Russia’s cyber soldiers launch disinformation campaign to target foreign leaders, say UK

According to a UK study, Russia’s ‘cyber soldiers’ have launched a new campaign against leaders of other countries and are using social media for massive propaganda to justify their attack on Ukraine. The United Kingdom on Sunday warned that these cyber soldiers are running disinformation campaign to legitimize the invasion of Ukraine.

Britain’s Foreign Office said on Sunday that workers at a St Petersburg factory use the Telegram messaging app to recruit and align their supporters and then use the social media accounts of critics of Russia’s President to post in support of Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. These people are paid for it.

According to the Foreign Office, the so-called ‘troll factory’ has developed new techniques to avoid being identified on social media platforms. Such activities are being done on eight social media platforms including Telegram, Twitter, Facebook and Tiktok.

It said that in this campaign leaders of many countries including Britain, South Africa and India and a large number of people have been targeted. Russian citizens and the Russian state TV have long denied that Putin waged a war in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, satellite images analyzed by the Associated Press have shown damage to oil depots across the Ukrainian border in Russia following suspected Ukrainian attacks. Saturday’s photos illustrate the damage at two sites in Bryansk. Monday’s blast damaged several tanks, burning the surrounding ground.

The explosion burned down an oil depot owned by Transneft-Druzhba, a subsidiary of Transneft, a Russian state-controlled company that operates the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline carrying crude to Europe. Bryansk is located about 100 kilometers north of the border with Ukraine.