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"And all my support for President Zelensky, who is leading the fight for the freedom of his people." Ursula Von der Leyen stated that she "fully supports President Zelensky's call for a ceasefire to protect global food supply and energy infrastructure in Ukraine and Russia," in a message posted on X after talking with the Ukrainian head of state. #Ucraina #Zelenski #UrsulaVonDerLeyen (translated)

Operation Dark Clark – Russia built a real organisation around a false identity Most influence operations create fake people, fake websites or fake news stories. Operation Dark Clark appears to have gone considerably further: Russian operators built what looked like a functioning research organisation in Latin America, employed real people to produce genuine research and concealed from those employees who was ultimately directing their work. OpenAI disclosed the operation on 8 October after banning a cluster of accounts originating in Russia. The actors used ChatGPT while targeting countries across Latin America, principally to damage Ukraine’s reputation, manipulate domestic political debates and manage a self-described research organisation called the Social Research Center, or SRC. OpenAI assessed Dark Clark as Category Five on the six-level Breakout Scale, the first operation it has disrupted since beginning its influence-operation reporting to reach that level. A front organisation with real employees The SRC presented itself as a research platform studying subjects including Latin America’s relationship with India and the Indian diaspora. OpenAI found more than 60 articles on its website, most of them apparently original rather than plagiarised. Internal reports produced by the Russian operators discussed hiring, dismissals, salary scales, staffing and unfinished research projects, strongly suggesting that the operators controlled the organisation rather than merely collaborating with it. At the centre of the structure was “Mia Clark”, a fictitious identity reportedly used to manage social-media activity and communicate with staff. According to OpenAI, the available evidence indicates that employees working for SRC in Latin America were probably unaware that the organisation was being directed by Russian actors. They interviewed experts, conducted research and wrote papers in what appears to have been good faith. The deception therefore existed primarily at the organisational level: much of the work was real, but the identity and strategic purpose of the institution commissioning it were not. OpenAI This is one reason Dark Clark differs from the familiar model of a troll farm. A reader encountering an SRC paper might be looking at research genuinely written by a Latin American employee based on genuine interviews. The manipulation lies further upstream, in who built the institution, selected its direction and controlled its infrastructure. From forged emails to real events The operation also appears to have attempted something more ambitious than online persuasion: inducing real people to produce events that could later be turned into propaganda. In May 2026, according to the operators’ internal reports, they created an email address impersonating Lima’s regional education authorities and instructed schools to organise activities about Ukraine for a cultural-diversity event. The instructions included references to Stepan Bandera, whose historical legacy remains particularly contentious in Poland and parts of Eastern Europe. The operators claimed that some schools complied, replied to the false address and sent photographs of the events. OpenAI could not independently verify every claim contained in the operators’ reports. It did, however, find Peruvian reporting matching the story, followed by publications in Poland and an English-language outlet in Hungary. Some coverage included comments from a Polish MEP calling for people displaying what he described as anti-Polish attitudes to be declared persona non grata. OpenAI therefore concluded that the fabricated starting point appears to have entered genuine political debate across national borders. The mechanism is unusually effective because the final photographs need not themselves be fabricated. If people can be tricked into staging a real event on the basis of a forged instruction, the operation creates authentic visual evidence of something that was artificially initiated. The same method in Ecuador and Bolivia Dark Clark’s internal reports describe similar efforts elsewhere. In Ecuador, the operators claimed they used a fake education email to encourage schools to stage ceremonies involving President Daniel Noboa and Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater. Ecuadorian media subsequently covered a matching controversy, and the country’s education minister issued a detailed denial. Other Ecuador-focused material included fabricated audio attributed to Ukraine’s consul and a false television report alleging that Noboa’s government was recruiting Ecuadorians to fight in Ukraine. Local fact-checker Lupa found that the supposed Teleamazonas report had never been broadcast, that images had been taken from Instagram, that the audio was AI-generated and that a company named in a supposed recruitment contract did not exist in Ecuador’s corporate registry. In Bolivia, an internal report described a fake audio recording supposedly made by an employee of state water company EPSAS during anti-government protests. It claimed that water supplies to La Paz would be cut and a state of emergency declared. The allegation produced a fact-check and an official denial. OpenAI says the operators explicitly described their objective as worsening the political crisis surrounding the demonstrations. Possible links to the post-Wagner influence machine Dark Clark did not emerge in a vacuum. The operators repeatedly asked ChatGPT about Politology and La Compania, names associated in previous investigations with the Russian influence apparatus that developed from structures once connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin. Forbidden Stories and its partners obtained 1,431 pages of internal documents describing a network known as “The Company”, which they reported had grown to almost 100 operatives and was conducting influence projects across roughly 30 Global South countries. Their investigation found that the organisation moved under the supervision of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, after Prigozhin’s death. Its documented budget for ten months of activity in 2024 was approximately €7.3 million. Two older Argentina campaigns claimed in Dark Clark’s internal reports — a false story about Javier Milei buying Cartier collars for his dogs and the staging of anti-Milei graffiti — had already been independently attributed by investigative journalists to Politology/La Compania. That is significant corroboration, but it is not enough to prove that every Dark Clark activity was run by the same organisational structure. AI was the back office, not the mastermind Perhaps the most important finding concerns artificial intelligence itself. In most documented cases, the Russians were not using ChatGPT to generate the propaganda seen by the public. Their principal use was administrative: drafting reports for an unknown superior, summarising operations, translating material and recording the supposed success of campaigns. Those reports also expose a weakness in the operators’ own measurement. OpenAI found instances in which they tried to claim credit for developments they had probably not caused, suggesting that they were not only attempting to manipulate Latin American audiences but also presenting an inflated picture of their effectiveness to whoever was supervising them. Dark Clark nevertheless broke further into the real world than any influence operation OpenAI had previously disrupted. Under the Brookings framework, Category Five means that an operation has escaped its original network and been amplified by high-profile individuals such as politicians. Dark Clark crossed that threshold because fabricated narratives appear to have provoked governmental denials, mainstream reporting and political comment in several countries. Its most important innovation was therefore not a particularly convincing deepfake. It was the construction of a partly genuine institution around a concealed foreign controller. The research could be real. The employees could be real. The interviews could be real. What was false was who they were ultimately working for. Sources OpenAI — Disrupting AI-enabled “false front” operations https://openai.com/index/disrupting-ai-enabled-false-front-operations/ Forbidden Stories — Propaganda Machine: Russia’s foreign influence strategy across three continents https://forbiddenstories.org/propaganda-machine-secret-documents-reveal-russias-foreign-influence-strategy-across-three-continents/ Forbidden Stories — Ghost Journalists, Cash and Kremlin Scripts: Argentina https://forbiddenstories.org/ghost-journalists-cash-and-kremlin-scripts-how-russian-operatives-tried-to-influence-argentinian-media/ openDemocracy — Russian influence operation in Bolivia https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/russia-bolivia-south-america-putin-evo-morales-wagner-prigozhin-covert-operations-propaganda-disinformation-foreign-interference/ Lupa Media — Fake Teleamazonas report about recruiting Ecuadorians for Ukraine https://lupa.com.ec/verificaciones/noboa-mercenarios-ucrania-ecuador/ Brookings Institution — The Breakout Scale https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-breakout-scale-measuring-the-impact-of-influence-operations/ Keywords: #DISINFORMED #Episode17 #OperationDarkClark #DarkClark #Russia #LatinAmerica #RussianInfluence #RussianDisinformation #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #FalseFront #FrontOrganisation #FakeInstitution #SocialResearchCenter #SRC #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #ChatGPT #OpenAI #NarrativeManipulation #SourceLaundering #InstitutionalManipulation #ForgedDocuments #FakeAudio #PoliticalInfluence #CovertInfluence #Peru #Ecuador #Bolivia #Argentina #Ukraine #Politology #LaCompania #TheCompany #SVR #WagnerLegacy #PropagandaMachine #GlobalSouth #BreakoutScale #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD

The author presented the post as a weekend news item and wrote that the European Union, especially Ursula von der Leyen, Kaja Kallas, Emmanuel Macron, and Friedrich Merz, is fighting for unwavering support for Ukraine until the final victory against Russia, including through economic sanctions. #UniuneaEuropeană #Ucraina #sancțiuni #UE #RO #UA #RU #FR #DE (translated)

The article analyzes the impact of the attacks on Yandex data centers in Russia, highlighting how the information war has extended beyond the physical battlefield, affecting the digital infrastructure essential for military and strategic decisions. #război #tehnologie #infrastructură (translated)

Gafa questioned why a play by Vinicius was reviewed meticulously, while, as he wrote, a player from Atlético had shattered an ankle without anyone reviewing the action. He referred to the footballer with a xenophobic insult and concluded with a sarcastic expression of disbelief. #Vinicius #Atleti #Fútbol (translated)

Today, Russia thanked for the lifting of sanctions on diesel exports by launching five glide bombs on residential buildings in Zaporozhye. Last night confirmed once again that, in Russia, any loosening of pressure is interpreted as a signal that fighting can continue, that they can continue to drop bombs on cities. Different signals are needed. Russia must understand that it must stop the war, and for this to happen, Russia must feel its losses. Zelensky stated that during the night, 13 Ukrainian regions were attacked, damaging homes, infrastructure, and railway facilities. #Zelenski #RăzboiUcraina #Rusia (translated)

Marco wrote that the 12th consecutive night of protests took place in front of the Central Police Station in Bucharest. He said that Romanians had come out to show their support for Călin Georgescu and to protest against what they considered an abuse. According to Marco, the participants chanted messages calling him president and expressing their solidarity with him. #Protest #Romania #Sustinere (translated)

Mateusz Łoń wrote that Mieszko R., the perpetrator of the attack in May 2025, has become a significant thread in the case of the arrest of two individuals responsible for the events in Wyszków and Ostrołęka. According to the author, the perpetrators had been watching and listening to the same content online. Łoń also claimed to have found the profile of a girl supporting Mieszko R. and reported that her account description included the phrase "#Mieszko innocent." He wrote that the girl published recordings in which she counted down the days until going to the facility where Mieszko R. was held. The author added that she referred to him as "Predator Mieszko," and according to other findings, she recorded videos in which she danced with an axe and drove it into the ground. Łoń urged authorities to urgently examine algorithms and radicalization in online bubbles. He assessed that imitating and glorifying perpetrators was becoming a real threat. #równouprawnienie #bezpieczeństwo #cenzura (translated)

Futuro Nazionale wants to serve the interests of workers. Italy is a Republic founded on work, not on idleness, not on citizenship income, not on subsidies, not on allowances. We want people to start working even at 14 years old. The obligation to study remains at 16 years old. This was stated by General Roberto Vannacci, MEP and leader of Futuro Nazionale, late yesterday during the Dillo alla Lupa broadcast on Telelibertà of the Libertà Group of Piacenza. #Lavoro #FuturoNazionale #Giovani (translated)

These are extra funds for this war, for suffering, and, of course, against us. This only fuels Putin and gives him the opportunity to continue fighting. Zelensky concluded his statements by revisiting the criticisms of the American decision: #Zelenski #Trump #motorină (translated)

The article explores the paradox of the return of wolves to the Italian suburbs in conjunction with the housing emergency in cities, highlighting how demographic decline is reversing the relationship between man and nature, while millions of houses remain empty in the countryside. #CaloDemografico #EmergenzaCasa #Ruralità (translated)

“These are extra funds for this war, for suffering and, of course, against us. This only fuels Putin and allows him to continue fighting,” he said on social media, after the announcement by US President Donald Trump that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 tons of diesel to the American and global markets. #Zelenski #Război #Rusia (translated)

BrutusReloaded told Dr. Golob that by talking about "political police" he cannot be above the law, and assured that a parliamentary investigation into the dealings of Gen-I will take place. He wrote that in his opinion it is not about intimidation, and mentioned that they will take care of it on Sunday. The announcement ended with the hashtag #4xZA. #4xZA https://t.co/VL1ZCr1dTl #politika #slovenija #parlament (translated)