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Russian disinformation campaign targets Ukrainian Olympic team, sparks international concern
Ukraine has accused Russia of orchestrating a widespread disinformation campaign aimed at discrediting its Winter Olympics team. The campaign, which has amassed over one million views across multiple platforms, features fabricated stories about Ukrainian athletes and their behavior at the games.
“Russians have rolled out an information campaign to discredit Ukraine,” Kyiv’s center for countering disinformation announced Thursday. Ukraine’s sports minister Matviy Bidny elaborated in a statement to AFP: “With such fakes, Russia is trying to discredit Ukrainians and undermine international support for Ukraine.”
One prominent target of the disinformation effort was Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych, who was disqualified Thursday for wearing a helmet displaying images of athletes killed in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict. A digitally manipulated Reuters news story about Heraskevych circulated online, falsely claiming his brother recruited soldiers for the war and that a Hungarian athlete wore a sticker declaring “we’re all fed up with U(kraine).” Similar claims appeared on Russian-language accounts across social media platforms, particularly X (formerly Twitter).
The fabricated narratives extended beyond individual athletes. False stories alleged that Ukrainian team members were housed separately from other Olympians due to “toxic” behavior, that doping controls had been relaxed specifically for Ukrainians to take “psychoactive substances,” and that 52 of their translators had abandoned their posts.
One particularly sophisticated fake featured a video with branding similar to American entertainment network E! News. It falsely claimed that rapper Snoop Dogg, who is covering the games for NBC, had refused a photo opportunity with Ukrainian athletes due to the Ukrainian army’s alleged “Nazism.”
Pablo Maristany de las Casas, an analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue think tank, identified these posts as part of “Operation Overload,” a Russian-aligned campaign previously active during the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics. The operation impersonates legitimate media outlets including Euronews, as well as organizations like Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and even the Italian health ministry.
“The campaign aims to discredit not just Ukrainian athletes but also refugees,” Maristany de las Casas explained, “with a message that ‘Ukrainians are sowing chaos.'”
Ukrainian authorities have traced the origins of these stories to Russian-language Telegram channels, from which they were “amplified by a network of propaganda accounts,” according to the country’s Center for Countering Disinformation.
The sophistication of the campaign was highlighted by Canadian broadcaster CBC, which released a fact-check of a fake news video that had manipulated its genuine content. The fabricated report used the first 15 seconds of an authentic CBC social media video featuring chief correspondent Adrienne Arsenault before transitioning to an AI-generated version of her voice. The synthetic audio falsely claimed the Ukrainian team was accommodated “as far away as possible” from other athletes because they were “extremely toxic” at the Paris Olympics.
CBC fact-check producer Avneet Dhillon confirmed that the original video made no mention of Ukraine or its athletes. The International Olympic Committee categorically rejected the claims, telling AFP that Ukrainian athletes were housed in the same facilities as other teams and calling the video “absolutely false and an attempt at deliberate misrepresentation.”
Estonian fact-checking organization Provereno Media traced the video’s origins to a Russian-language Telegram channel called “Odessa for Victory,” where it first appeared on February 5. From there, bot networks amplified the content, which was subsequently picked up by pro-Kremlin media outlets citing CBC as the source.
The coordinated disinformation effort highlights the ongoing information warfare element of the broader Russia-Ukraine conflict, now extending into the supposedly neutral ground of international sporting events.
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8 Comments
This is just another example of Russia’s long-standing pattern of using propaganda and disinformation as a weapon against Ukraine. Targeting the country’s Olympians is a new low, even for them. I hope the truth comes out and the world sees these attacks for what they are.
Wow, another disinformation campaign by Russia targeting Ukraine’s Olympic team? Not surprised, but still disappointing to see them stoop so low. I wonder how the international community will respond to these bogus claims.
I’m not surprised to see Russia resorting to these kinds of dirty tactics against Ukraine. Trying to discredit their Olympic team through fabricated stories and manipulated media is a desperate attempt to undermine their success. The world should see right through this.
It’s concerning to see the scale and reach of this Russian propaganda effort against Ukraine. Fabricating stories about Olympians and their behavior is a new low. I hope the world sees through these transparent attempts to discredit Ukraine.
Disqualifying a Ukrainian athlete for wearing a helmet commemorating fallen soldiers is just despicable. Russia will stoop to any level to try and humiliate Ukraine on the world stage. This kind of behavior is beyond the pale.
Agreed, that is a completely unacceptable and heartless move by the Russian authorities. They have no shame when it comes to attacking Ukraine, even at the Olympics.
Russia’s obsession with undermining Ukraine is really starting to become pathetic. Trying to use the Olympics as a platform for their disinformation tactics is a new low, even for them. I hope the global community condemns these actions strongly.
It’s really disturbing to see the scale of this disinformation campaign targeting the Ukrainian Olympic team. Fabricating stories and manipulating media coverage is a blatant attempt to discredit and undermine Ukraine. The international community needs to strongly condemn these actions.