Why Zelenskyy's claims that Ukraine drone attack halted Russian bot traffic don't hold up
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attack → halt → traffic
Ukrainian president credited drop in pro-Russia bot activity on social media to strike on Yandex data centres
When Ukraine struck three data centres owned by the Russian technology and AI company Yandex over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially said the attacks had resulted in a sudden drop in pro-Russia bot activity.
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attacks → credit → activity
"It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms," Zelenskyy told the Warsaw Security Forum Monday via video link.
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Zelenskyy → become → link
"A lot of people noticed it.
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lot → notice → it
"And it's pretty clear where those bots were coming from — if they disappeared when Yandex went offline."
The Ukrainian president's assertions that the strikes had curtailed the spread of pro-Russia disinformation were also repeated and spread on various social media forums.
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strikes → come → forums
But some experts are casting doubt on his claims and instead suggest that people are misinterpreting data collected about bot traffic following the drone attacks.
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people → cast → attacks
"It's a dangerous misconception," Lukasz Olejnik, a visiting senior research fellow at the Department of War Studies at Kings College London, posted on X.
"The 'bots went silent' story is misinformation," he wrote.
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he → visit → X.
"Believing it is plainly dangerous.
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it → believe → ?
It tells people the threat is gone while influence operations keep going."
Yandex, often described as Russia's Google, runs the country's most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in the development of Russian artificial intelligence.
The airstrikes on the data centres caused outages across Yandex's services, leaving users in dozens of Russian cities as well as those in Kazakhstan, Belarus and Armenia, unable to order taxis or access banking services, according to Russian independent news outlet Astra.
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airstrikes → tell → Astra
In an interview with CBC News, Samuel Woolley, who studies disinformation at the University of Pittsburgh, agreed it was an "an overstatement" to suggest propaganda bot traffic declined following Ukrainian attacks on Russian data centres.
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traffic → study → centres
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Facebook → pay → separatism
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"I haven't seen any research or data that tracks all of the propaganda bots," he said.
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he → add → bots
"It's a misconception to say that all the Russian propaganda bots went down because of this."
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bots → say → this
Russia is alleged to have created a vast network or army of bots — automated software programs on the internet — to spread disinformation, particularly about Ukraine and the war.
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Russia → allege → Ukraine
Flawed interpretation of data
Following the strikes on the data centres, some on social media were quick to cite a chart from Cloudflare, a U.S. company that monitors global internet traffic, claiming that it showed Russian bot activity had dropped to nearly zero.
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activity → follow → zero
Olejnik said in an email to CBC News that while the data from Cloudflare is reliable, it just showed a decline in automated traffic activity from Yandex's search engine crawler, which he explained is different from automated bots used to spread disinformation by posting on social media sites.
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he → say → sites
"The problem is how these figures were interpreted," Olejnik said, noting the Cloudflare data does not measure propaganda infrastructure activity on social networks.
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data → interpret → networks
"The strikes disrupted Yandex's infrastructure, but no significant general decline in pro-Kremlin activity is confirmed," he told CBC via email.
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he → disrupt → email
Woolley says most people associate the word "bot" with fake accounts online, however, it's a generic term to describe any kind of software that completes automated tasks on the internet. Including the kind Yandex uses to scour the web.
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Yandex → say → web
"So it makes total sense if you attack Yandex, that automated traffic online would go down," he said.
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he → make → Yandex
Yandex, often described as Russia’s Google, runs the country’s most popular search engine and a wide range of digital services, and is heavily involved in Russia’s artificial intelligence development.
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Yandex → describe → development
"Basically, bot traffic generally dropped, but everyone is so focused on the internet being so rife with disinformation and propaganda, people relate the word bot to a manipulative social media account."
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people → drop → account
Woolley says it's estimated that over half of online traffic is automated, but "that doesn't mean that half of online traffic is malicious bots."
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half → say → traffic
He also says it's unlikely that Russian propaganda networks were entirely reliant on the Yandex data centres hit in the strikes.
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networks → say → strikes
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Olejnik says Russian influence operations involve thousands of accounts across various platforms, and that "taking down a few data centres" won't solve the whole problem.
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taking → announce → problem
"Troll farms hide behind proxies, hijacked devices and Western clouds," he wrote on X. "
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he → hide → X.
They're still operating."
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They → operate → ?
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy appeared to be backtracking a bit on his initial claim.
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Zelenskyy → appear → claim
The Ukrainian president's office told BBC he was "talking about the atmosphere on social media" rather than a decline in bot activity.
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he → tell → activity
The office noted that it had seen "reports of fewer provocative and hateful comments" from many social media users.
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it → note → users
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