Kremlin Influence Operations in Online Spaces
Co-Principal Investigator: Karrie Koesel, University of Notre Dame and Aleksandar Matovski, Naval Postgraduate School
Co-Investigators: Kristina Hook, Kennesaw State University and Tim Weninger, University of Notre Dame
Years of Award: 2024-2026
Managing Service Agency: Office of Naval Research
Project Description:
Russian propaganda and efforts to accelerate misinformation online are pervasive. This project analyzes Kremlin propaganda and its influence on Russian speakers in online social media spaces. Our multidisciplinary team combines social science methodologies and digital forensics to study pro-Kremlin narratives and responses to these narratives across six social media platforms: X/Twitter, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and VKontakte. The objectives of this study are to: (1) identify Russian propaganda efforts at scale leading up to and following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine; (2) classify Russian propaganda narratives, techniques, and objectives informed by political, social, and cultural contexts; (3) track the origin, diffusion, and evolution of influence operations across platforms and communities; (4) advance new theoretical models of disinformation; and (5) empirically test the effect of Kremlin narratives and tactics by combining computational analysis with an in-depth case study of Russian-speaking communities in Hungary.