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Britain says Russian troll factory is spreading disinformation on social media

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On Sunday, the British Foreign Office stated that Russia was using a troll farm to spread misinformation about Ukraine's war on social media. It also targeted politicians in a variety of countries, including Britain and South Africa.

Britain claimed that UK-funded research was used in its publication, but it didn't publish the results. The research revealed how the Kremlin was using disinformation campaigns to manipulate international public opinion about Russia's invasion in Ukraine, increase support for it, and recruit new sympathisers.

Russia describes its actions in Ukraine as a "special operation" that aims to disarm Ukraine and defend it from fascists. The West and Ukraine both claim that the fascist allegation was baseless and that the war is an unprovoked aggression.

Russia claims that the Western media have presented an overly partial story of the war, which largely ignores Moscow’s concerns about NATO expansion and what it calls persecution of Russian speakers living in Ukraine. This is something Kyiv has denied.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss stated in a statement that "We cannot allow Putin's shady and corrupt troll farms to invade online spaces with their lies about Putin’s illegal war."

"The UK Government has alerted international partners and will continue to work closely alongside allies and media platforms in order to undermine Russian information operations."

Moscow denies any Western accusations of disinformation campaigns. Washington, for instance, has accused Russia of trying to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

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Britain claimed that the research revealed that Telegram was used by the troll factory to recruit and coordinate new supporters. These supporters then target the social media profiles of Kremlin critics and spam them with comments in support of President Vladimir Putin's war.

Britain claimed that they targeted senior British officials and other world leaders as well as British ministers. They also added that trace evidence of the operation was found on eight social media platforms, including Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and TikTok.

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