cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/54132162
Russian influence operators called it Project 2026. The plan wasn’t just to spread fabricated stories on social media platforms. It outlined efforts to create an alternative information ecosystem.
Leaked documents from a private Russian agency reveal plans to build a sprawling network of Wikipedia-style reference sites, media outlets and phony think tanks to shape how people and AI chatbots understand political issues.
The documents from the Social Design Agency (SDA), which has been sanctioned by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union for supporting Kremlin-directed disinformation, show how the Moscow-based agency has emerged as a central node in Russia’s cognitive warfare system, involved in false flag operations and planting sham stories online.
Among the 73 leaked files are project proposals and screenshots of chats and websites dating from May 2023 to April 2026. Combined, they suggest Russian influence operators are expanding beyond spreading false stories on social media platforms to trying to control the sources of information that underpin search engines and large language models. Fact Investigation Platform, an Armenian media outlet focused on disinformation, first reported on some of the documents.
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One proposal outlined plans to build a reference site “cloned” from Wikipedia for Armenia that operators would optimize for search engines and insert Russia-friendly narratives into the most-read pages. The proposal was dated April 14, according to its metadata, just two months before the country’s June 7 election.
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Another project targeting Germany said 200,000 web pages were created, according to a planning document dated Jan. 15. It set goals, including editing 100 articles a month targeting search engines. The plan also aimed to “train” six AI platforms a month using edited articles. It did not disclose the names of the websites. The BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said it was aware of the leak but declined to comment.
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“Their approach is to try to break search engines by flooding the zone with content that cross-references their content or their narratives,” said Katerina Sedova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center … “This will be their indirect way of breaking into popular chatbots and search engines.”
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Most of the leaked documents don’t contain SDA logos, but European officials and researchers said they believed the files were genuine based on their content and the style of the proposals, some of which are similar to SDA documents disclosed by the U.S. Justice Department and European media in 2024.
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Historical Domain Name System data was used to independently confirm the existence of the 42 websites shown in screenshots of the operation’s content management system, evidence that would be difficult to falsify. Almost all of them were hosted on the same Russia-based internet protocol address, which also appears in the leaked documents.
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Reporters found three websites — spyurk.cyou, sevan.info and khachkar.info — hosted at the same internet protocol address and registered in January that have pages copied from Wikipedia on Armenia in Russian. The spyurk.cyou page on the Armenian diaspora appears to be a copy from the Russian-language version on Wikipedia, which removed references to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The sites were suspended by their internet provider on June 9. The provider didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Reporters also found numerous websites run by SNG-Media, a group working with the SDA to advance pro-Russian views according to a leaked SDA brochure. The websites credit images to spyurk.cyou, even though they’re available on Wikipedia, Shutterstock or social media. The websites, including erevan.one targeting Armenia, are hosted in the Russian Federation and registered with Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor, which controls and restricts online information.
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Russia has tried to use think tanks and news outlets as fronts to influence Western public opinion over the past decade. In 2021, the U.S. imposed sanctions on the Moscow-based Strategic Culture Foundation and three other outlets for working with Russian intelligence agencies to spread false information. Reports in 2022 revealed that Wikipedia pages in multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese, referenced the SCF.
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It also outlined a plan to monitor 100 French opposition politicians and republish 30 to 40 of their posts daily. A screenshot of an opinion tracker for France from April revealed that the group was monitoring social media posts of a dozen far-right and leftwing politicians and public figures, noting hashtags and themes that emerged. Those tracked included Catherine Griset, a member of the European Parliament for the right-wing party Reassemblement National, and Louis Boyard, a member for the leftwing France Unbowed party. Griset and Boyard didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Bloomberg found evidence of similar tracker websites created for the U.K. and Germany earlier this year. The sites group influencer posts around hashtags that operatives created about divisive themes. In the U.K. tracker, trending hashtags included #MigrantCrisis, #BrokenSystem and #WarSpillover.
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