Meta discovered a pseudo-patriotic movement in Russia

In the latest cybersecurity report, Meta found a connection between the ‘patriotic’ movement CyberFront Z and the troll factory ‘Internet Research Agency’.

We’re also sharing our threat research into a troll farm in St. Petersburg, Russia, which unsuccessfully attempted to create a perception of grassroots online support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by using fake accounts to post pro-Russia comments on content posted by influencers and media on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. Our investigation linked this activity to the self-proclaimed entity CyberFront Z and individuals associated with past activity by the Internet Research Agency (IRA). While this activity was portrayed as a popular “patriotic movement” by some media entities in Russia, including those previously linked to the IRA, the available evidence suggests that they haven’t succeeded in rallying substantial authentic support.

says in the report.

After Instagram, Facebook and Twitter were blocked in Russia, the “troll factory” transferred the released resources to Russian-language Telegram groups and Russian social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.

The ‘Internet Research Agency’ is associated with the name of ‘Putin’s chef’ Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has a $10 million bounty on his head.