Russian botnet begins sending out fake European articles defending Putin’s decision not to meet with Zelensky in Istanbul

The Russian bot network Matryoshka has begun distributing fake articles presented as editorials by major Western media outlets. The stories feature headlines about Vladimir Putin supposedly outplaying Volodymyr Zelensky with regard to peace talks in Istanbul. The narratives focus on the ostensibly falling approval ratings of the Ukrainian president, along with the purported humiliation that Zelensky suffered after Putin refused to take up his counterpart’s offer to engage in direct dialogue regarding a potential diplomatic solution to the ongoing war.

For instance, a headline on a fake front page of “The National” reports that “Zelensky is ready to beg Putin to stop Russian forces,” while a fake headline by “The Independent” claims that “Putin has nothing to talk about with the liar in Istanbul.” Another headline claims that “Zelensky is trying to divert attention from the monstrous losses suffered by the AFU” by demanding a personal meeting with Putin.

The campaign was revealed to The Insider by the Bot Blocker Project, which tracks the Kremlin's hybrid operations on social media. The distribution of fakes began on X and BlueSky shortly after the Kremlin published the composition of the Russian delegation, which is led not by Putin, but by Vladimir Medinsky, the head of Russia's Writers' Union. Each X post earned between 500 and 700 likes at the time of publication, while the BlueSky posts have attracted single-digit likes so far. According to Bot Blocker, those engagements are merely reposts by other accounts in the same disinformation network.

Furthermore, the botnet is spreading a video claiming that the hashtag #putiniwantpersonalmeeting is gaining popularity in the Polish segment of TikTok, bringing together videos allegedly mocking Zelensky, who has “as much chance of meeting Putin as a [random user] does.” In reality, as The Insider verified, TikTok has no videos with that hashtag. Even assuming the bots made a typo while creating this fake, the search for the hashtag #putinwantpersonalmeeting without the “i” still does not return any videos.

What Matryoshka is and who is behind it

The disinformation campaign known as Matryoshka began no later than September 2023, and the Bot Blocker Project was the first to reveal its activities. Earlier, the fake news campaign organizers published appeals on X, calling for Western media to “verify the information” — namely their own fake materials spreading anti-Ukrainian propaganda. These posts were then shared en masse by stolen accounts, further disseminating the fakes on the social network.

The bots work in tandem: for example, one account publishes a photo of graffiti allegedly from Los Angeles, depicting Zelensky as a beggar, and another asks journalists to check whether the image is real or fake. Most often, the bots use videos denigrating Ukrainians, overlaid with the logos of respectable media outlets in order to create an appearance of authenticity.

The French government organization Viginum notes significant similarities between the Matryoshka campaign and the activities of the Kremlin's Reliable Russian News (RRN) bot network, also known as Doppelgänger, which is orchestrated by Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) and Ministry of Defense. This suggests that the content was produced by the same participants, the Viginum report said.