Foreign Influence · Primary Sources · 2014 to Today

The American you're arguing with may not be American

Russian bot farms and troll operations are not a theory. They are described in federal indictments, sworn congressional testimony, and court affidavits. What nobody can honestly tell you is how many minds they changed. This page shows you both: what is proven, and where the proof stops.

Last reviewed: October 13, 2026Status: Living page, updated as evidence changesHow we evaluated the evidence

Start here

Three questions. Three different answers.

Most arguments about Russian bots collapse three separate questions into one. Keep them apart and the whole subject gets clearer.

Yes

Do Russian government bot and troll operations targeting Americans exist?

Documented in DOJ filings, Senate testimony, and the companies' own disclosures.

Millions

How many Americans could have encountered their content?

Platform estimates of potential exposure. Not views, not belief.

Unknown

How many Americans changed what they believed, or how they voted?

The best study available found no measurable effect on one platform. Nobody has measured the rest.

Documented
On the public record: a court filing, sworn testimony, an official statement, or a company disclosure.

Alleged
Charged or asserted by prosecutors in court papers. Not proven at trial.

Estimate
A real measurement or model, with limits we spell out.

Quarantined
Circulating but unverified. Shown so you know we looked.

This week · October 2026

Ukraine hit Russia's data centers. Did it hit the bots?

Documented The strikes

Between October 8 and 11, 2026, drones struck three data centers run by Yandex, Russia's largest technology company and its equivalent of Google: Sasovo in the Ryazan region, then Kaluga, then Vladimir. Yandex said Sasovo stopped operating entirely and Vladimir was completely suspended. Reuters reported Sasovo housed two of the three supercomputers the company uses to build its AI model. President Zelensky described the attacks as a response in kind to Russian strikes on Ukrainian data centers.

Sources: Reuters via ThePrint, Oct. 9 · Cybernews, Oct. 11 · Al Jazeera, Oct. 9

"The strikes wiped out Russia's pro-Trump propaganda bots. Twitter is a ghost town."

Where it came from: After the Vladimir strike, a Bluesky post shared a Cloudflare Radar chart showing automated traffic from Yandex's network (AS13238) falling almost to zero, and suggested social media must now be deserted. Some outlets, including an Italian paper, repeated it as fact. The claim spread fast because a lot of people wanted it to be true.

Why it doesn't hold up: Cloudflare's "bot traffic" is automated web requests: search-engine crawlers, scrapers, and apps hosted in that data center. Yandex runs Russia's biggest search engine, so when its servers go dark, its crawlers stop. That is what the chart shows. Engineers discussing it pointed out that influence operations don't run their fake accounts from a search company's data-center addresses. One analysis noted the measurement cannot identify who sent the requests or why.

What would change our mind: Platform data or independent research showing coordinated inauthentic accounts going quiet at the same time, traced to infrastructure that was actually hit.

Verdict: The strikes are real. The bot-farm claim is a misread chart. Quarantined pending evidence.

Sources: RuntimeWire analysis · Cloudflare Radar glossary: bot vs. human

Here is the irony. A false claim about Russian bots is a perfect example of how manipulation works: it confirmed what people already believed, it came with an official-looking chart, and almost nobody checked what the chart measured. The real story doesn't need the embellishment. Russia's influence operations are documented in federal court, and the rest of this page is the record.

The record

Four numbers from the paper trail

Every figure below comes from sworn testimony or a Justice Department filing. Each measures something different. Read the fine print on each card; that's where the honesty is.

Estimate · Facebook, 2017

126M

Americans who may have been served posts from Russia's Internet Research Agency on Facebook

Facebook told Congress the troll farm's 120 pages published more than 80,000 posts from January 2015 to August 2017. About 29 million people were served those posts directly; after sharing, the estimate rose to roughly 126 million. Facebook's own testimony warned that many of them may never have actually seen the posts, which made up about 1 of every 23,000 posts on the site.

Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Nov. 1, 2017 · Hearing record

Documented · DOJ, 2024

968

X accounts searched in an AI-powered bot farm run by Russia's security service

According to the unsealed affidavits, RT, Russia's state broadcaster, organized software to mass-produce fake profiles, many posing as Americans. An FSB officer then ran it with Kremlin approval and funding. X suspended the accounts. The FBI called it the first disruption of a Russian bot farm enhanced by generative AI.

DOJ press release, July 9, 2024 · Read it

Alleged · DOJ, 2024

Internet domains seized from Russia's "Doppelganger" operation

Prosecutors say three Russian companies working under the direction of the Kremlin's deputy chief of staff built fake copies of real news sites and pushed them with paid ads, fabricated influencers, and accounts posing as Americans. Their stated aims: reduce support for Ukraine and influence voters in the 2024 election.

DOJ press release, Sept. 4, 2024 · Read it

Alleged · DOJ, 2024

$10M

Russian state money prosecutors say was secretly routed to a U.S. video company that paid American commentators

Two RT employees were indicted for allegedly funneling nearly $10 million through shell companies to a Tennessee content company. Its videos drew more than 16 million YouTube views. The commentators were not charged; the indictment describes them as deceived about where the money came from.

DOJ press release, Sept. 4, 2024 · Read it

Do not add these numbers together. They come from different operations, different years, and different kinds of measurement. None of them is a count of Americans who were persuaded.

The mechanism

How Russian propaganda becomes your neighbor's Facebook post

The operations don't need you to follow a Russian account. They need one real American to share. By the 2016 election, most exposure to Russian troll content on Twitter came through retweets by ordinary accounts people already followed, not from following the trolls directly.

Fake identityA profile that looks like an ordinary American: a name, a town, a photo, sometimes generated by AI.
Build trustMonths of harmless posts. Bible verses, local pride, sports, veterans. Followers accumulate.
Pick a woundRace, immigration, guns, religion, elections, Ukraine. Something people already feel strongly about.
AmplifyCoordinated accounts and small ad buys make a message look bigger and more popular than it is.
Real people shareAmericans pass it on in good faith, without any idea where it started.
It goes mainstreamInfluencers and commentators repeat it. Repeating it doesn't mean they know the source.

Documented · Senate hearing

Houston, Texas · May 21, 2016

Both sides of the street, run from St. Petersburg

~$200

One Russian-run Facebook page, "Heart of Texas," advertised a rally to stop the "Islamization of Texas" at a Houston Islamic center. Another Russian-run page, "United Muslims of America," advertised a counter-rally at the same place, same time. Real Texans showed up on both sides and faced off in the street. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a Republican, said the whole operation cost Russia about $200.

Source: Hearing record, Nov. 1, 2017

Documented · DOJ affidavit

"Minneapolis, Minnesota" · Late 2023

A fake Minnesotan posting Putin's history lessons

"Ricardo"

Among the examples in the 2024 bot-farm case: an X account presenting itself as a Minneapolis resident posted a video of Putin claiming parts of Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania were "gifts" from Russia. Another fake persona replied to a federal candidate's posts about Ukraine with Putin justifying the invasion. No such Minnesotan existed. As Arizona's U.S. Attorney put it, ideas in our debates should be "generated by Americans, for Americans."

Source: DOJ, July 9, 2024 (includes screenshots)

Case files

Five operations, on the record

Tap any file to open it. Each one links to the government document it comes from.

2014 – 2017The Internet Research Agency: the original troll farmDocumented Charged 2018

A St. Petersburg company funded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late founder of the Wagner mercenary group, ran what prosecutors called "Project Lakhta." Working day and night shifts timed to U.S. hours, its staff created hundreds of social media accounts posing as Americans, bought ads, and even organized real rallies on American soil through unwitting volunteers.

February 16, 2018: A federal grand jury indicted 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian companies, including the IRA.
March 2020: Prosecutors dropped the case against two of the companies, which had shown up in court to fight it, saying a trial risked exposing sensitive national-security information. The individual defendants remain in Russia.
What it targeted: Facebook testimony and Senate exhibits show pages aimed at Christians, Black Americans, gun owners, Muslims, Texans, and LGBT Americans, often inflaming both sides of the same issue.

Sources: NPR on the 2018 indictment · NPR on the 2020 dismissal · Senate hearing record

2023 – 2024The AI bot farm: RT builds it, the FSB runs itDocumented

According to affidavits unsealed in July 2024, a deputy editor-in-chief at RT led development of software that could create and operate fake social media personas at scale, with AI generating profile images and text. In early 2023 an FSB officer, with Kremlin approval and funding, set up a "private intelligence organization" that used it to spread Russian government narratives, mostly about Ukraine.

The FBI seized two U.S.-registered email domains the software used to sign up fake accounts.
The U.S., Canada, and the Netherlands published a joint technical advisory so platforms could detect the tool.
X had already suspended many of the accounts and voluntarily removed the rest.

Sources: DOJ press release · Affidavit for the 968 accounts (PDF) · Joint cybersecurity advisory (PDF)

2022 – 2024Doppelganger: counterfeit newspapersAlleged Domains seized

Prosecutors say three Russian firms, the Social Design Agency, Structura, and ANO Dialog, worked under Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin's first deputy chief of staff. Their technique: register look-alike domains, such as a Washington Post copy ending in ".pm" instead of ".com," fill them with Kremlin talking points dressed as real journalism, then push readers there with ads, influencers, and fake American commenters.

The affidavit quotes internal planning documents, including project proposals the operators named the "Good Old USA Project" and a "U.S. Social Media Influencers Network Project."
According to the Attorney General, a Kremlin planning document stated a goal of securing Russia's preferred outcome in the 2024 election.
The operation also targeted Germany, Mexico, Israel, and others.

Sources: DOJ press release · FBI affidavit (PDF)

2023 – 2024Tenet Media: Russian money behind American voicesAlleged

The indictment of two RT employees describes the most unsettling method on this page, because it needed no fake Americans at all. Prosecutors say RT routed nearly $10 million through shell companies to a Tennessee firm, which paid well-known American commentators to make videos. The firm's description matches Tenet Media. According to the indictment, the commentators were told the videos were sponsored by a private investor who was in fact a fictional persona.

Nearly 2,000 videos, more than 16 million YouTube views, on immigration, inflation, and U.S. politics.
Precision matters: No commentator was charged. Several said publicly that they were victims and that no one controlled what they said. The indictment treats them as deceived, not as agents.
The two RT employees are in Russia and have not appeared in court.

Sources: DOJ press release · NPR: How Russian operatives covertly hired U.S. influencers · Axios

October 2024The fake ballot video: debunked in three hoursOfficial attribution

Days before the 2024 election, a video spread on X appearing to show a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, election worker tearing up mail ballots marked for Trump. The county's bipartisan elections board said the materials weren't theirs. On October 25, the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and CISA jointly assessed that Russian actors made and amplified it.

Researchers linked it to a network called Storm-1516, which they describe as an offshoot of the Internet Research Agency.
Local officials and police debunked it within about three hours, after ordinary citizens reported it. That is what working defenses look like.

Sources: RFE/RL, quoting the joint FBI/ODNI/CISA statement · CyberScoop

The hardest question

Reaching people is not changing their minds

"126 million Americans" sounds like a nation hypnotized. It isn't. Each step down this ladder is harder to measure, and the evidence thins out fast.

Reach

Could the content have appeared in someone's feed?

Measured: millions

Engagement

Did people like, comment, or share it?

Partly measured

Persuasion

Did anyone change what they believed?

One major study: no sign

Votes

Did it change how anyone voted, or who won?

Not shown

Peer-reviewed research · 2023

The best study we have

Eady, Paskhalis, Zilinsky, Bonneau, Nagler & Tucker, Nature Communications, January 9, 2023. Researchers linked a three-wave 2016 election survey of about 1,500 Americans to the actual Twitter feeds of those same people, then measured how much Russian troll content landed in each feed.

Who saw it? Share of all Russian troll exposures

Top 1% of users

70%

Top 10% of users

98%

What else was in their feeds? Average posts per day, final month of the campaign

National news media

106

U.S. politicians

Russian troll accounts

9×Strong Republicans saw about nine times as many Russian troll posts as Democrats or independents. The operation mostly reached people who were already committed.

No measurable shiftThe researchers found no meaningful link between exposure and changes in issue positions, polarization, or vote choice.

What it does not prove: The authors stress it covers one platform (Twitter), one election, and posts only, not images or videos passed around elsewhere. It is observational, not an experiment. And they raise a sharper possibility: the campaign's biggest effect may have been persuading Americans that it worked, feeding distrust in elections themselves.

Source: Nature Communications 14, 62 (2023)

So why does any of this matter?

Because "it may not have changed many votes" is not the same as "it did no harm." Real people stood face to face in a Houston street because of two fake pages. Real Americans were paid with money whose source was hidden from them. A fake video tried to convince voters their ballots were being destroyed. Every hour spent arguing with a sock puppet is an hour not spent talking to a real neighbor. And every time Americans assume the person who disagrees with them must be a Russian bot, the operation wins a little, without lifting a finger.

Most American division is homegrown. The fault lines these operations pry at, over race, religion, guns, and money, were here long before the Internet Research Agency. Foreign operators exploit our arguments. They didn't invent them. For the domestic side of the machine, see The Middle Class Didn't Die of Natural Causes and Rage Bait, Please Share.

Don't mix them up

Not every troll farm is Russian

You may have seen the number 140 million. It comes from a 2019 internal Facebook report, obtained by MIT Technology Review, which found troll-farm pages reaching about 140 million Americans a month before the 2020 election. Those pages were run mostly out of Kosovo and North Macedonia, largely for advertising money. By October 2019 they ran all 15 of the top Facebook pages aimed at American Christians and 10 of the top 15 aimed at Black Americans.

That is a real and damning finding, about Facebook as much as anyone. But it is not a Russian government operation, and it should never be added to the Russian numbers above. Mixing them is exactly the kind of error a skeptical reader would use to throw out the whole page.

Source: MIT Technology Review, Sept. 16, 2021 · Full context: Rage Bait, Please Share

Sorted by reliability

What we know, what's claimed, what's open

Documented facts

Russian-run accounts posed as Americans on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter from 2015 to 2017. The companies confirmed it under oath.
The FBI seized domains used by an AI bot farm and by Doppelganger in 2024.
X suspended the 968 bot-farm accounts.
Three Yandex data centers were struck in October 2026.

Official assessments & charges

The 2017 intelligence assessment concluded Russia sought to help Trump and hurt Clinton in 2016. The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee found it sound.
The RT employees and IRA defendants are charged, not convicted.
The FBI, ODNI, and CISA attributed the Bucks County video to Russian actors.

Research findings

On Twitter in 2016, exposure was concentrated in a tiny, mostly strongly Republican slice of users.
No measurable effect on attitudes or votes was found in that study.
Troll content was dwarfed by domestic news and politicians.

Unanswered questions

How much effect did these operations have on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok?
What is Russia running right now, with the FBI's foreign influence task force disbanded?
Did the Yandex strikes disrupt any influence infrastructure at all?
Did the fear of bots do more damage than the bots?

Try it yourself

Spot the warning signs in a viral post

This post is invented for practice. It isn't based on a real account. Tap each underlined part to see what a careful reader would ask. Then read why none of it, alone, proves anything.

Fictional example

Ballots found dumped behind a school in my county.

[ grainy photo of boxes · no date · no location ]

Election Workers Caught Destroying Thousands of Votes

12.4K shares

Sign 1 · Identity

Sign 2 · Behavior

Sign 3 · Urgency

Sign 4 · Missing evidence

Sign 5 · Look-alike site

Sign 6 · Copy-paste chorus

The rule that matters most

None of these signs proves an account is a bot, foreign, or acting in bad faith. Check the claim, not the person. "That's a Russian bot" is not a rebuttal, and calling a real American a bot because you disagree with them does the propagandists' work for them. The question is always the same: where is the evidence, and can I verify it?

Timeline

What happened, and what the government did

May 2014The Internet Research Agency begins targeting the U.S.

The 2018 indictment dates the start of "Project Lakhta" operations aimed at Americans to at least May 2014. Alleged

NPR

Jan. 6, 2017Intelligence agencies assess Russia's 2016 campaign

The CIA, FBI, and NSA jointly concluded Russia ran an influence campaign aimed at the election and that Putin developed a preference for Trump. The assessment made no judgment about whether it changed the outcome.

Senate Intelligence Committee copy of the assessment

Oct. 31 – Nov. 1, 2017Facebook, Twitter, and Google testify under oath

Facebook discloses 120 IRA pages, 80,000+ posts, and the 126 million potential-reach estimate. Twitter reports 2,752 IRA-linked accounts. Chairman Burr warns against assuming foreign meddling explains the election result; Vice Chairman Warner says the operations are continuing.

Hearing record

Feb. 16, 2018Grand jury indicts 13 Russians and 3 companies

The special counsel's indictment describes fake U.S. personas, purchased ads, and rallies organized through unwitting Americans. Charges against two of the companies were dropped in March 2020 to protect classified information.

NPR

2019 – 2020Mueller and the Senate weigh in

The Mueller report (2019) documented the interference but did not establish that the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government. The Senate Intelligence Committee's bipartisan investigation, chaired by Republicans, found the 2017 assessment was well-built and its tradecraft sound.

Senate report, Volume 4 (PDF)

Jan. 9, 2023Peer-reviewed study finds no measurable effect on Twitter

Exposure was concentrated and dwarfed by domestic content; no meaningful link to attitudes or votes. See the full breakdown above.

Nature Communications

July 9, 2024DOJ disrupts the AI bot farm

968 X accounts searched, two domains seized, international technical advisory published.

DOJ

Sept. 4, 2024Doppelganger domains seized; RT employees indicted

Same day: 32 domains seized, two RT employees charged in the $10 million Tenet Media scheme, and Treasury sanctions on RT leadership.

DOJ, Doppelganger · DOJ, RT indictment

Oct. 25, 2024FBI, ODNI, and CISA attribute fake ballot video to Russia

The Bucks County video is called a Russian fabrication within a day of going viral.

RFE/RL

Feb. 5, 2025Attorney General disbands the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force

In one of her first memos, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the task force created in 2017 shut down, citing more pressing priorities and the risk of "weaponization," and narrowed criminal enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. About 50 agents and staff were reassigned. Documented

NBC News · CyberScoop

July 2025The 2017 assessment comes under fire, and holds

DNI Tulsi Gabbard released documents and claimed Obama officials "manufactured" the 2017 assessment. A CIA tradecraft review ordered by Director John Ratcliffe criticized how the assessment was rushed and handled, but called its conclusions defensible. Democrats on the intelligence committees disputed Gabbard's characterization. Contested

NPR · Washington Times on the CIA review

Oct. 8 – 11, 2026Ukraine strikes three Yandex data centers

Infrastructure damage is documented. The claim that pro-Trump bots were wiped out is quarantined (see top of page).

For the record

The strongest case against this page

Every Crisis of Truth page states the best counterarguments fairly. If this page is right, it can survive them.

"Russiagate was a hoax."

Critics point out that the Mueller investigation did not establish a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, and that some claims from the period, such as parts of the Steele dossier, didn't hold up.

Partly right. Those are two different questions. Whether a campaign conspired with Russia is one question; Mueller did not establish that it did. Whether Russia ran fake-American operations on U.S. social media is another, and the platforms themselves confirmed it under oath. This page makes only the second claim.

"The effect was tiny. This is overblown."

The best study found no measurable change in attitudes or votes, and the IRA's posts were about 1 in 23,000 on Facebook.

Fair point. That's why we put the study front and center instead of hiding it. Small effects are not zero effects, the study covered one platform, and the operations keep adapting. But anyone telling you Russian bots decided an election is claiming more than the evidence shows.

"'Foreign disinformation' became an excuse for censorship."

Critics across the spectrum argue that federal pressure on platforms to remove content swept in legitimate American speech. That concern is part of why the FBI task force was shut down.

A serious argument. Government deciding what's true is dangerous, and Crisis of Truth has always said so. But seizing domains registered under false pretenses and charging covert foreign funding are not censorship of Americans. They expose who is speaking. The fix for a bad flag system is a better one, not none at all.

"The U.S. does this to other countries too."

The United States has a documented history of covert influence abroad, from election interference during the Cold War to propaganda programs.

True. See Animal Farm and the CIA on our own site. That history is a reason to oppose covert manipulation everywhere, not a reason to shrug at it here.

Now that you know

What you can actually do

Find the original

Before sharing, trace a claim back to where it started: a named reporter, a court record, an official statement. If you can't find one, don't share it.

Check the web address

Look-alike domains are Doppelganger's signature move. Type the outlet's real address yourself and search for the story there.

Notice the feeling

If a post makes you furious at your neighbor in under five seconds, that's the moment to slow down. Rage is the delivery system.

Check images and video

Ask where and when it was taken. A reverse image search can show if a photo is old or from somewhere else.

Report, don't accuse

Report impersonation and coordinated fakes to the platform. Don't call real people bots because you disagree with them.

Ask your representatives

Who is tracking foreign influence now that the FBI task force is gone? Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121.

Check everything

Source library

Every link is shown in full so you can see where it goes. Use the copy button to paste it anywhere.

Government records

Senate Intelligence Committee: Social Media Influence in the 2016 U.S. Elections
Hearing record · Nov. 1, 2017
Sworn testimony from Facebook, Twitter, and Google; the 126 million estimate; the Houston rally exhibits.
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2017/10/26/hearings-open-hearing-social-media-influence-2016-us-elections/
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections
Intelligence Community Assessment · Jan. 6, 2017
The declassified CIA/FBI/NSA assessment.
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/2017/01/06/publications-assessing-russian-activities-and-intentions-recent-us-elections/
Senate Intelligence Committee Report, Volume 4: Review of the Intelligence Community Assessment
Bipartisan committee report · PDF
The Republican-led committee's review of how the 2017 assessment was built.
https://intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Report_Volume4.pdf
DOJ: Russian Government-Operated Social Media Bot Farm
Press release · July 9, 2024
The RT/FSB AI bot farm and 968 X accounts, with screenshots.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-leads-efforts-among-federal-international-and-private-sector-partners
FBI affidavit: search of 968 X accounts
Court filing · PDF
The underlying sworn affidavit for the bot-farm case.
https://www.justice.gov/d9/2024-07/affadavit_for_968_x_accounts.pdf
DOJ: Doppelganger influence operation
Press release · Sept. 4, 2024
32 domains seized; the Kremlin-directed counterfeit-news campaign.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-disrupts-covert-russian-government-sponsored-foreign-malign-influence
FBI affidavit: Doppelganger domains
Court filing · PDF
Includes the operators' internal planning documents.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1366261/dl
DOJ: Two RT Employees Indicted
Press release · Sept. 4, 2024
The $10 million covert funding scheme behind a U.S. video company.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/two-rt-employees-indicted-covertly-funding-and-directing-us-company-published-thousands

Research

Exposure to the Russian Internet Research Agency foreign influence campaign on Twitter in the 2016 US election and its relationship to attitudes and voting behavior
Nature Communications · Jan. 9, 2023 · open access
Eady et al. The study behind the reach-versus-persuasion section.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35576-9
Troll farms reached 140 million Americans a month on Facebook before 2020 election
MIT Technology Review · Sept. 16, 2021
The Kosovo and North Macedonia troll farms. Not a Russian operation.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/09/16/1035851/facebook-troll-farms-report-us-2020-election/

Reporting

Grand Jury Indicts Russians Linked To Interference In 2016 Election
NPR · Feb. 16, 2018
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/16/586500591/grand-jury-indicts-russians-linked-to-interference-in-2016-election
Citing security, feds drop case against Russians linked to election interference
NPR via WYPR · Mar. 17, 2020
https://www.wypr.org/2020-03-17/citing-security-feds-drop-case-against-russians-linked-to-election-interference
Russian influence scheme deceived right-wing content creators
Axios · Sept. 5, 2024
https://www.axios.com/2024/09/05/tenet-media-right-wing-influencers-russian-influence-scheme
U.S. Officials Say Russia Behind Fake Video Of Pro-Trump Votes Being Destroyed
RFE/RL · Oct. 26, 2024
https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-trump-harris-election-fake-video/33174319.html
DOJ disbands foreign influence task force, limits scope of FARA prosecutions
CyberScoop · Feb. 2025
https://cyberscoop.com/doj-disbands-foreign-influence-task-force/
Ukraine expands drone strikes on data centres owned by Russia's Yandex
Reuters via ThePrint · Oct. 9, 2026
https://theprint.in/world/ukraine-expands-drone-strikes-on-data-centres-owned-by-russias-yandex/3066688/
Drone attack takes another Yandex data center offline
Cybernews · Oct. 11, 2026
https://cybernews.com/news/drone-attack-takes-another-yandex-data-center-offline/
Bluesky post says Yandex bot traffic neared zero after data-center strike
RuntimeWire · Oct. 2026
Why the Cloudflare chart can't show an influence operation going dark.
https://runtimewire.com/article/bluesky-yandex-bot-traffic-cloudflare-radar

How we did this

Methodology

Source order: court filings and sworn testimony first; official government statements second; peer-reviewed research third; established news reporting to fill in context. Every number on this page was checked against its source document on October 13, 2026.

Allegations stay allegations. An indictment is not a conviction. Where defendants have not been tried, we say so.

What we declined. A widely shared October 2026 summary of this story cited a technology-news article on the Yandex bot claim that we could not locate anywhere. We did not use it. We also declined an unsourced claim that a prominent commentator personally noticed bot accounts vanishing after the strikes. If you find either, send it and we'll review it.

Corrections. If we got something wrong, it goes in the public corrections ledger.

Send this to someone who thinks the bot story is all hype, and to someone who thinks every person they disagree with is a bot. Both will find something to check.