The very same pattern was used by Matryoshka just days ago in influence campaign targeing upcoming local elections in several states in Germany. As explained by @news.dw.com in their recent debunking video, also based on our findings:

On Aug 05, Matryoshka switched from Gabriel Attal to Édouard Philippe, another pro-Ukraine presidential candidate. 10 fake videos in French, English and German all followed this pattern: "Yet another [fabricated] scandal will complicate his position in the presidential race."

A campaign endorsing Haley Stevens, a Michigan Dem Senate candidate, is being run today by 9 India-based content-farm accounts on X and amplified by an engagement-for-hire network seen in other, completely unrelated campaigns. Primaries for this race are scheduled for today, Aug 4.

BREAKING: Russian state has started a campaign targeting the upcoming 2027 presidential elections in France. Kremlin-aligned Matryoshka bot network posted a series of fake videos and magazine covers on X/Twitter today smearing Gabriel Attal, a candidate endorsed by Emmanuel Macron's party.

Some of flash frames in today's videos of Matryoshka campaign targeting German Sept-2026 elections:

6/6 And of course our name and branding were previously used to voice Kremlin narratives—similar to the names of Bellingcat, The Insider, VIGINUM and many others.

5/ On a related note, this is not the first time that they undermine us (and other reputable orgs) in front of the disinfo community. Eg previously they used BlueSky accounts branded as Antibot4Navalny, Bellingcat, The Insider to post their daily set of fake videos.

3/ Emailing fact checkers per se with a daily set of fake videos not new for Matryoshka. But previously they used a no-name "concerned citizen" framing.

🧵 This is new in how Matryoshka works. They are emailing fact checkers impersonating us, @Antibot4Navalny team: asking to "verify" Matryoshka's daily set of fake videos / front covers *on our behalf*.

Timeline of Kremlin narratives on Armenia: Mar 6–today | Matryoshka 🪆 bot network: "Pashinyan will start war with RU after elections" May 9 | Putin: "Armenia will face Ukraine's fate if it joins EU" Jun 4 | 🪆: "Armenian TV boasts of drones that can reach Moscow. AM will start war soon"

13/13 If you find our work important, please consider supporting it with donations to: BTC: 12MoEGwmEaQUWPK1GHJvrypYGKwxiPREKP ETH: 0x96e25dc68a0379300e1142a7351e546d170671f6

7/ Finally, the Armenian campaign is unique in its late-stage escalation. Matryoshka abandoned other narratives to focus entirely on the vote. While others fluctuated, Armenia’s data shows an overwhelming concentration of effort—surpassing 90% capacity in 3 of the final 5 weeks.

6/13 This disparity is explained by the network dedicating far more effort to distractor topics during the Armenia campaign. Off-topic content comprised only 46% of the Moldovan operation, but hit 66% for Armenia, heavily diluting the network's focus.

5/13 The only metric where Armenia trails Moldova is the full-week equivalent. Stripping away topics unrelated to elections, this metric shows how many weeks it would take Matryoshka to output each campaign’s election videos if its production line did absolutely nothing else.

4/ THROUGHPUT: As Armenian campaign started days after the Moldovan one culminated, they are easiest to compare in terms of how many videos across Kremlin's competing priorities can Matryoshka produce per week in the long run. The increase: +24%, from 28.2 to 35 avg videos/wk.

3/13 DURATION: Armenia-targeting campaign started 8 months before the election date—far earlier than for Moldova (5.6 months). Again, Armenia's duration exceeds the combined timelines of the US, Germany, Poland, and Hungary.

2/13 EFFORT: After weeks of uncertainty, Armenian campaign has just overtook Moldova in absolute number of fake videos, spoofed media covers and non-existing street art. Armenia and Moldova are so important that each of them surpassed US, Germany, Poland and Hungary combined.

🧵 How important is the upcoming election in Armenia for the Russian state? Comparing efforts from the Kremlin-aligned Matryoshka bot network across elections in 6 countries over 1.5 years, Armenia is now a leader in 3 metrics (out of 4): 🔭 effort 🔭 duration 🔭 throughput

Also make sure to check your DM settings; mine are:

My favorite Portal Kombat account bio so far:

2/4 For Matryoshka, they are now using compromised accounts; in some cases they got hacked as recently as few days ago. For Portal Kombat (its BlueSky equivalent), it rarely posts t[.]me links these days, just a stream of content from an arbitrary Kremlin-aligned channel.

🧵 Russian state resumes pollution of BlueSky with bots. Nearly the same days it blocks access to BlueSky for 🇷🇺 citizens. Apr11: RKN, Russian censorship body, blocks 🦋 Apr10: Matryoshka resumes activity on 🦋 Apr09: Portal Kombat gets flagged on 🦋 by @fabtab.nafoeverywhere.org with new tactics

An extensive overview of Russian state's attempts to interfere elections in Hungary, with some contribution from yours truly:

In turn, the JD Vance's claim is now a amplified on X by Russian-language human trolls for hire (hence the red background) denying any attempts of the Russian state to interfere elections in Hungary.

4/4 Fake @viginum.bsky.social video: "Ukrainian oligarchs gave $20M to Pashinyan in order to help him rig elections in Armenia. Pashinyan will only retain his position as PM if he initiates a military conflict with Russia"

3/4 Fake @france24.com video: "Ukrainian oligarchs failed to influence elections in the US. So they are turning to psychics to cast a curse on Donald Trump"

2/4 Fake @newsguard.bsky.social video: "Ukraine has been interfering foreign elections since 2023, in US Germany, France, Romania, Molvoda; currently attempting the same in Armenia. It uses bot farms and DDoS attacks. Most prominent tactics is videos impersonating reputable media [sic!]."

🧵 Russian state is happy to amplify the JD Vance's claim implying that Ukraine attempted to influence US presidential elections. Four fake videos impersonating reputable media has been posted today on Telegram and by Matryoshka bot network on X doing just that:

In addition to 12 videos (most shown above), 3 magazine covers has been doctored.

Yesterday's Matryoshka campaign targeting June-2026 elex in Armenia alleges a secret agreement between Macron and Pashinyan: "Pashinyan will receive Macron's support in Armenia's parliamentary elections. In exchange, Pashinyan would start a war with Russia after his victory."