Social media flooded

From a TikTok click to an explosive attack

After an act of sabotage on the railroad, Poland has raised the terror alert level. Saboteurs recruited online by Russia are suspected of being behind the attack.(Bild: EPA/Wojtek Jargilo)

For years, the Russian regime has been running a large-scale campaign to flood the West with false reports. Artificial intelligence makes unexpected methods possible. How they work and the strategy behind them.

Young soldiers crying and pleading to the camera for help because they are being sent to the front in Ukraine. These are images that are meant to touch the heart - and were all created with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). These fake videos have been available on platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and YouTube for months and have been clicked on millions of times. Behind this is a large-scale disinformation campaign by Russia.

AI flood on TikTok
There is a method to the system: the videos are published on specially created channels on TikTok in particular, which have only recently been registered. Bots are used to boost the number of clicks until the algorithm kicks in and promotes the clip to the recommendations, where more and more users see it. "Emotional terms such as war or executions in the title ensure more clicks. For people who have never worked with artificial intelligence before, it is difficult to identify such videos; to distinguish between true and false," explains Ukrainian Dmytro Kornienko, an expert in disinformation strategies and founder of the analysis platform Resurgam.

A video online purports to show the withdrawal of Ukrainian soldiers from Pokrovsk. It was created with AI.(Bild: Screenshot)

Videos of crying soldiers were uploaded to this TikTok account, all of which are fake.(Bild: Screenshot)

Dmytro Kornienko is the founder of the analysis platform Resurgam (resurgamhub.org). He researches geopolitics, defense economics and disinformation strategies. His work is based on OSINT research and data-driven analyses.(Bild: zVg)

Cheap propaganda thanks to social media algorithms
Even if AI-generated videos are identified as such on the major social media platforms after a while and the corresponding accounts are deleted, they initially help to spread lies virally. As soon as someone watches a video for a little longer, the propaganda becomes self-perpetuating thanks to the algorithm: "If a viewer stays on the video for around ten seconds, they leave a trail on the account and receive further recommendations for similar videos," explains Kornienko. "This makes it possible to spread disinformation very cheaply."

Other disinformation campaigns were much more costly: as part of the Russian "Doppelganger" operation, which was discovered in 2022, countless duplicates of well-known news websites and government websites were created and used to spread false reports about the war in Ukraine. Such methods were developed by Russian Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov. He has been working on such disinformation campaigns since 2012.

The "Krone" reaches Kornienko via Zoom in Kiev, where there is no electricity during the interview. He and his interpreter have to rely on their batteries.(Bild: Screenshot/Zoom)

This is a long-term strategy that the Russian regime has been pursuing "since it became clear in 2022 that the original war aims would not be achieved and that the invasion would develop into a war of attrition", explains Kornienko. Part of the strategy is to use every election in Europe - from the local level to the presidential election - to delay or prevent aid for Ukraine. The Austrian national elections were also targeted by Russian network terrorists.

After an act of sabotage on the railroad, Poland raised the terror alert level. Saboteurs recruited by Russia on the Internet are suspected of being behind the attack.(Bild: EPA/Wojtek Jargilo)

The disinformation expert explains that the Kremlin knows how to respond to the peculiarities of different countries. Where there are fault lines, disinformation is used to widen the gap. This is the first in a sequence of steps, at the end of which there is tangible violence. Dmytro Kornienko cites the explosives attack on the Polish railroad as an example. Poland blames Russia for the sabotage. Kornienko believes it is likely that the saboteurs were recruited online.

Secret service recruits on TikTok
The Russian military intelligence service GRU is increasingly turning to social media to recruit local criminals to carry out terrorist acts. It works like this: "You see a video like this on TikTok, comment on it, perhaps on a whim. Then such people are contacted and a proportion may actually agree to carry out an act of sabotage in return for money."

Propaganda created with the help of AI is, of course, used by many actors, for example in elections in India or the USA. However, it is currently only being used in such a concerted manner by Russia, says Kornienko. In the future, another authoritarian regime could use it for information warfare, according to the expert: "We can assume that the Russians will pass on the experience they have accumulated to the Chinese in order to give Beijing the opportunity to use it in the political struggle against Taiwan."