Russian disinformation network with ties to notorious ‘troll factory’ is taking aim at the US election, analysis finds

A spinoff of the Russian “troll factory” that targeted the 2016 US presidential election now appears to be at the heart of a disinformation campaign trying to sway Western and especially US audiences, according to an investigation by researchers at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub with CNN.

The analysis found that a network dubbed “Storm-1516” — which has a history of producing staged videos and deepfakes that parrot the Kremlin’s propaganda – has close connections with a group created by the late Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The Russian Foundation to Battle Injustice (R-FBI), founded by the former Wagner mercenary boss in 2021, is part of a multi-pronged disinformation effort that has increasingly pivoted from false claims about the Ukraine war to focus on the 2024 US presidential election. The group, which casts itself as a “human rights” organization, is led by Mira Terada, a Russian woman who served more than two years in a US prison on money laundering charges.

CNN has reached out to Terada for comment on the R-FBI’s role in Russian disinformation efforts, and ties to the state.

Leave a Comment