Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centers silence political bots?
Reported declines in political discussions and anti-Israel posts followed outages at three Yandex data centers. Zelenskyy said the change showed that bots had been disrupted, raising questions about the infrastructure behind online political influence campaigns.
Activity by social media accounts supporting extremist European parties and promoting anti-Israel narratives reportedly plummeted after Ukrainian strikes knocked out several data centers in Russia.
“When we started responding to Russia’s operation against our data centers, and when our strikes reached Yandex’s data centers, it suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms. A lot of people noticed it. There was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations,” Zelenskyy said in a speech at the Warsaw Security Forum. “Because there were fewer bots. And it’s pretty clear where those bots were coming from – if they disappeared when Yandex went offline. This proves, again and again, that Europe is not the source of the problems. Europe is not the one making everything more difficult.”
At the same time, researchers observed a decline in social media activity surrounding highly charged and polarizing topics. Online activity related to Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, for example, reportedly fell by 30% in one day, followed by a further 56% drop the next day.
On Reddit, discussions in subreddits focused on topics such as politics in Ireland and Spain, as well as general discussions about Sweden, Germany and the Czech Republic, fell by tens of percentage points. Activity in the r/irishpolitics subreddit dropped by 80% following Friday’s strike on a data center, according to the reported figures.
Researchers also noted a decline in posts on X containing phrases such as “Free Palestine” and “genocide,” alongside an increase in posts mentioning Zelenskyy.
According to Euronews, users in the UK have reported a decline in online activity related to Reform UK, the right-wing populist party. In the United States, X users have also reported a noticeable drop in pro-conservative replies.
“Most importantly, we need people in America, every morning, when the day in Europe is already moving toward evening, to really see what is happening. To see the truth,” Zelenskyy added. “Over the past week, Ukrainian drone attacks knocked out three major data centers belonging to Russian tech giant Yandex, located in different parts of Russia. The latest, in the Vladimir region, was taken offline on Sunday. The strikes caused widespread disruption to internet access for residents across Russia.”
