Pro-Kremlin accounts and social media have spread an unfounded narrative that homes belonging to Ukrainian military officers were burned 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. Researchers examining Russian influence operations say they are part of a broader Kremlin campaign to discredit the Ukrainian government and undermine American aid to Ukraine.
“It is the latest in a long string of assertions by Russian officials, media, and the pro-Kremlin online ecosystem that Ukrainian officials are corrupt and use foreign aid money to enrich themselves.” Léa Ronzaud, a senior investigator at research firm Graphika, told NPR in an email.
“It’s very typical of what we’re seeing in Russia, taking advantage of an ongoing crisis for their own purposes,” said Darren Linvill, professor of communications and co-director of the University’s Media Forensics Hub. from Clemson.
The widespread Ukraine story first appeared on a pro-Russian Telegram channel four days after the fires began in Los Angeles. Within hours, this data was amplified through several other sources, adding some other Telegram channel that described them as a 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.
The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council’s Center for Countering Disinformation issued a statement describing the claim as “Russian propaganda.” It said it had verified with United24 Media that it did not create or share the story.
NPR has received some evidence that Ukrainian generals owned homes in Los Angeles destroyed by the fires. The Ukrainian government denied to NPR that the generals’ homes were affected by the fire.
The next day, an influencer run by @OlgaBazova, who in the past had echoed narratives driven through well-known Russian influencer networks, shared the story in English with her 700,000 fans on describes herself as “specializing in fun geopolitical topics. ” analysis, exposing hypocrisy and satire. »
Later that evening, Robert “Buzz” Patterson, a conservative American influencer with 400,000 fans on X, reiterated this claim, likely irony, in a post that has been viewed more than a million times, according to knowledge from X.
When contacted via NPR on X about the post, @OlgaBazova responded with a link to a Russian-language article citing Telegram’s claim about mansions.
Patterson responded to NPR messages asking why he posted the claim.
The story that first circulated has been 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 mentions Greek fact-checking.
The unverified claim about the alleged Ukrainian mansions also gave the impression of appearing on other social media platforms, such as Tik Tok, TruthSocial, and the Russian site VK, but it didn’t gain much attention.
This story is the latest example of Russia abandoning the use of fake social media profiles posing as genuine people, as it did in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, and using of fake profiles on social media that pose as genuine people, as they did in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, and rely on influencers to whitewash and spread their narratives, he said Linvill.
In some cases, influencers 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 made the Los Angeles fireplace claims were paid.
When asked if he had asked or proposed anything for @OlgaBazova to publish this claim, the account responded in a public post on X: “I will not let my integrity be questioned, especially 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 domestic U.S. criticism of the federal response. Accounts tied to previous China influence operations spread false claims about the fire’s origins.
While the Ukrainian officials’ story has been more successful than other accounts of the fires coming from Russia-allied channels, Linvill said, it has not yet spread as widely as previous Russia-related accounts.
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