Vladimir Putin has asked oligarchs to donate to Russia’s budget in a bid to stabilise the country’s finances as he presses on with his invasion of Ukraine, according to three people familiar with the matter.

www.ft.com/content/d10d...

"Social Design Agency", the Russian disinformation company known for the Doppelganger campaign, is now artificially boosting support for Viktor Orban online. Hopefully exposure pieces like this will make them less effective though

Huh.... I wonder why?

Dutch Intelligence is linking this to Russian hackers, who appear to target both Signal and Whatsapp. If you get a message asking for a verification code, IGNORE!

Remember to keep an eye open too for REST Media, Rybar's unafilliated news outlet which appears to be growing on Telegram. OpenAI report: cdn.openai.com/pdf/df438d70... 23/23

Rybar are currently moving their focus towards Africa as Russia aims to gain influence over the DRC, Burundi, Cameroon and Madagascar, including inflaming protests in these countries. 22/23

This is dangerous. These accounts are successful, and they're far from the only ones. The more they grow, the more people will be radicalized under their sway. 21/23

It's clear that their content is designed to enrage, divide and radicalize. They appeal to both sides of the political spectrum and push people further down those paths, adding extreme elements such as dehumanizing names for groups, or memes about distressing current events. 20/23

Rybar continue to sway whichever elections may benefit Russia (the DFRLab report shows their involvement in Moldova's election last year), changing people's opinions and even persuading people not to vote as an act of protest. 19/23

The report goes on to say that Rybar also generated promotional material for a news outlet called REST Media, which DFRLab linked back to Rybar in their report from September 2025: dfrlab.org/2025/09/23/s... 18/23

One single prompt to generate multiple posts that were put out by 6 different, non-afilliated accounts, with different political leanings and different audiences. 17/23

And now with the use of ChatGPT, it's easier for Rybar than ever before. All the X posts in the report's screenshots (including the ones from the 3 accounts I've described) were generated as a batch using a SINGLE prompt. 16/23

All they have to do is parrot the hottest talking points of the day, be they left- or right-wing, and they successfully gather hundreds of thousands of followers. The aim here is to make you hate the "other", no matter what side you're on. It's classic Divide and Conquer. 15/23

I'm sure by now you see the pattern. Russian disinformation is infamous for playing both sides, taking on the views of both ends of the political spectrum in order to sow as much division in the West as possible. 14/23

It receives a good deal of engagement, typically in the hundreds but often in the thousands of likes and retweets. 13/23

"Johnny Midnight" @its_The_Dr is a X account with 625K followers. It posts nostalgic content alongside anti-Iran, pro-Trump, conspiracy theories and content promoting racial tensions. 12/23

It leans heavily into the expectations of the online left-wing space, including anti-Trump, anti-Israel, pro-Palestine and pro-Iran narratives. It receives a great deal of engagement, frequently getting thousands of likes, retweets and hundreds of replies. 11/23

"Nadira Ali" @Nadira_ali12 is a X account with over 140K followers, who claims to be based in the Middle East and be a "Voice of Voiceless". It pushes current left-wing talking points. 10/23

It leans heavily into the expectations of the US right wing, including Christian nationalism, Islamophobia and mocking political correctness. It also currently has 77 subscribers, who are paying Rybar for their propaganda. 9/23

"American Citizen" @realtalkstruth is a X account with almost 74K followers, a buymeacoffee page, and its own X community "Make America Godly Again", which has nearly 23K members. It posts current right-wing US-centric talking points. 8/23

I found them by quote searching parts of the text shown in the screenshots, then matching the tweets I found to those in the report.

The accounts are "American Citizen" @realtalkstruth, "Nadira Ali" @Nadira_ali12, and "Johnny Midnight" @its_The_Dr. 7/23

The report summarizes: "In essence, the ChatGPT activity seemed to serve as a content farm for these accounts." Of the 6 screenshots in the report, showing accounts whose posts match text generated by Rybar's ChatGPT account, I can find 3. 6/23

The report states that Rybar has generated "batches of English-language comments" which OpenAI were able to match to several X and Telegram accounts, "none of which had a declared connection to Rybar". 5/23

Even though Rybar no longer has a US election to try and sway, a large part of their focus has remained on pushing Western (and particularly US) left and right wings further apart. 4/23

Rybar, which is funded in part by Russian defense organization Rostec, has spent the past few years setting up X profiles purporting to be Westerners, who push Rybar's pro-Russian narratives to a Western audience. 3/23

The report names the Russian company misusing the service: it's Rybar, the huge disinformation channel I covered previously here: bsky.app/profile/hack... 2/23

3 Popular X accounts are being run by a Russian Disinformation company.

OpenAI released a report last month discussing the ways foreign states have been misusing ChatGPT to generate propaganda. Russia, of course, was one of the main culprits. 1/23

Z-blogger Maxim Kalashnikov suggesting that Chinese 🇨🇳 pigs are treated better than Russian 🇷🇺 soldiers. 😂 🤣

1/ Igor 'Strelkov' Girkin is marking the fourth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine – after eight years of war in Donbas, which he did much to start – but he isn't celebrating. He sees a "bleak" outlook of mutual exhaustion, caused by poor leadership. ⬇️