Incident 909: Matryoshka Campaign Allegedly Uses Deepfakes to Impersonate Academics for Pro-Russian Propaganda

Description: The Matryoshka disinformation campaign allegedly used AI to impersonate academics, reportedly spreading claims supporting Russia and urging Ukraine's surrender. These videos are said to have misrepresented scholars’ views in order to amplify pro-Russian propaganda. The campaign reportedly exploited global social media platforms to allegedly mislead viewers and undermine trust in credible academic voices while fueling misinformation about the Ukraine conflict.
Editor Notes: Reconstructing the reported timeline of events: (1) September 2023: The Matryoshka disinformation campaign reportedly began, allegedly producing anti-Ukrainian propaganda and distributing it via stolen accounts and bots on platforms like X and Telegram. (2) November 2023: Reports from Viginum reportedly revealed similarities between Matryoshka and Russia's GRU-linked Doppelgänger network, allegedly indicating potential shared origins. (3) Early 2024: The campaign allegedly began using AI to generate deepfake videos of academics from institutions like Cambridge and Harvard. (4) November 2024: The University of Bristol reportedly verified that a video falsely attributing political statements to historian Ronald Hutton was allegedly AI-manipulated. (5) December 13, 2024 (the date for this Incident ID): An investigation by The Insider reportedly confirmed that Matryoshka videos allegedly misrepresented academics’ voices to spread pro-Russian propaganda, with the footage heavily promoted in multiple languages by allegedly stolen social media accounts.

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Incident Stats

Incident ID
909
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2024-12-13
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Fake AI versions of world-renowned academics are spreading claims that Ukraine should surrender to Russia
theins.ru · 2024

The Russian disinformation network Matryoshka has launched a new campaign aimed at convincing social media users that scholars and professors from top global universities are calling for the West to lift sanctions against Russia. In the vid…

Russian disinfo network “Matryoshka” is migrating to Bluesky as exodus from X continues
theins.ru · 2024

The Russian disinformation network "Matryoshka" has launched a new campaign on the Bluesky social network. Eliot Higgins, founder of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, has been one of the first researchers to detect its activity…

Pro-Russian disinformation makes its Bluesky debut
fox28spokane.com · 2025

The first symptoms of disinformation are emerging on the social media network Bluesky, with echoes of the pro-Russian “Matryoshka” campaign that flooded Elon Musk’s X — but with a few twists.

The @antibot4navalny collective, which specialis…

Variants

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