Pro-Russian accounts targeting Ukrainians on Facebook and Telegram sharply declined after Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers, according to a new report from a Ukrainian government agency. It’s the most direct evidence so far behind a claim that went viral last week, but it falls well short of proving it.

The report comes from Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), which operates under the country’s National Security and Defense Council. It was published Oct. 15, and United24 Media covered it on Oct. 17. The CCD used software from the Ukrainian security firm Osavul to track accounts it flagged as showing "signs of inauthentic behavior." According to Osavul's website, the firm "builds AI-powered risk intelligence for hybrid threats."

According to United24, the CCD analyzed 22,664 messages from 5,201 accounts posted between Oct. 6 and 12, across 26 topics in Ukraine’s information space. The report found two sharp drops in activity, each following a strike that fully shut down a Yandex facility. On Oct. 8, the day a fire took Yandex’s data center in Sasovo, in Russia’s Ryazan region, offline, messages fell 83.6 percent, from 4,032 to 660.

The number of active accounts fell by a similar share. Activity rebounded past pre-strike levels by Oct. 10, but on Oct. 12, a day after a strike fully halted operations at a Yandex data center in Vladimir, messages fell by 42.6 percent and active accounts dropped by 41 percent.

A smaller group of 98 accounts that posted pro-war propaganda, conspiracy theories, or calls for violence followed the same pattern.

Source link