On June 15, independent Russian media outlet Agentsvo reported that Russian bots affiliated with the Kremlin's disinformation network published 120,000 false anti-Ukraine statements in a single day, falsely attributing them to celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Scarlett Johansson.
The quotes appeared above photos of celebrities, with messages calling for an end to aid to Ukraine and describing the collapse of Europe.
The images were released by the Kremlin disinformation network Dvojnik between June 14-15. Bot Blocker The fake quote has since been viewed more than 500,000 times, the project told Agentsvo.
The campaign reportedly began when Dvojnik published 50 fake celebrity quotes and images on social media platform X, which he retweeted more than 120,000 times. Botblocker said this was standard practice for this type of disinformation campaign, and that the project had documented six such instances in the past six months.
The bot posted in English, French, German and Polish, and its quotes related to a range of celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson, Angelina Jolie, Alain Delon, Luc Besson, Elton John and Lionel Messi.
“We are impoverished. It's time to forget about Ukraine,” actress Jennifer Aniston was falsely quoted as saying.
A fake Scarlett Johansson statement warns that “the EU is falling apart.”
These sentiments are also reflected in Elton John's fake statement: “We fell into the Ukraine trap, and now the EU is falling apart.”
The propaganda campaign began in the wake of the European Parliament elections, in which far-right groups made significant gains, and Russia stepped up its disinformation campaign as the elections drew closer in an attempt to influence their outcome.
Bloomberg: Russian operatives spread Kremlin disinformation across Europe
Russian operatives already identified as leading the Kremlin's disinformation operations in Africa are inviting European journalists to spread Moscow's disinformation across the continent, Bloomberg reported on June 11.
