A Week in Operations

Operation Matryoshka continued to dominate the coverage of Russian political interference operations around the world.

Matryoshka is a Russian disinformation operation that fabricates convincing fake news reports and social-media content, then pushes them at journalists and fact-checkers to amplify false claims and disrupt political debate.

It was mentioned for the first time in Sweden’s election campaign. It also continued to be used to attack candidates in the French presidential race and targeted regional and municipal politicians in Germany.

Elsewhere, investigations focused on suspected Russian covert activity of a more physical kind.

• German security services uncovered a weapons cache believed to have been prepared for Russian agents. There was also a conviction in a Russian-directed sabotage reconnaissance case.

• Estonia is investigating possible Russian involvement in an arson attack on a defence company supplying Ukraine.

• Australia brought a foreign-interference charge in an alleged Russian intelligence operation.

In Brazil, the Portuguese-language branch of the Pravda network and the wider Russian disinformation outlets proved to be capable of reaching voters ahead of the October election.

In Africa, Ghana said Russia-based recruitment networks had illegally drawn young Ghanaians into the war in Ukraine, with dozens reported killed or missing.

The G7 Rapid Response Mechanism also formally identified a Pravda network operation exploiting a Russian missile incident over Poland to undermine trust in Polish institutions, NATO and support for Ukraine.

This week’s coverage came in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, Greek, Ukrainian and Russian-language sources. Routine Russian diplomacy, overt state messaging, unsupported allegations and stories already covered in the previous issue were excluded.

I. MEDIA COVERAGE

1. Sweden: Matryoshka enters the election with fabricated news reports alleging fraud and criminal scandals, SVT, 19 August

The Russian-linked Matryoshka network has launched its first known operation directed at Sweden, less than a month before the parliamentary election on 13 September. Seven fabricated videos appeared on X within a single hour. They imitated established outlets including SVT, Dagens Nyheter, Euronews and Der Spiegel and spread false allegations about election fraud and Swedish politicians, including Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

One fake Euronews report claimed that German hackers had penetrated Sweden’s BankID identification system to manipulate the election. Other material alleged links between Swedish politicians and financial criminals or paedophiles. Antibot4Navalny attributed the accounts to Matryoshka.