The russian disinformation swarm in Spanish on Telegram channels
EFE Bogotá I Madrid
Ares Biescas, Daniela Gastón Allen y Sergio Hernández
A network of Telegram channels promoted by Russia spreads disinformation in Spanish, mixing falsehoods and real news, an avalanche of around 84,000 messages that in the last year has attempted to deceive thousands of users in Spain and Latin America.
EFE Verifica, in collaboration with the Microsoft Democracy Forward Initiative, a project in defence of democracy promoted by the US multinational, has analysed the behaviour of a group of Telegram accounts that, under the guise of disseminating news, are dedicated to amplifying the messages of Russia Today (RT) television, financed by the Kremlin and banned by the EU for disinformation.
These channels share messages, republish the same content and act in coordination to spread a narrative favourable to Moscow’s interests and full of falsehoods.
European sanctions against RT and the Sputnik agency are precisely one of the factors that have led those responsible for pro-Russian disinformation to seek other ways to spread their propaganda, such as the messaging platforms WhatsApp and Telegram or the social network TikTok, Mira Milosevich, senior researcher for Russia at the Real Instituto Elcano, a centre for strategic studies based in Madrid, told EFE Verifica.
WHAT INFLUENCE CAN THIS NETWORK HAVE?
Irina, Eureka News or El Ojo are some of a list of 19 channels disseminated by the Russian Embassy in Spain a few months before the regional and municipal elections of 28 May 2023.
EFE Verifica has verified that the embassy published the list on Telegram twice in the period leading up to the elections, on 7 November 2022 and only two days before the voting, on 26 May 2023, a behaviour identified by the European External Action Service (EEAS) as an operation of influence to manipulate the elections.
HOW ARE FALSE MESSAGES SPREAD?
According to the publications analysed, this Russian-promoted network mixes real news with hoaxes.
‘The Russians never lie very blatantly’, Milosevich points out, noting that their method is more sophisticated, with a supposedly “alternative” view of reality, looking for culprits, usually Westerners, or distorting the facts.
Thus, among true publications, such as Colombia’s support for Algeria in its complaint against Israel at the International Criminal Court for war crimes, stand out others that are clearly false.
‘Ukraine is not only an exporter of grain, but also a leading exporter of human organs for the Western black market’, claimed a message posted on the Rokot Tormenta channel in June 2023.
This is a post that links to the Spanish version of RT’s website and spreads a theory refuted by several media specialised in the fight against disinformation, such as EFE Verifica.
It is just one of the many hoaxes published by Russia Today and disseminated by this network, such as the one claiming that the President of the United States, Joe Biden, intended to sit in a non-existent chair, also denied.
HOW LARGE ARE THESE FORUMS?
In this swarm of Telegram channels, references to the official website of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khaminei, one of Russia’s most important international allies, stand out.
In second place are citations to RT, although these are hidden behind six different subdomains (http://actualidad.rt.com , esrt.online, esrt.press, esrt.space, esrt.site and http://es-rt.com ).
Similarly, in this ecosystem there is evidence of coordinated actions, involving the dissemination in different chats of almost exact messages at similar times, a common tactic of disinformation.
In terms of network volume, it is worth noting that between April 2023 and the same month in 2024, 84,000 messages were posted on these forums.
The channels Irina (Irinamar_Z), with 60,000 subscribers and 14,000 posts in the same period, Los Sombreros Blancos [Z] (ophiucu), with almost 22,000 followers and 11,000 posts, and Eureka News (eurekapress), with an audience of 13,000 accounts and a similar number of posts, stand out.
Another influential forum is El Ojo (elOJOen), with around 35,000 subscribers and whose content was republished around 3,500 times by the other members of the list in the year of activity analysed.
Moreover, almost half of the links in this swarm, 48%, go back to YouTube, while 42% redirect to X.
In Latin America, says Milosevich, YouTube serves as a way for Russian disinformation to circumvent controls, to be introduced as entertaining content and for influencers to boast about their interactions.
SOURCES:
Microsoft Democracy Forward Initiative.
Mira Milosevich, Senior Researcher for Russia, Eurasia and the Balkans at the Elcano Royal Institute.
Second EEAS report on the manipulation of foreign information and threats of interference.
threats of interference.
Messages published by the Russian Embassy in Spain.
Article published on RT’s Spanish-language portal.