Key facts
- Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers have not demonstrably reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks, according to BBC Verify.
- Yandex announced service struggles after a Ukrainian strike on its data centers.
- Claims of reduced bot activity stemmed from a misinterpretation of Cloudflare data on automated internet requests.
- Researchers tracking Moscow-linked influence operations found no change in traffic from known Russian accounts.
- Bots linked to pro-Kremlin operations like Storm-1516 and Matryoshka remained active.
- Zelensky's office stated the president was commenting on the social media atmosphere, not a fall in bot activity.
Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers have significantly reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks are unsubstantiated, according to BBC Verify. While Ukrainian attacks on Yandex's infrastructure have disrupted services, experts found no evidence of a decrease in Russian disinformation campaigns.
Viral social media posts, including one from Czech member of the European Parliament Tomáš Zdechovský, suggested a drop in online influence operations and linked it to the strikes. These posts often shared charts from tech firm Cloudflare showing a decline in bot activity using Yandex's network. However, Cloudflare clarified that its data includes all automated internet requests, such as web crawling, and does not necessarily reflect social media bot behavior.
Researchers from dTeam, a group that tracks Moscow-linked influence operations, told BBC Verify that they have not observed any traffic changes from known Russian accounts and bot clusters on any platform. They stated that if the offices of groups involved in these operations were directly impacted, a change would be visible. Bots linked to pro-Kremlin operations like Storm-1516 and Matryoshka were still active on social media as of Tuesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had suggested on Monday that there was "less hate, less division and fewer provocations" online due to "fewer bots." However, Zelensky's office later clarified to BBC Verify that the president was referring to the general "atmosphere on social media" and reports of "fewer provocative and hateful comments," rather than a specific fall in bot activity.
Independent internet analyst Mikhail Klimarev explained that while Cloudflare can track bot visits to websites, it doesn't reflect their actions on social media. He suggested that Yandex likely switched off its bots, which are used for tasks like indexing websites for search engines, because its computing resources were severely degraded by the strikes. Yandex itself stated that using its cloud services for large-scale manipulation on social media violates its rules, and accounts involved are blocked.
Isik Mater, director of research at Netblocks, noted that disruptions related to the Ukrainian strikes "affect all users" globally and can render websites relying on Yandex partially or entirely unusable, indicating a significant infrastructure-level incident.