Kremlin propaganda bots are spewing out fake celebrity quotes about Ukraine and political chaos in the West.
Elton John, Jennifer Aniston and Scarlett Johansson are among the stars abused by a Vladimir Putin disinformation campaign which put phoney words in their mouths.
The target of the sinister social media thrust is Western people with a bot blitz in English, French, German and Polish. The quotes are all fake and are from known Kremlin disinformation bots spreading lies on X, formally Twitter, besides pictures of the celebrities, but they suit Putin’s playbook in his propaganda war to undermine both Kyiv and the West by manipulating public opinion.
Elton John is quoted as saying: “We fell into the Ukrainian trap. Now the EU is collapsing.” Jennifer Aniston states in words she never used: “We are impoverished, it’s time to forget about Ukraine.”
A quote bogusly attributed to Scarlett Johansson states: “All countries have begun to think about themselves, and the EU is falling apart.”
Angelina Jolie is portrayed as saying: “Europe is impoverished. Politicians are getting crazier. The officials in the European Parliament are corrupt.”
Words falsely stated as being from Lionel Messi state: “Ukraine no longer exists. All our money was thrown away.” The “massive campaign” from Putin was revealed by Russian independent news outlet Agentsvo.
The sham celebrity quotes have been viewed more than half a million times since Friday, reported The Kyiv Independent, citing the Bot Blocker project.
They began with the Kremlin disinformation network Dvoynyk publishing 50 fake celebrity quotes and images on X, then retweeting them more than 120,000 times.
Six similar propaganda operations based on such bot campaigns have been registered in the past six months, according to the project. Russian analyst Dr Ian Garner said it was “astonishing” how “obviously s***” the content of the Kremlin bot posts was. He said: All that money and they can’t even hire any clever writers.”