‘Putin fixer’s troll factory’ turns fire on social media and pop stars

A Russian troll factory has spread lies about the war in Ukraine across social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, according to research commissioned by the government.

Boris Johnson and other world leaders have been targeted as part of a Kremlin disinformation campaign which, it is suspected, has been orchestrated by a close ally of President Putin.

The troll factory was trying to manipulate international public opinion in support of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, researchers found.

The cyberwarriors used the messaging app Telegram to co-ordinate new supporters, who then targeted the social media profiles of Kremlin critics, spamming them with pro-Putin and pro-war comments.

The group co-ordinating the activity, Cyber Front Z (CFZ), is a Telegram channel suspected of having links to Yevgeny Prigozhin, a former hot-dog seller and convict who became a billionaire after meeting Putin.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said: “We cannot allow the Kremlin and its shady troll farms to invade our online spaces with their lies about Putin’s illegal war. The UK government has alerted international partners and will continue to work closely with allies and media platforms to undermine Russian information operations.”

The multilingual disinformation campaign has been detected across all the biggest social media companies. However, the attacks are centred on Telegram, Instagram and YouTube. On TikTok, which is most popular with teenage users, the British-backed researchers found so-called influencers being paid to amplify pro-Kremlin narratives about the war in Ukraine, using the same “Z” branding as the Russian armed forces.

The disinformation campaign urges users to target mainstream western media outlets and post specific messages about world leaders who oppose the Russian invasion, including Johnson, Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, and Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief.

Subscribers to CFZ were urged to disseminate a video that presents Ukrainians as a “Russophobic terrorist organisation” that “tortures and brutally murders in the style of Islamic terrorists”, along with the instruction: “We ask our acquaintances from other countries to do the same.”

A bizarre collection of social media accounts owned by bands and performers were also hit, including the French dance producers Daft Punk and the Dutch DJ Armin van Buuren.

 “The Kremlin has been implementing a series of information operations designed to deliver persuasive disinformation and propaganda,” an internal British government report said.

 “Some of these information operations are targeting the conflict zone in Ukraine, some are engaging in information control for Russian domestic public opinion management, and others focus upon international audiences.”

It is suspected that the operation is run by Prigozhin, whose life changed dramatically after meeting Putin. He spent nine years in prison in the 1980s for offences including robbery and fraud. When released in 1990, Prigozhin set up a chain of restaurants in St Petersburg and became known as “Putin’s chef” after personally serving dinner to the Russian president and Jacques Chirac, then the president of France.

It was not long before he started carrying out catering for Kremlin banquets. In five years he won government contracts worth more than £2 billion, according to the Anti-Corruption Foundation set up by Alexei Navalny, the jailed critic of the Kremlin.

Western intelligence agencies believe the lucrative contracts were a ploy to hand Prigozhin slush funds to be used in deniable “black operations” around the world.

One of his key tasks is thought to be the provision of funds for the Wagner Group, a shadowy band of 5,000 mercenaries linked to assassinations, election-rigging and cyberwarfare. He denies any link to the organisation.

The group is said to be present in as many as 12 countries, including Sudan, Syria, the Central African Republic, Madagascar and Mozambique.

Wagner’s membership includes citizens of Belarus, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine, although it is mainly staffed by former Russian soldiers, intelligence officers and criminals.

The Foreign Office has already imposed an asset freeze and travel ban on Prigozhin, saying he was “responsible for significant foreign mercenary activity in Libya and multiple breaches of the UN arms embargo”.

He is also accused of financing the notorious St Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, a bot factory that supported Donald Trump in the 2016 US election.

Prigozhin allegedly oversaw operations including the creation of hundreds of fictitious online personas and the use of stolen identities. The FBI has said the actions were taken to reach a significant number of US citizens for the purpose of interfering with the country’s political system, including in the 2016 election.

Following the latest discovery, the British government alerted western allies and shared evidence of the disinformation campaign with the social media giants, in an attempt to remove the propaganda from their platforms.

Since the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the British government has already sanctioned key Kremlin figures for spreading disinformation, including Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s press secretary, and Maria Zakharova, the foreign affairs spokeswoman.

Ministers also approved sanctions against Russian state media organisations, including the Kremlin-funded TV-Novosti which owns RT, formerly Russia Today, and Rossiya Segodnya, which controls the Sputnik news agency.

Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, said: “These are insidious attempts by Putin and his propaganda machine to deceive the world about the brutality he’s inflicting on the people of Ukraine.

 “This evidence will help us to more effectively identify and remove Russian disinformation and follows our decisive action to block anyone from doing business with Kremlin-controlled outlets RT and Sputnik.”