The “Matryoshka” botnet launched a fake campaign about “death wishes” for Trump in Zelensky’s Christmas speech

The Kremlin's Matryoshka botnet launched a disinformation campaign amid Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky's Christmas message, in which he wished death on an unnamed person. The Bot Blocker project drew attention to this. The editors have at their disposal links to bot publications, as well as evidence provided by the project that the accounts belong to the Matryoshka network.

Bots began to massively distribute videos with logos of famous Western media, including AFP and other international publications. These videos claim that Zelensky allegedly did not mean Putin, but US President Donald Trump, and that the death wish was addressed specifically to him.

Some of the videos claim that the Pope allegedly condemned Zelensky for his words. However, none of these interpretations is confirmed by the original text of the address of the President of Ukraine.

In addition, videos distributed by bots claim that “95% of the world’s broadcasters” allegedly stopped broadcasting Zelensky’s Christmas address at the moment when the phrase wishing for death was heard. There is also no evidence to support this statement, and it is untrue.