Within hours of the attacks, it was claimed the strikes had done something years of counter-disinformation efforts had struggled to achieve by taking Russian propaganda bots offline. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said social media had become easier to navigate, with fewer bots, less division, and fewer provocations.
Officials pointed to apparent interruptions in Russian automated information networks, while commentators began asking if Ukraine had found a way to physically disrupt the infrastructure underpinning Russia’s information war.
However, while researchers have found evidence of temporary disruption to some automated Russian networks, there is little evidence that the strikes degraded its broader influence operations.
Moscow’s information operations include a wide range of tools, including various servers, cloud platforms, and residential internet connections. Moreover, the affected data centers supported a wide range of digital services. The disruptions observed in automated systems cannot be equated with a weakening of the Kremlin’s entire propaganda apparatus.
And yet the Yandex strikes were important, even if they did not switch off the propaganda machine, because they briefly exposed the infrastructure beneath it. (Ukraine’s data center strikes have hit several sites and have caused interruptions to a range of key Russian services.)
Moscow has moved from spreading false narratives to waging full-scale cognitive warfare as part of its new generation warfare (NGW) doctrine. While earlier information operations aimed at changing public opinion, the current objective is to disrupt the psychological and social mechanisms through which individuals, communities, and governments perceive reality.
At the basic level, information operations influence people’s perceptions through a constant stream of stories and powerful emotional stimuli, which drain attention and critical thinking.
At the psychological level, AI systems and their algorithms analyze people’s online behavior, identify their fears, beliefs, and vulnerabilities, and feed them tailored content to sow doubt and gradually steer them toward views favorable to the Kremlin.
At a social level, such campaigns fuel conflicts between different groups, undermine trust in the state and its institutions, and weaken the willingness to act collectively. People then begin their own apathy as the product of their own thinking.
Moscow’s cognitive warfare apparatus relies heavily on social media platforms like Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter/X. These are large-scale networks that spread emotionally charged viral content and target sensitive social triggers. Such networks often use AI-generated imagery and amplify states’ internal problems, with a focus on dividing society, undermining trust, and causing destabilization.
Moscow extends its information influence beyond Russia not only through its own media outlets, but also through foreign media organizations, influencers, and content distribution networks, including by means of covert funding. Between October 2023 and August 2024, for example, the state-run broadcaster Russia Today (RT) transferred approximately $9.7m to US media company Tenet Media, accounting for around 90% of its revenue.
The funds were channeled through front companies and disguised as the purchase of electronic equipment. Meanwhile, the audience was unaware of the funding’s origin and the editorial influence bought by the financial support.
Documents from the US Department of Justice include correspondence after a terrorist attack on a Moscow music venue in March 2024, for example, in which an RT representative asks one of the US company’s founders to blame Ukraine and the US for the attack.
Tenet Media did not disclose its Russian links to the influencers on its payroll, so while the case files indicate covert funding and editorial direction, it is possible some speakers may have unwittingly promoted Russian narratives.
Laura Loomer, a key MAGA influencer, also repeated anti-Ukrainian lines. She said she believed Ukraine had started the war, was a “country of Nazis,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was a drug user, and US funding should stop.
After a visit to Ukraine in July, in which she spoke with politicians and military personnel, assessed the situation and witnessed an air raid, Loomer acknowledged she had been misled by Russian messaging.
She posted that she had been “an ***hole for minimizing the struggle of Ukrainians for the last five years,” adding that “we have been so propagandized by Russia and we don’t even realize it.”
Russian propaganda specifically targets audiences who have lost trust in traditional media or have been excluded from them. After losing access to such platforms, users change not only their sources but also their entire information environment.
Ukraine’s experience in countering Russia’s hybrid warfare shows that monitoring the information environment, blocking content, or exposing disinformation is no longer sufficient. It is vital to proactively improve society’s information hygiene, strengthen social institutions, and explain the aims and mechanisms of hostile propaganda.
As Russia wages a hybrid war against the West, Ukraine’s experience could prove valuable as a foundation for defense of the US and Europe. Information security and countering hybrid threats should be viewed not as a separate sphere of resilience-building, but as an integral component of national security.
Olesia Horiainova is Deputy Head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
