Banner: A fake Washington Post article critical of President Joe Biden featured an AI-generated image of him losing a race with former president Donald Trump. (Source: washingtonpost.pm/archive)

When the US Department of Justice released a 277-page affidavit describing how it had uncovered malign Russian information operations seeking to interfere with the 2024 US presidential election, it confirmed the suspicions of internet researchers who had been documenting elements of the operation since 2022. Organizations such as the DFRLab had previously identified multiple fake websites containing pro-Kremlin and anti-Western messaging targeting audiences across Europe and North America, but the affidavit is the first official US government document to describe the panoply of tactics employed by Russia as related to the November 2024 presidential election. Among these was the fake website campaign known colloquially as Doppelganger.

While much of Doppelganger focused on swaying audiences in Europe, particularly in the leadup to the June 2024 European Parliament elections, pro-Kremlin operators also created fake versions of real US news outlets to target a broad US audience to propagate anti-Ukraine and anti-US messages. Ersatz versions of the Washington Post and FOX News promoted the Kremlin’s strategic objectives of winning the war in Ukraine and weakening US influence around the world. To this end, Russian narratives focused on highlighting the amount of money the US is spending to support the war; blaming Ukraine for all possible wrongdoings, discrediting US political leadership that supports Ukraine, and sowing domestic polarization to make further support for Ukraine harder to achieve. Russia also sought to sow domestic polarization by crafting articles that were overwhelmingly partisan in nature, targeting President Joe Biden specifically and the Democratic Party more broadly in contrast to former President Donald Trump.

In contrast, additional websites concocted out of whole cloth attempted to sow division among Americans by targeting specific audiences, including the LGBTQ+ community, agricultural workers in Texas, and Jewish Americans, with partisan messaging on hot-button topics. In some cases, these sites incorporated content from real sources, including Chinese state media.

According to the US Department of Justice affidavit published on September 4, 2024, the Russian entity known as the Social Design Agency (SDA) created internal documents explaining its rational for running the operation on behalf of Russia, which it referred to as “International Conflict Incitement.” In one document, the SDA wrote,

“The objective of the ‘International Conflict Incitement’ project is to escalate internal tensions in the countries allied with the United States in order to promote the interests of the Russian Federation on the international arena. To influence real-life conflicts and artificially create conflict situations, it is proposed to use a wide range of information tools to influence public opinion.”

According to the affidavit, the SDA intended for its efforts to result in the “[e]scalation of the conflict situation through the use of available tools (traffic redirection, work with comments, work with influencers, analytical articles, augmented reality, media mirror outlets, fakes, etc.) in order to destabilize the societal situation.” 

The affidavit continued:

“According to the planning document, the project’s goal was to influence U.S. public opinion to align with the viewpoint ‘that the US should target their effort towards addressing its domestic issues instead of wasting money in Ukraine and other ‘problem’ regions.’ The document laid out objectives and specific demographics for targeting U.S. audiences (including specific messaging to voters in six swing states) through social media groups, social media advertising, and influencers.”

When targeting specific US audiences, Doppelganger-linked sites homed in on hot-button issues, the affidavit further explained. One site focusing on the LGBTQ+ community, for example, featured topics including “trans youth, athletes, health, woke wars,” among others. The affidavit featured examples of SDA documents explaining its rationale, including one titled, “The Comprehensive Information Outreach Project in Israel (and also Jewish Community Outreach in the US).” According to the affidavit, “one of the stated goals of this campaign was to influence the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election. Notably, the proposal suggested creating ‘a full-fledged three language’ information project that would ‘target Jewish communities across the globe, first and foremost in Israel and the US.’” This effort included the creation of bespoke websites, including at least one targeting Jewish Americans.

Among the most notable examples from the campaign were the creation of fake websites mimicking the Washington Post and FOX News using the respective fake domains washingtonpost.pm and foxnews.in. According to the affidavit, washingtonpost.pm is a “nearly identical duplication of the legitimate Washington Post website,” incorporating the same graphic style, as well as links to articles on the real Washington Post website. The affidavit also noted that these domains and others infringed on the real news outlets’ respective trademarks, as they were “likely to confuse, mislead, or deceive viewers into believing they are visiting the legitimate” sites.

Prior to the US government seizing the domains, content posted to the fake versions of the Washington Post and Fox News conveyed multiple anti-Ukraine narratives. These included claims that that US debt is skyrocketing and that it could have been avoided if it hadn’t attempted to punish Russia for the invasion, and that that the US should worry about its own internal problems rather than spending its time helping Ukraine.

In one example, the fake version of FOX News published an article in August 2023 purported to have been written by reporter Rebecca Rosenberg titled “U.S. Is Turning into a Giant Pyramid Scheme.” It noted how US debt had surpassed $33 trillion, bringing the country “closer to the worst disaster in U.S. history.”

That same day, a separate piece falsely attributed to Rebecca Rosenberg argued that the “U.S. Should Trade Ukraine for Security.” The piece began with the claim, “It is believed that the war is too expensive to entrust exclusively to the military. But in the case of Ukraine, even the military realizes that something has gone wrong.”

At the fake Washington Post site, site operators published falsified stories under the byline of actual Post reporter Loveday Morris. Many of these fake articles focused specifically on US policy regarding Ukraine. “The Ukraine conflict does not strengthen NATO, but rather exposes problems within the alliance,” stated one piece, entitled “Goodbye, Ukraine!”

Another fake article published under Loveday Morris’s byline, “No More Money: Kremlin Will Solve Ukraine’s Problems,” posited that the US debt crisis could be solved if the US handed over Ukraine to Russia and washed its hands of the conflict.

Additional fake articles falsely attributed to Morris attempted to connect Ukraine to hot-button issues such as poverty and the US nuclear arsenal. “Migration Crisis Will Bury Biden’s Future with Ukraine,” announced one headline, while another stated, “America Can’t Defend Itself, But It Can Destroy Humanity.”

Notably, many of the fake Washington Post articles falsely attributed to Loveday Morris specifically focused on presenting President Biden and the Democratic Party in a highly unflattering and partisan light. Topic-wise, these ran the gamut from poverty reduction (“Top Outcomes of the Biden Presidency: Over 25% of Americans Go Hungry”); Mideast policy (“Failures in Yemen Show the Utter Failure of Biden’s Diplomacy” and “Middle East Coalition of U.S. Allies Crumbles like a House of Cards”); immigration (“Citizenship Doesn’t Matter If You Support Biden”); and democracy itself (“Sleepy Joe Doesn’t Go. Democrats Can’t Win Honestly”).

The text of these fake articles was equally partisan. For example, the “Sleepy Joe Doesn’t Go” article wrapped with the following message: “All of this means only one thing: The Democratic Party will go to the polls with a candidate who has no chance of winning fairly. So the only possible strategy for the Democrats remains large-scale fraud, including massive ballot stuffing and sneaking millions of illegal immigrants into the polls as voters.” It also employed an AI-generated image of Biden losing a race to Trump. Somewhat ironically, because the fake website pulls content from actual Washington Post articles to populate various elements on each page, this article was among several that linked to a February 2023 Washington Post story on malign Russian influence operations run by the late Evegeny Prigozhin.

Fake WaPo article critical of Biden featured an AI-generated image of him losing a race with former president Trump. Note the link to the Prigozhin story on the bottom right corner. (Source: washingtonpost.pm/archive)

Other elements of the Russian campaign tailored parts of its operation to target specific segments of the domestic US audience, including the LGBTQ+ community, agricultural workers in Texas, and Jewish Americans. In multiple instances, the DFRLab found evidence that Doppelganger appropriated news articles from existing media, including Chinese State media, and recycled them on fake online platforms targeting these audience.   

LGBTQ+ targeting: MyPride

Doppelganger created an online brand called MyPride to target the American LGBTQ+ community. It attracted followers to its page through memes posted to social media platforms. For example, the page was accompanied by an Instagram account, PrideWave (_pride_wave_), which appears to have garnered significant engagement, with some reaching over 500,000 views and thousands of likes.

In terms of content, MyPride and the PrideWave Instagram account shared narratives about divisive issues affecting the American LGBTQ+ community. At first glance, the page appears to be pro-LGBTQ+ but its content was highly partisan targeted the community with headlines such as “The Infiltration of LGBTQIA+ Propaganda in Popular TV shows” and “Parental Rights Under Siege in New Hampshire.”. These and other stories were organized under the topics “Trans youth,” “Athletes,” “Health,” “Woke Wars,” and “Celebrities.” Additional narratives targeted President Biden, highlighting instances of public backlash against his policies in support of LGBTQ+ rights, and his efforts to garner votes from the community. Other stories denigrated Ukraine’s handling of LGBTQ+ issues during the war. 

Targeting agricultural workers in Texas: Cropmarket Chronicles

Another Doppelganger site, Cropmarket Chronicles, ostensibly focused on agriculture in Texas, but it primarily emphasized partisan political content. This is apparent in the site’s navigation menu, which features “Politics,” “Economy,” Gun Control,” “Tradition,” “Healthcare,” and “Migration.” Recent headlines from the site include “South Texas Resident Sentenced For Human Smuggling,” “Women Buy Guns Amid Border Crisis,” “Texas Bans Changing Gender On Birth Certificates,” and “Criminal Migrant’s Free Reign Exposes Biden-Harris Immigration Failures.”

Articles on the site were generally news-oriented, posting stories based on real-world events. Notably, the site pilfered content from US news outlets, as well as from Chinese sources. The articles would be altered to suit the campaign’s needs; for example, it reworked an NPR article about discrimination against Black farmers in the US.

In another instance, Cropmarket Chronicles directly copied a China Daily article dismissing US national security concerns regarding Chinese-owned farmland in the United States. It also paraphrased key points of Chinese state media to incorporate into its own reporting. By doing so, Russia propagated Chinese narratives for its own interests.

Targeting Jewish Americans: Holy Land Herald

Doppelganger published a fake news portal targeting Jewish Americans called Holy Land Herald. The site published stories regarding US politics, Israel and antisemitism, among other themes. Its homepage was organized under multiple subtopics, including “Israeli–Palestinian Conflict,” “Foreign Relations,” “Elections & Governance,” “Society & Culture,” “Economy,” and Security.”

It also relied heavy on op-eds that attempted incite emotional reactions among Jewish Americans. In one instance, the site’s homepage posted an op-ed link with the teaser, “While Israel was under a barrage of rocket fire, US Jews were busy worrying whether they could get a stove installed on Shabbat,” while in another, it stated, “Settlement in areas heavily populated by Palestinians undermines the Zionist achievement of a Jewish majority in the State of Israel.”

Like PrideWave, Holy Land Herald also utilized an Instagram account, Across The Ocean (acrosstheocean_news). This account garnered far fewer engagements compared to that of PrideWave, likely because Across The Ocean did not rely on posting memes to amass followers. 

The Doppelganger campaign represents a multi-faceted attempt by Russia to influence the 2024 US presidential election and sow domestic partisan divisions, not unlike its prior efforts targeting Europe. By creating convincing fake versions of legitimate news sites and targeting specific demographic groups with tailored messaging, this operation demonstrates Russian disinformation tactics seeking to exacerbate existing social tensions and exploitation of hot-button issues like LGBTQ+ rights and immigration. Doppelganger and other Russian malign influence operations will be the topic of discussion at a September 18 public hearing by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence regarding the roles and responsibilities of technology providers in relation to foreign interference targeting the US election.

Roman Osadchuk and Andy Carvin, “Doppelganger: How Russia mimicked real news sites and created fake ones to target US audiences,” Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), September 18, 2024,