A large amount of data leaked from a Russian disinformation campaign has highlighted how Moscow aimed to tarnish Ukraine and the Western governments supporting it, while simultaneously trying to increase support for far-right political parties in the European Union.
The documents—obtained by a consortium of European media and shared with the investigative team of the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe, Schemes—reveal the internal operations of the Social Design Agency, a Moscow-based company that the United States claims led the propaganda campaign at the behest of the Kremlin.
The campaign included a mix of memes, falsified videos, and government documents, as well as a network of websites masquerading as legitimate news portals across Europe, designed to spread false information in order to undermine Western support for Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Data shows that a meme discrediting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was disseminated on X by the platform’s owner, billionaire Elon Musk, was then reshared 86,000 times and was created by the Social Design Agency.
The leaked data, some of which was made public this month as part of a U.S. indictment, was initially obtained by German media such as Sueddeutsche Zeitung, NDR, and WDR, which shared it with Schemes and several other media organizations.
They were revealed by an anonymous source who told reporters that the Social Design Agency had been hacked.
