French authorities announced on Wednesday that they have monitored nearly 80 disinformation campaigns orchestrated by Russian actors between August 2023 and early March 2025, with Ukraine and its allies—including France—among the primary targets.
The findings come from a report by VIGINUM, France’s national agency for combating foreign online interference, which describes the effort as “particularly effective in spreading anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western narratives among Western audiences.”
The disinformation campaign, referred to as “Storm-1516,” utilizes artificial intelligence to create realistic fake profiles, employs paid amateur operators, and poses a “serious threat to public digital discourse, both in France and across European countries,” according to the agency.
Fake Media, Real Influence
Storm-1516 relies heavily on spoofed versions of reputable news websites, including Le Monde, Bild, The Guardian, and Deutsche Welle. These counterfeit pages, hosted at deceptive URLs such as lemonde.com.co and bild-news.ltd, feature fabricated stories that resemble investigative journalism or whistleblower leaks.
The campaign distributes this content via fake profiles and bot accounts across platforms such as X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube. Posts appear simultaneously in multiple languages—French, German, English, Polish—demonstrating a high level of coordination and planning.
Narratives of Division
VIGINUM identifies four key thematic pillars in the campaign’s messaging:
- Anti-Ukrainian rhetoric: Ukraine is portrayed as fascist, corrupt, and ungrateful.
- Attacks on European leaders: False stories target Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz, and others, painting them as traitors or incompetent.
- Social destabilization: Disinformation inflames tensions over immigration, inflation, and energy crises to stoke public dissatisfaction.
- Undermining the EU and NATO: Narratives suggest NATO is aggressive and the EU is subservient to U.S. interests.
Posts frequently use emotive language, fabricated “leaks,” and conspiracy tropes to gain traction and boost shareability.
Coordinated, Multilingual, and Technically Sophisticated
All spoofed websites follow a uniform design template and are hosted on shared infrastructure, often anonymously registered in Russia or nearby countries. Content is republished in a synchronized manner across multiple platforms. The campaign also shows strong proficiency in translation and cultural adaptation, suggesting a high degree of sophistication.
Strategic Objectives
According to the report, Storm-1516 aims to:
- Undermine support for Ukraine in the international arena.
- Destabilize political discourse in targeted nations.
- Erode public trust in democratic institutions.
The campaign is considered especially dangerous due to its technical quality, multilingual reach, and ability to adapt to local societal tensions.
Storm-1516 is not an isolated or improvised effort. Rather, it is another manifestation of digital hybrid warfare, strategically designed to undermine democracy from within. While VIGINUM stops short of explicitly assigning blame, the evidence paints a clear picture: this is a coordinated disinformation operation with Russian alignment and European targets.