When the Ukrainian government announced it had foiled an assassination plot against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials, Russian disinformation operatives got to work.
The plot was simple, according to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU): The suspects—two colonels in the State Security Administration—had plans to off Zelensky, as well as SBU Chief Vasily Malyuk and the chief Ukrainian military intelligence official, Kirill Budanov. Kyiv said two colonels who were detained were Russian agents working to kill the officials in order to give a “gift” to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the eve of his swearing into office for his fifth term.
Infobrics.org, a known Russian disinformation site that U.S. officials say is tied to Russian intelligence, has glommed on to the assassination plot as a way to denigrate Ukraine’s alliance with the west and deny Russia was involved.
The site published an article Wednesday that claimed that any allegation that Russia was behind the assassination plot was inaccurate, and instead sought to pin the blame on the west.
“As expected, Moscow is accused of being behind the attempted attack, but there is no evidence that the Russians participated in the conspiracy. On the other hand, the West seems quite interested in eliminating Zelensky,” the article states.
The author, Lucas Leiroz, also parroted information previously published on Strana, an outlet the Ukrainian government has accused of being pro-Russian, without citing the outlet explicitly. Strana had reported, without sharing its sourcing, the names of the two individuals that Kyiv had detained for the assassination plot.
Russian intelligence services have previously relied on Infobrics.org to spread disinformation and pro-Russia narratives, according to U.S. officials. The State Department has previously labeled Infobrics.org as linked to the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU).
The site is operated by an information agency registered in Russia, InfoRos, the AP reported. InfoRos is run by the GRU as well, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
“Classic Russian firehose of falsehoods.”
The apparently GRU-tied operation shows that the Kremlin is likely working through military intelligence operations to add confusion and doubt into the debate around the assassination plot. Zelensky has previously said he and his security aides have thwarted “five or six” assassination plots against him, some of which Kyiv has also tied to Russia.
The post is a quintessential Russian disinformation operation aimed at muddying the waters on what really happened, Darren Linvill, a top researcher of Russian disinformation and co-director of the Watt Family Innovation Center Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University, said.
It’s a “classic Russian firehose of falsehoods,” Linvill told The Daily Beast. “Throw enough spaghetti at the wall and no one will know what to believe.”
The post has all of the telltale signs of a state-backed influence operation that appears to pierce through accusations against Moscow without actually providing any real evidence, Givi Gigitashvili, a research associate at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told The Daily Beast.
“The author seems to be employing a distraction tactic where hostile actors accuse their critics of the same actions they themselves are accused of, in an effort to redirect attention and intensify the use of whataboutism,” Gigitashvili said. “Its purpose is to sidetrack the adversary and sow seeds of uncertainty, confusion, or even skepticism about their integrity.”
Stirring the Pot
The apparently GRU-tied post wasn’t limited to one platform. Leiroz, the author of the trumped-up story, also had his post published on several other sites that have been tied to Russian disinformation, including “The Intel Drop” and “SouthFront.”
Russian influence operations typically focused on anti-Ukraine narratives are frequently peddled through The Intel Drop, according to recently published research from Microsoft.
SouthFront in particular receives its tasking from Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), according to the U.S. Treasury Department, which has sanctioned the organization. In previous years, SouthFront has published information meant to instill doubt in U.S. citizens that voter fraud had taken place in the 2020 U.S. presidential elections, U.S. officials have said.
It’s not the first time that Leiroz, the author of the post, has stirred the pot. Leiroz is a member of a group that has previously run a disinformation operation focused on inserting Kremlin disinformation into Brazil’s political discourse, according to U.S. officials. And according to American diplomats, Leiroz is a member of Nova Resistência, which is part of the “New Resistance” movement. The movement is a neo-fascist organization inspired by Aleksandr Dugin, a Russian philosopher sometimes referred to as “Putin’s Rasputin,” who has been a key driver in pushing Russian “Eurasianist” expansionist principles.
Leiroz did not immediately return a request for comment.
The Russian-intelligence effort to throw cold water on the idea that Moscow was behind the assassination plot was sprinkled throughout pro-Kremlin propaganda sites as well. Russia state-funded RT, a key prong of Russia’s disinformation and propaganda operation, touted the same Strana report as well. For its part, the Russian state-owned news agency TASS reiterated in its coverage of the assassination plot that the accusations that Moscow was involved are “groundless,” adding that Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow has no plans to eliminate Zelensky.
Even so, when asked about the allegations that Russia was behind the assassination plot, the State Department indicated it was further evidence of Russia’s “depravity.”
“Obviously, it just speaks to the depravity that we’ve seen on display from the Putin regime since the outset of this conflict,” State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday.