Russian fake: ‘Bot farm’ being created in Ukraine to attack Carlson's interview with Putin

Pro-Kremlin Telegram channels are actively spreading information that Ukrainian job search websites are allegedly hiring people to conduct an information campaign amid Russian President Vladimir Putin's interview with scandalous American host Tucker Carlson. To confirm this, the Russians circulated screenshots from the job search platforms Robota.ua, Work.ua, and Jooble. According to these screenshots, the employee's responsibilities will allegedly include writing negative comments, criticizing Putin and Carlson, and keeping records.

This is a fake. There are no such announcements on these job search websites. The Russians fabricated them using other announcements, even without changing some details. For example, on the Jooble website, propagandists faked an "announcement" based on a vacancy from the Recruiting Group company located in Odesa.

The “announcement” from the Work.ua website, which was spread by propagandists, was also fabricated in a graphic editor. It was created on the basis of a vacancy from the New Media Space company located in Chernivtsi. When creating the fake, the Russians changed the job title and responsibilities, but did not change the location, contacts, or company name. By the way, this is the only vacancy from the company in Chernivtsi.

On the Robota.ua website, the Russians used a job vacancy in Telemarketing 24. In total, the site has only two open vacancies, including one "hot" that was used by propagandists.

This fake was created to once again draw public attention to Putin's interview with the scandalous American host, which Russian media announced as an event of epic proportions.  In addition, the Kremlin used the narrative of Ukrainians being sought for an information campaign to create public opinion about the objectivity and truthfulness of what the Russian dictator said. Ukraine supposedly needs to question Putin's words, and for this purpose it uses propaganda methods. In fact, these are the Russians who are actively creating bot farms, fake accounts and websites, engaging foreign propagandists to promote their own narratives.

Earlier, Ukrinform reported that Russian propaganda uses African Internet resources for disinformation, in particular that the country allegedly secretly purchased "weapons-grade uranium" from Niger.

Dmytro Badrak