Bluesky Profiles Hacked By Russia To Push Fake News On Ukraine

What started as a normal day for Ben Gilbert, a professor from Colorado who usually posts about natural resources and guitars on social media, quickly turned into an example of how online misinformation works today.

Last month, a fake news-style video suddenly appeared on Gilbert’s Bluesky account. The video falsely claimed that France was weakening its police force by giving financial support to Ukraine. But Gilbert said he never posted the video.

Researchers and Bluesky later found that Gilbert was one of hundreds of users whose accounts were hacked in what investigators believe is a new Russian disinformation campaign designed to reduce Western support for Ukraine, according to a report by The New York Times.

Russian Disinformation Campaign Targets Real Bluesky Accounts

The operation targeted many different users on the social media platform, including journalists, professors, artists and filmmakers. Their accounts were hacked and then used to spread fake videos and false news reports. Some of the videos were made using artificial intelligence, including one that pretended to show a Canadian police official criticising French President Emmanuel Macron.

Researchers from Clemson University, along with an online monitoring group called dTeam, linked the campaign to the Moscow-based Social Design Agency. Investigators believe it is part of a larger Kremlin-linked influence operation called Matryoshka, named after Russian nesting dolls.

Unlike earlier Russian propaganda campaigns that mainly used fake accounts and bot networks, this operation seemed to use a new method by taking control of real users’ accounts.

Bluesky Removes Thousands of Fake Posts Linked To Kremlin Operation

Bluesky said it had found and removed thousands of these posts since April, calling Russian influence campaigns “an industrywide problem.”

The company said it is spending major resources to detect and stop coordinated fake campaigns.

Gilbert said he only found out about the fake post after being contacted by The New York Times.

“I just deleted it,” he wrote in a mail.

In many other cases, users only realised their accounts had been hacked after Bluesky suspended the accounts and asked them to reset their login details.

Matryoshka Operation Uses AI Videos And Hijacked Accounts

The Matryoshka operation first appeared in 2024 and became known for creating fake reports that looked like they came from major news organisations such as Reuters and France 24.

Investigators say that it often tries to trick fact-checkers into proving the fake stories are false. Russian media outlets then spread those stories further by claiming the narratives came from Western sources.

Russian propaganda activity on Bluesky became more noticeable during Germany’s elections last year, when pro-Kremlin campaigns tried to increase support for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Joseph Bodnar from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue said the use of real Bluesky accounts marked a serious new step in these operations.

“What we usually see is using hijacked accounts on X, but those are random, obscure accounts with crazy avatars,” Bodnar said. “They’re not trying to get someone moderately known or respected.”

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