Russia's search for disinformation gold

Over the past week, the pro-Kremlin FIMI media outlets have slandered Ukrainian athletes at the Olympics, declared that France is on the path to authoritarianism, and attempted to divert attention from a report on Navalny's poisoning by referring to the Epstein files. And that's just the beginning. Let's take a look.

For the Kremlin, disinformation is a sport

Russia is currently banned(opens in a new tab)from competing in Olympic events due to a long series of doping scandals and its aggressive war against Ukraine, which entered its fifth year this week. However, some of its athletes are still allowed to compete under a neutral flag. But instead of focusing solely on their competitors during the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, pro-Kremlin media outlets launched an AI-enhanced FIMI campaign, smearing members of the Ukrainian team.

This BBC Verify report(opens in a new tab)provides a general overview. The campaign's main goal seemed to be designed to portray Ukrainian athletes as aggressive and unpleasant. The campaign mimicked legitimate media outlets like Euronews and AFP and even used artificial intelligence to mimic the voices of credible public figures who were allegedly criticizing the Ukrainians' fabricated bad behavior.

Another example was reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). A fake TV report(opens in a new tab)disguised as a CBC article, claimed that Ukrainian athletes had been sheltered “as far away as possible from others participating in the Olympics” due to their “toxic behavior.” Original imagesjinal(opens in a new tab), uncorrupted by artificial intelligence, says nothing about Ukrainians.

Offensive to VPNs

Some pro-Kremlin media outlets, FIMI, attacked French President Emmanuel Macron, falsely claiming that a misinterpreted comment by the president implied that the French president was moving to block virtual private networks, or VPNs. One commentator angrily said: “Is the Enlightenment dead in France?” The writer went on to denounce the “totalitarian and concentration camp systems” that would follow the decline of VPNs.

In fact, after the French National Assembly approved a ban on children under 15 years old(opens in a new tab)taking to social media, he claimed president(opens in a new tab)in an interview that VPNs would not be banned. He noted that VPNs could help some children bypass age restrictions. But he believed that most young people would not do so.

Let's remember the Russian government's stance on VPNs and internet freedom in general. Since November 2017(opens in a new tab), only VPN services that accept Kremlin censorship have been available in Russia. Meanwhile, many popular sites and services, including WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, are blocked.(opens in a new tab)If such censorship leads to totalitarianism, Russia is already there.

Using a distraction to divert attention

Another disinformation cliché that stood out this week was Kremlin's effort – led by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, no less – to use the Epstein files to distract from Moscow’s efforts to silence its domestic critics. Specifically, Maria Zakharova baselessly claimed that a report stating that the late opposition figure Alexey Navalny had been poisoned with a toxin found in poison dart frogs.(opens in a new tab)native to South America was an attempt to distract attention from the consequences of the release of the Epstein files.

The story is that on February 14, 2026, the governments of the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, and the Netherlands issued a joint statement.(opens in a new tab)declaring their finding. The conclusion was reached after two laboratories performs tests(opens in a new tab)on samples of Navalny's biological material that his family managed to smuggle out of Russia. There is no evidence that the release of the Epstein files played any role in the release of the statement, the product of a joint investigation conducted by five governments. Zakharova's claim served to distract attention from Moscow's possible role in the poisoning of a dissident while he was being held in a Siberian penal colony.

This false claim about the Epstein files is just the latest in a ' 'bunch of lies'.(opens in a new tab)'that the Kremlin has spray-bombed Navalny and his memory. In the past, the pro-Kremlin media FIMI has claimed that American special services they killed Navalny, because The United Kingdom probably killed him. Navalnyn and that Navalny died after using an mRNA vaccine supplied by Germany , among many other scams.

Don't be fooled.

The Geopost