News
The Russian disinformation network Matryoshka has launched a new campaign aimed at convincing social media users that scholars and professors from top global universities are calling for the West to lift sanctions against Russia. In the videos, well-known academics can purportedly be heard urging Ukraine to surrender “historically Russian lands” — and even portraying Volodymyr Zelensky as a vampire. The campaign spreads this disinformation by cloning the voices of real professors using artificial intelligence (AI) tools.
The campaign was uncovered by the Bot Blocker project (which goes by the @antibot4navalny handle on X). The videos all follow a similar structure: a speaker introduces themselves, often citing an affiliation with renowned institutions like Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, or the University of Bristol. The footage then transitions to segments without the speaker on screen — while their voice supposedly continues. During these moments, the voice promotes claims that Europe is suffering under anti-Russian sanctions, that the West must stop providing Ukraine with weapons and financial aid, that Zelensky is sending Ukrainian soldiers to their deaths, and that Ukraine must cede its territories to Russia.
Investigations by The Insider and Bot Blocker confirmed that the opening sections, in which the speakers appear and introduce themselves in person, were taken from real videos. The other portions, however, were artificially generated using AI, which effectively cloned the academics’ voices.
The use of AI was verified by the University of Bristol, which at the request of The Insider analyzed a video featuring Professor Ronald Hutton, a British historian affiliated with the university. at the request of The Insider.
In the video, Hutton begins by discussing the study of folklore. However, the footage then shifts to a portrait of Volodymyr Zelensky as a cloned version of Hutton's voice claims that the Ukrainian president is a vampire feeding on the lives of his citizens sent to fight in the war with Russia. The original video, from which the introductory segment was taken, genuinely focuses on folklore and vampires — but makes no reference to Zelensky or Ukraine. The Insider and Bot Blocker have identified other original recordings that were manipulated for similar fake videos (1, 2).
Professor Hutton confirmed to The Insider that “the statements in this video concerning politics are not my own, and do not represent my views.” The University of Bristol issued a similar statement.
Each video on X (formerly Twitter) is reposted by hundreds of accounts with minimal followers, many of which appear to be stolen profiles. According to Bot Blocker, this is the first time since it began monitoring Matryoshka that tweets have appeared not only in English, but also in Dutch, Spanish, Indonesian, Thai, and Portuguese.
The creators of these fake videos have used the voices and images of real academics from institutions including Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, the University of Bristol, the University of Cumbria, and Sciences Po (Paris Institute of Political Studies). They also manipulated footage from events like the Bank of America Chicago Marathon.
What is Matryoshka?
The disinformation campaign known as Matryoshka began no later than September 2023, as first reported by Bot Blocker. Initially, the campaign organizers posted messages on Twitter (now X) addressed to Western media, urging them to “verify information” that proved to be fabricated materials containing anti-Ukrainian propaganda created by the organizers themselves. These posts were then widely shared by stolen accounts, allowing the content to spread rapidly across the platform.
The bots operate in a coordinated manner. One account might share a photo of supposed graffiti in Los Angeles depicting President Zelensky as a beggar, while another account calls on journalists to confirm whether the image is real or fake. In most cases, the bots spread defamatory videos targeting Ukrainians, often overlaid with logos of credible media outlets to lend an appearance of authenticity.
The French government agency Viginum has reported that content is first published on Russian-language Telegram channels such as Sheikh Tamir (440,000 subscribers), V🇷🇺Ruka Kremlya🇷🇺Z (26,900 subscribers), and multiple others. As per the agency, a semantic analysis of posts from these channels revealed a high frequency of copy-pasted material and a surge in fake content beginning in September 2023. The investigators suspect the material was produced by third parties for coordinated distribution on Telegram.
Viginum also points out the striking similarities between the Matryoshka campaign and the operations of the Kremlin-linked bot network Reliable Russian News (RRN) — also known as Doppelgänger — which is run by Russia’s military intelligence agency (GRU) and Ministry of Defense (MoD). Doppelgänger’s digital trails were traced back to Russia’s MoD through an investigation carried out by the German nonprofit Correctiv in November.
The various similarities raise the possibility that the same entities are responsible for both campaigns. Supporting this hypothesis, Viginum cites documents published by The Washington Post, which show the Sheikh Tamir Telegram channel repeatedly appearing in tables from an entity referred to as “Center C.” According to The Washington Post, this center may be tied to the Russian Presidential Administration and tasked with coordinating “influence operations” abroad.