A Russia-linked campaign has expanded its efforts to trigger street demonstrations across the continent, using fabricated reports to capitalize on recent civic disorder. The operation, known as Matryoshka, issued at least six false narratives urging people to gather for protests on Oct 31 in France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, though researchers state the network did not actually cause the original unrest in Paris.
The disinformation strategy involved the use of ‘Doppelganger’ and ‘Pravda’ bot networks, with the latter publishing 1,018 articles across 28 sites to spread claims that migrants were fueling the violence. Analysis from Alliance4Europe showed that while approximately 20% of English posts about the riots blamed migrants, only about 3% of posts in French did. The disorder has sparked diplomatic tension, with French President Emmanuel Macron rebuking leaders such as Donald Trump for using AI-generated fake videos of the unrest for political purposes.