Russia’s War on Ukraine: Three Years, Three Hundred and Two False Claims; NewsGuard's Reality Check, February 21, 2025

Eva Maitland and Madeline Roache, NEWSGUARD, NewsGuard's Reality Check; Russia’s War on Ukraine: Three Years, Three Hundred and Two False Claims

"As the war in Ukraine approaches the three-year anniversary of the Russian invasion that launched the conflict, NewsGuard has now identified and debunked 302 false claims relating to the war, nearly all of them originating as Russian propaganda.

These 302 claims appear in NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints proprietary database of viral false narratives that NewsGuard analysts have identified and debunked. NewsGuard analysts have identified 551 websites spreading these false claims...

AI IN ACTION: HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SUPERCHARGES PRO-KREMLIN PROPAGANDA

In 2022, NewsGuard debunked just one AI-generated falsehood emanating from Russia. In the second year of the war, NewsGuard debunked five AI-generated false claims, and there were 16 in the third. Indeed, as AI tools became more readily available, the easy access to AI image, audio, video and text generators has enabled Russia and its allies to reach more people, in more languages, with more convincing false claims...

HOME-GROWN, FOREIGN-TRAINED: THE AMERICAN PROPAGANDIST BEHIND 14 FALSE CLAIMS ABOUT ZELENSKY

The driving force behind these false corruption claims that have amassed so many millions of views appears to be John Mark Dougan, a Florida deputy sheriff turned Kremlin propagandist. Dougan is part of a Russian influence operation dubbed by Microsoft as Storm-1516. It appears to be an offshoot of the Internet Research Agency, a disbanded Russian troll farm.

NewsGuard has debunked 37 false narratives linked to Dougan and Storm-1516 targeting Ukraine, the U.S. 2024 election, the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the German 2025 election."

American creating deepfakes targeting Harris works with Russian intel, documents show; The Washington Post, October 23, 2024

Catherine Belton , The Washington Post; American creating deepfakes targeting Harris works with Russian intel, documents show

"The more than 150 documents — which were shared with The Post to demonstrate the extent of Russian interference through Dougan and focus mostly on the period between March 2021 and August 2024 — for the first time expose some of the inner workings of a network that researchers and intelligence officials say has become the most potent source of fake news emanating from Russia and targeting American voters over the past year.

Disinformation researchers say Dougan’s network was probably behind a recent viral fake video smearing Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz, which U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday was created by Russia. It received nearly 5 million views on X in less than 24 hours, Microsoft said.

Since September 2023, posts, articles and videos generated by Dougan and some of the Russians who work with him have garnered 64 million views, said McKenzie Sadeghi, who has closely followed Dougan’s sites and is a researcher at NewsGuard, a company that tracks disinformation online."