spiegel, source for Fox News), which points to the same organization being behind the most recent disinfo, as per Bot Blocker.

Who is behind Doppelgänger?

According to a 2022 report by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, such spam attacks have been carried out by the Russian IT companies National Technologies and Social Design Agency (Агентство Социального Проектирования), both of which which fall under EU sanctions. The ultimate owner of National Technologies is Rostec — Russia’s state-owned defense conglomerate, which is headed by former KGB agent Sergey Chemezov, a close friend of Vladimir Putin.

The bots also promoted the EuroBRICS website, which has proven links to the GRU's Special Service Center (Military Unit 54777). In July 2023, the European Union imposed sanctions against those involved in the disinformation campaign. The group of offenders included the aforementioned National Technologies and Social Design Agency, as well as several officers of the GRU’s Unit 54777.

What has the Doppelgänger network spread previously?

Doppelgänger operates on a permanent basis, with fixed hours of operation and two days off per week, notes the Bot Blocker project. The majority of its work is carried out in “moderate” mode, as in the Havana Syndrome case, but it sometimes bursts with frantic activity, as in the case of a disinfo campaign regarding the Mar. 22 terrorist attack on Crocus City Hall outside of Moscow.

Following that attack, the network started circulating pseudo-journalistic articles purporting to detail those responsible for the terrorist attack. These pieces “informed” readers that the U.S., the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI-6), Ukraine, and the so-called “collective West” at large were to blame — not ISIS or its regional branch, ISIS-K (Islamic State Khorasan Province), which publicly claimed responsibility for killing 145 Russian concertgoers.

Another notable campaign occurred in November 2023, when the bots circulated photos of buildings in France adorned with Stars of David — symbols painted on Jewish homes as a warning of potential pogroms. Citing data from the Bot Blocker project, The Insider demonstrated that the same accounts were responsible for circulating pro-Russian publications, indicating the involvement of an identical bot network in the distribution of these photos.

In addition to its anti-Ukrainian posts, the network has also spread other anti-Semitic content. Masquerading under the guise of expressing “deep concern,” hundreds of bots shared a video allegedly from the Turkish nationalist group Grey Wolves (Bozkurtlar). In the video, terrorists threatened to replicate an attack on Jews at the 2024 Olympics in Paris — one reminiscent of the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics, in which 17 people, including 11 members of the Israeli national team, were killed.

After Vladimir Putin’s “re-election” on March 18, Doppelgänger launched an information campaign that was likely intended to create an aura of legitimacy around the Russian presidential election. A report by the independent publication Agentstvo (lit “The Agency”) citing Bot Blocker detailed the information campaign. Written in English, French, German, and Ukrainian, the tweets involved three theories about the election. The first was that Russia had held a competitive process, and that the overwhelming majority of Russians actually support Vladimir Putin in line with Russia’s purported long democratic tradition. The other two were related to Ukraine: the first claimed that the Ukrainian authorities had made a mistake by canceling their own elections, and the second argued that Ukraine should not “cancel” everything Russian — including Russian culture.