When a fringe Georgian politician with pro-Russia leanings opined in an interview that Washington was pulling the strings of a recent wave of protests in Tbilisi, the spreaders of disinformation sprang into action.
The video comments by Solidarity for Peace Party head Mikhail Zhgenti on May 15 were packaged by them as an article and posted to a website, earlier versions of which have churned out pro-Kremlin disinformation ever since Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (Some of those spreading the comments have been sanctioned by the EU.)
From there, freshly created X accounts bearing all the signs of bots began feverishly reposting the material, especially on U.S.-based accounts. That included the accounts of some well-known figures -- such as U.S. House of Representatives member Matt Gaetz (Republican-Florida) -- and even some legitimate U.S.-based news websites.
It was all part of a smear campaign targeting U.S. audiences with "content discrediting protests in Georgia," said the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), a disinformation analytical unit of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, in a new report.
Georgia has been rocked by weeks of protests over a controversial "foreign agent" law that requires organizations and groups to register as "agents of foreign influence" if they receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad. Critics say it mirrors legislation in Russia, where it has been used to crack down on dissent.
The United States has been one of the most vocal critics of the legislation and, on June 6, Washington announced it was sanctioning Georgian officials and others because of the legislation.
Police try to detain a demonstrator near the parliament building during an opposition protest against "the Russian law" in the center of Tbilisi on May 13.
The move to impose travel bans on the officials, members of the ruling Georgian Dream party, law enforcement officers, lawmakers, private citizens, and some family members of those people came three days after Georgia's parliament speaker signed the measure into law following lawmakers' override of a presidential veto.
"There is widespread support in the U.S. for the Georgian protests and civil society and their struggle for democracy, and there is widespread criticism of the ruling party and its decision to pass this law. Also U.S. representatives call it the Kremlin-backed law," explained Eto Buziashvili, author of the DFRLab report. "So, it's more than hinting that this law leads back to the Kremlin and it is not only Georgian Dream, but it's the Kremlin supporting Georgian Dream with this law. So, given there is this strong support from the U.S. as well as strong messaging, this Russia-linked operation tries to at least divide society and decrease support for the protests," she told RFE/RL.
The smear campaign comes amid fresh warnings of the increased risk of the growing threat of disinformation and worrying signs that such efforts are becoming more sophisticated, largely thanks to artificial intelligence.
SEE ALSO: Opponents Of Georgia's 'Foreign Agent' Law Accuse Government Of Targeting Them In Campaign Of IntimidationIn Poland, a fake news report that Poland was preparing a mass military mobilization appeared on May 31 on PAP, Poland's national news agency. Authorities blamed Russia-sponsored hackers aiming to influence the upcoming European Parliament elections.
In the United States, one day after Washington said Kyiv could use U.S. weapons in limited strikes inside Russia, a deepfake video of a U.S. spokesman discussing the policy appeared online. The fake quote was reported as factual news by Russia's state-run TASS news agency on May 30 with reaction from a Russian official.
Microsoft warned on June 2 that "Russia is ramping up malign disinformation campaigns against France" ahead of this summer's Olympic Games in Paris.
France, Germany, and Poland have become "permanent" targets for Russian disinformation ahead of the European Parliament elections, European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova warned on June 4, in just one of the latest warnings from Western leaders about the rising threat of fake news.
Screenshot of a pinned post on the RRN’s X account featuring a video interview with Mikhail Gzhenti.
Much of that disinformation has been pushed by a Russia-led campaign dubbed Doppelganger, which largely relies on spreading disinformation on websites designed to resemble legitimate news portals.
It was first uncovered in 2022, when such sites churned out pro-Russia disinformation in relation to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Individuals and companies linked to Doppelganger were later sanctioned by the EU, but it continues to target Europeans online and was exposed by French and German authorities in recent months.
One of these faux news portals is Real Reliable News (RRN), which has operated under different home domains and also figures in the Georgian protest social media smear campaign, DFRLab found.
Under the headline Video: Georgia Refuses To Become Another Ukraine -- a nod to another Kremlin-friendly narrative that Washington was behind the 2014 Euromaidan protests that led to the ousting of a Moscow-friendly president in Ukraine -- the interview with Gzhenti was posted to RRN on May 15.
Gzhenti is head of the Solidarity for Peace Party, which was recently formed and according to Georgian media is financially backed by Otar Partskhaladze, a former prosecutor-general closely connected to Georgian Dream. Partskhaladze was sanctioned by Washington for his ties with Russia's Federal Security Service and efforts to sway events in Georgia in favor of Russia.
Gzhenti was also the source of a RRN post on X on May 24 spinning a claim by Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze that he was the target of a threat by an EU commissioner over the foreign agent law. The EU official denied the charge.
Screenshots of accounts promoting a post by @hyehyenabro in the replies to different U.S. accounts. The keywords used by the DFRLab to identify the accounts are marked in red.
His earlier comments from the interview published by RRN were snatched up by 39 X accounts (all since shut down), which began rapidly reposting it, said Buziashvili, adding it was just one link in a "larger network."
"Actually, the 39 accounts were part of two sister networks. The first one, an originator network, which were generating [the X posts], not the copy-paste one, but similar ones that were pushing this interview, as well as claiming that the U.S. was behind the Georgian protests," Buziashvili said.
"Then there were the amplifiers, which I worked on. They [copied and pasted] this link to the U.S.-based users in the reply sections exclusively [on X]," Buziashvili added.
Whether the smear campaign had any impact is hard to say, cautioned Buziashvili, noting the following months ahead of Georgia's October parliamentary elections will be key.
"It is hard to judge at this stage how successful this campaign was or is first because the protests are still continuing in Georgia and, second, the law was just passed and the main processes will basically be beginning now in the coming days."