Pro-Kremlin accounts and social media have spread an unfounded narrative that homes belonging to Ukrainian military officers were burned in the Los Angeles wildfires. The claim has been viewed more than a million times on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Researchers examining Russian influence operations say they are part of a broader Kremlin campaign to discredit the Ukrainian government and undermine American aid to Ukraine.
“It is the latest in a long string of assertions by Russian officials, media, and the pro-Kremlin online ecosystem that Ukrainian officials are corrupt and use foreign aid money to enrich themselves.” Léa Ronzaud, a senior investigator at research firm Graphika, told NPR in an email.
“It’s just so typical of what we see from Russia, [to] take advantage of an ongoing crisis for their own ends,” said Darren Linvill, a communications professor and co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub.
The general Ukrainian story first appeared on a pro-Russian Telegram channel 4 days after the fires began in Los Angeles. Within hours, this data was amplified through several other sources, adding some other Telegram channel that called it satire, an of the French authorities. Some of the posts amplifying this baseless claim falsely attributed it to United24 Media, an online page affiliated with the Ukrainian government organization.
The Center for Countering Disinformation of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council issued a statement calling the claim “Russian propaganda. ” He said he verified with United24 Media that he did not even create the story.
NPR has received some evidence that Ukrainian generals owned homes in Los Angeles destroyed by the fires. The Ukrainian government denied to NPR that the generals’ homes were affected by the fire.
The next day, an influencer in charge of @OlgaBazova, who in the past had echoed stories published through well-known Russian influencer networks, shared the story in English with her 700,000 fans on X. The account’s bio describes itself as “specializing in funny geopolitical topics. “analysis, exposing hypocrisy and satire. »
Later that night, Robert “Buzz” Patterson, an American conservative influencer with 400,000 followers on
When contacted via NPR on X about this post, @OlgaBazova responded with a link to a Russian-language article that mentioned Telegram’s claim about the mansions.
Patterson responded to messages from NPR asking why he made that statement.
The story that first circulated was debunked by professional fact-checkers in Greece and the United States. Both @OlgaBazova and Patterson’s posts earned user-generated network ratings on X, which mentioned Greek fact-checking.
The unverified claim about the alleged Ukrainian mansions also appeared to appear on other social media platforms, such as Tik Tok, TruthSocial and the Russian site VK, but did not gain much attention.
The story is the latest example of Russia moving away from employing fake social media profiles posing as genuine people, as it did in the 2016 and 2020 US presidential elections, and employing influencers. to whitewash and spread their narratives, Linvill said.
In some cases, influencers said they were paid to post content that was later known as Russian propaganda by U. S. researchers and intelligence officials. There is no evidence that the influencers who made the Los Angeles fireplace claims were paid.
When asked if he had asked or advised @OlgaBazova to publish this claim, the account responded in a public post about a malevolent demon of the status quo posing as a “journalist. “
In September, the U. S. Department of Justice charged two workers at Russian public broadcaster RT in connection with a scheme to funnel around $10 million to right-wing U. S. influencers who posted self-deprecating videos. opposing aid to Ukraine, praising President-elect Donald Trump and criticizing Democrats. The influencers said they did not know that the company paying them was related to Russia.
Other Russian Telegram channels are also spreading fake or unverified accounts about the Southern California fires and the government’s response, as well as complaints from Americans, President-elect Donald Trump, Jr. ‘s son, Andy Carvin, added to NPR. of the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab. . in an email. The Russian newspaper Pravda, which has been linked to past Russian news operations, then translates and distributes the Telegram messages.
“Over the past week, Pravda has published at least 350 such articles [in Telegram messages about the fires], based on our initial investigation of the site’s content,” Carvin said.
When a fire devastated Maui in 2023, Russian state media also amplified the U. S. complaint about the federal response. Stories related to past influence operations in China have false claims about the origins of the fire.
While the Ukrainian officials’ story has been more successful than other accounts of the fires coming from Russia-allied channels, Linvill said, it has not yet spread as widely as previous Russia-related accounts.