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Exposed: The vast pro-Ukrainian 'bot army' designed to influence Western policy makers
Researchers at the University of Adelaide have published a landmark paper on the activities of bot accounts on Twitter related to the conflict in Ukraine. These Australian findings are truly staggering – of 5.2 million tweets on the social media network from February 23 to March 8, between 60 to 80% were shared by fake accounts. What’s more, 90% of those posts were pro-Ukraine.
In particular, these accounts pushed the hashtags #IStandWithUkraine, #IStandWithZelenskyy, and #ISupportUkraine, and myths like the ‘Ghost of Kiev’, a fictional Ukrainian fighter pilot who is farcically alleged to have taken down 40 Russian jets within hours of the military operation commencing.
Significant spikes in activity were recorded at key points in the initial stages of the fighting, such as Russia’s capture of Kherson on March 2, and the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant on March 4.
The accounts identified were overwhelmingly English language, leading the researchers to conclude these fake users sought to “drive more disruption in English-speaking countries” and “influence a variety of user groups.” Despite the significant focus on English, Ukrainian bots also employed the Russian language to “cause more disruption” in the country...
“The U.S. is really preparing for a long war. … It’s actually preparing for endless war in Ukraine,” said Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, a grassroots-funded U.S. foreign policy think tank that has been tracking the assistance. “They’re saying, ‘We’re only doing this long-term approach because Putin is the one insisting on doing so.’ And that could be right — but at the same time, it’s not like the U.S. is expressing much confidence in its diplomatic skills to end the conflict, rather than just trying to outlast Putin.”
A spokesperson for the State Department wrote in an email to The Intercept that the U.S. is the largest provider of security assistance to Ukraine and has “quickly provided an historic levels [sic] of weapons and equipment that Ukraine’s forces have been using effectively to defend their democracy against Russia’s unprovoked war...
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"Kiev and Washington have “constantly” discussed ways to blunt the Russian advance, an official told the newspaper
Ukraine had stepped up intelligence-sharing with the US in preparation for its counteroffensive against the Russian forces in the Kharkov Region, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
Despite Washington providing information on Russian command posts, ammunition depots and other targets to Kiev, Ukrainian officials had been reluctant earlier in the conflict to reveal operational plans to their US counterparts, over concerns that this “could highlight weaknesses and discourage continued American support,” the newspaper claimed.
But it all changed during the summer as Kiev decided that sharing plans for its counteroffensive would, contrary to previous concerns, prompt Washington to provide Ukraine with even more assistance, unnamed senior US officials told the NYT.
This shift allowed the US to offer “better and more relevant information about Russian weaknesses,” the sources reported.
They declined to expand on how much information has been shared between the sides or on how deep the Americans have been involved in the planning of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the newspaper said.
However, one official claimed that the US had “constantly” discussed with Ukraine ways that it could blunt the Russian advance in the east of the country...
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On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the withdrawal of its troops from the city of Izyum and some other settlements in the region, saying that these are being regrouped in order “to build up efforts in the Donetsk direction.” During the operation, it added, the military had performed what it called a “number of distracting and demonstration activities imitating the real action of troops.”
Ukrainian president Vladimir Zelensky celebrated the Russian retreat as a victory, but the NYT pointed out that “it is not yet clear how much broad strategic importance those gains [by Kiev] will have.
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Moscow has many times warned Washington against providing weapons and sharing intelligence data with Ukraine, saying that the US risked becoming a party to the conflict through such actions..."
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U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine Grows to Historic Proportions — Along With Risks
Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February, the U.S. government has pumped more money and weapons into supporting the Ukrainian military than it sent in 2020 to Afghanistan, Israel, and Egypt combined — surpassing in a matter of months three of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid in history.
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Keeping track of the numbers is challenging. Since the war started, U.S. officials have announced a flurry of initiatives aimed at supporting Ukrainian defense efforts while keeping short of a more direct involvement in the conflict. On Thursday, on a surprise visit to Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new $675 million package of U.S. military equipment as well as a $2.2 billion “long-term” investment to bolster the security of Ukraine and 17 of its neighbor countries. Weeks earlier, President Joe Biden unveiled a $3 billion aid package, the largest yet, symbolically choosing Ukraine’s Independence Day for the announcement. The administration noted on that occasion that the total military assistance committed to Ukraine this year had reached $12.9 billion, more than $15.5 billion since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. And this month, Biden also asked Congress to authorize an additional $13.7 billion for Ukraine, including money for equipment and intelligence.
Because the assistance is drawn from a variety of sources — and because it’s not always easy to distinguish between aid that’s been authorized, pledged, or delivered — some analysts estimate the true figure of the U.S. commitment to Ukraine is much higher: up to $40 billion in security assistance, or $110 million a day over the last year. This assistance is believed to be playing an important role in the advances Ukraine is making in an ongoing offensive to retake territory seized by Russia earlier this year; the cities of Kupiansk and Izium are reported to have just been liberated. What is clear is that the volume and speed of the assistance headed to Ukraine is unprecedented, and that legislators and observers are struggling to keep up.
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