Pro-Kremlin accounts and social media have spread an unsubstantiated narrative that homes belonging to Ukrainian military officers were set on fire in the Los Angeles wildfires. The claim has been viewed more than a million times on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Investigators examining Russian influence operations say it’s part of a broader Kremlin campaign to discredit the Ukrainian government and undermine the U. S. for Ukraine.
“This is the latest in a long line of claims through Russian officials, the media, and the pro-Kremlin online ecosystem that Ukrainian officials are corrupt and foreign aid is to enrich them,” Léa Ronzaud, a senior researcher at the research firm Graphika, told NPR in an email.
“It’s just so typical of what we see from Russia, [to] take advantage of an ongoing crisis for their own ends,” said Darren Linvill, a communications professor and co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.
The general Ukrainian story first appeared on a pro-Russian Telegram channel 4 days after the fires began in Los Angeles. Within hours, this data was amplified through several other sources, adding some other Telegram channel that called it satire, an of the French authorities. Some of the posts amplifying this baseless claim falsely attributed it to United24 Media, an online page affiliated with the Ukrainian government organization.
The Center for Combating Disinformation of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council issued a statement calling the claim “Russian propaganda. ” He said he verified with United24 Media that he did not create or share the story.
NPR has not received any evidence that Ukrainian generals owned homes in Los Angeles destroyed by the fires. The Ukrainian denied to NPR that the generals’ homes were affected by the fire.
The next day, an influencer under the pseudonym @OlgaBazova, who in the past had echoed narratives pushed through well-known Russian influence networks, shared the story in English with her 700,000 fans on X. The account’s biography describes itself as “specializing in fun geopolitical analysis. ” , exposing hypocrisy and satire. “
Later that night, Robert “Buzz” Patterson, an American conservative influencer with 400,000 followers on X.
When contacted via NPR on
Patterson did not respond to messages from NPR asking why he had posted the claim.
The story that first circulated was debunked by professional fact-checkers in Greece and the United States. Both @OlgaBazova and Patterson’s posts earned user-generated network ratings on X, which mentioned Greek fact-checking.
The unverified claim about the alleged Ukrainian-owned mansions also appeared on other social media platforms including Tik Tok, TruthSocial and the Russian site VK, but did not gain much traction.
The story is the latest example of Russia abandoning the employment of fake social media profiles posing as genuine people, as it did in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, and instead relying on influencers to launder and spread their narratives, Linvill said.
In some cases, influencers have said they were paid to post content that was later known as Russian propaganda by U. S. researchers and intelligence officials. There is no evidence that the influencers who posted the Los Angeles smokestack allegations received any money.
When asked if he had asked or advised @OlgaBazova to publish this claim, the account responded in a public post about a malevolent demon of the status quo posing as a “journalist. “
In September, the U. S. Department of Justice charged two workers at Russian public broadcaster RT in connection with a scheme to funnel around $10 million to right-wing U. S. influencers who posted self-deprecating videos. opposing aid to Ukraine, praising President-elect Donald Trump and criticizing Democrats. The influencers said they did not know that the company paying them was related to Russia.
Other Russian Telegram channels are also spreading false or unverified narratives about the southern California fires and the government’s response, as well as amplifying critiques from Americans including the president-elect’s son, Donald Trump, Jr., Andy Carvin of the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab told NPR in an email. The Russian news site Pravda, which has been associated with prior Russian information operations, then translates and distributes the Telegram posts.
“Over the past week, Pravda has published at least 350 such articles [based on fire-related Telegram messages], based on our initial investigation of the site’s content,” Carvin said.
When a fire devastated Maui in 2023, Russian state media also amplified the United States’ complaint about the federal response. Stories related to past influence operations in China make false claims about the origins of the fire.
Although the Ukrainian officials’ story has been more successful than other narratives about the fires originating from Russia-allied channels, Linvill said, it has still spread as widely as previous narratives linked to Russia.