Besides Serbia, Bulgaria is also becoming fertile ground for the spread of Russian disinformation and propaganda. The largest NATO military exercise “Steadfast Defender 24”, which took place on March 4 and 5, was seen as the “prelude to a NATO invasion of Russia”.
According to the report by Radio Free Europe in Macedonian, some portals published headlines with fake news such as: “Dragon 24: NATO prepares for war with Russia, troops cross the Vistula in Poland…”.
This portal is not the only one, but part of a group of so-called “mushroom portals” that are cheap and often appear at major events with the aim of spreading Russian disinformation and propaganda.
At least 25 Bulgarian websites, many of them posing as legitimate news websites, have published fake news about NATO exercises, according to a recent report by the Digital Forensic Research Laboratory (DFRLab), the Atlantic disinformation analysis unit, a think tank based in Washington. A Bulgarian NGO recently reported that the number of such websites in Bulgaria is 400.
The DFRLab report showed the types of websites used. Most were not primarily focused on “serious” news, but on sports, entertainment and lifestyle topics. Once the websites are created, the content is distributed via Facebook newsgroups.
The tactic of mushrooming websites to spread misinformation has been used before.
EU DisinfoLab, an NGO that monitors counter-disinformation efforts in Europe, has uncovered this Russia-based “influence operation” operating in Europe since at least May 2022, just months after Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Operation Doppelganger, as the campaign is called, used multiple “clones” of authentic media outlets (at least 17 media outlets, including Bild, The Guardian and RBC Ukraine) and targeted users with fake articles, videos and polls. To achieve this, those responsible bought many domain names that resembled real media brands and copied their designs.
In 2023, the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD), a Bulgarian public policy institute, reported a link between Russian disinformation sites and AdRain.bg, a digital advertising platform in Bulgaria.
The presence of the mushroom portal strategy not only in Bulgaria but also in other Balkan countries is linked to the activity of pro-Russian parties, lack of political will and low media literacy. Since 2022, there has been an increase in disinformation efforts aimed at portraying Russian President Vladimir Putin as a strong leader and justifying the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. Some of this misinformation portrays NATO as the aggressor and sows fear of war with Russia among the population, which triggers fear and panic among the population of the Balkan countries, which then turns into hatred of the West. /Xhelal Neziri for The Geopost/
