Bloomberg reviewed 130 videos and doctored newspaper front pages targeting the US midterms, published between September 10 and October 9 by a network researchers call Matryoshka, or Operation Overload. Most were flagged by the anonymous disinformation research group Antibot4Navalny, and US-based research groups Graphika and dTeam corroborated the findings.
The videos carry logos of established media outlets and make outlandish claims. One clip bearing an ABC News logo alleged that James Talarico, the Texas Democrat running for Senate, paid OnlyFans models. Another with a CBS News logo claimed the Internal Revenue Service had discovered Georgia senator Jon Ossoff owns eight undeclared properties. Talarico's spokesperson has denied the allegation, and there is no evidence the IRS made any such discovery.
Archived snapshots shared by Antibot4Navalny show view counts being manipulated by a network of bots. Matryoshka posts can jump as high as 200,000 views within the first hour before quickly plateauing, a pattern distinct from the gradual growth curve of organic viewership. Most accounts posting the videos have only a few followers and were dormant for years, with reposts and likes making up a tiny fraction of views.
AI-fabricated clips of well-known actors and musicians, including Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts and Cher, attacking Democrats began appearing on X in early September, some urging people to join a campaign dubbed #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. Unlike previous election cycles that focused on presidential contests, Russia is targeting Democrats in races nationwide, including 29 of the 36 running for governor and 20 of the 35 vying for Senate, according to Bloomberg's review.
The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently shared a report with Congress warning that foreign adversaries were using AI to spread disinformation ahead of the midterms and that Russia was the most active in undermining confidence in election integrity, The Washington Post has reported. A Kremlin spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
Operators pump out five to ten narratives every weekday, usually between 9am and noon, and take weekends off. They tag the social media accounts of mainstream news organisations and have bombarded fact-checking outlets with emails in an apparent bid to generate coverage.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on October 12 that strikes on Russian data centres had reduced bot activity, but Graphika and Antibot4Navalny say they have seen no evidence of a decline in Kremlin-linked bots; what dropped was automated web-crawler traffic on Yandex, Russia's main search engine. A spokesperson for Zelensky did not respond.
"It's evolving with the technology and is more sophisticated as a result," said Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University and co-director of its Media Forensics Hub. "They're actively trying to fish for more engagement."