Letters purporting to be from a Brexit-supporting Russian woman living in the UK have prompted claims of a targeted “disinformation” campaign after an allegedly “fake persona” was used to send anti-EU messages to regional newspapers.

An investigation by the Bristol Post revealed almost identical messages extolling the benefits of leaving the European Union (EU) had been sent to nine publications around the UK.

Each letter was said to have been sent from the same woman, who claimed to live locally but reportedly used fake addresses from locations as far apart as Bristol and Sunderland.

In the letter sent to the paper, Veronika Oleksychenko claimed Brexit had made her “more inspired and creative”.

She wrote: “I moved to the UK in 2014, from Russia, and I soon settled in Bristol. I think it is a great city to live in. I don’t know about anyone else but for me, I think Brexit has had the strangest effect of making me much more inspired and creative. I suppose it’s been a mix of my new life in this part of the world and then the whole Brexit thing happening.”

An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Show all 20 1 /20 An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria, 31, holds her daughters, Elena, two, and baby Ioana, weeks old, in her London home A few months after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Maria was told her to go back to her native Romania whilst in hospital by an elderly English woman. “You are a foreigner, your place is not here” recalls Maria, who was stunned Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria and her husband Adi, 37, take their daughters for a walk in Hampstead Heath near their home The couple are preparing to leave Britain later this year with their two children, fed up with what Maria says is xenophobia and the rising cost of living in London Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Elena holds up British passports belonging to her and her sister. Both children have dual citizenship, but their parents do not want to apply for this despite having permanent residency in Britain Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria holds daughter Ioana, who is less than a week old, while Elena wipes a table Maria had never faced direct abuse over her nationality in her 10 years in the country until that moment at the hospital Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi spends time with his daughters Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi plays hide and seek with his daughter Elena Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Food is served Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi takes his daughter, Elena, to nursery Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi's sister, Nicoleta, 34, carries her niece Elena in a restaurant after a trip out Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi and Maria cook together at their home Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi holds his baby daughter, Ioana Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi and wife Maria take their daughters for a walk in Hampstead Heath Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Berwyn, a neighbour of the couple, who moved to the UK in the 1980s from Australia, says goodbye to Maria after a visit at her home. Berwyn has dual citizenship - Australian and Irish as she lived in Ireland for a few years before moving to Britain. She calls the family her 'dearest Christian Romanian friends' Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Religious pictures including a portrait of Arsenie Boca, a Romanian Orthodox monk, theologian and artist (top), hang on the wall at the home of Adi and Maria Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria dries Elena after giving her a bath after nursery Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria holds her baby daughter Ioana Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi works with his colleague Alexandru, who is also from Romania, for a removal company Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Maria holds her daughter Elena Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Neighbour, Berwyn, holds baby Ioana Reuters An immigrant's tale: Leaving Britain to escape Brexit hostility Adi and Maria, along with their daughters, leave St Andrews church in Kingsbury after attending a service Reuters

She signed off the email: “So Brexit works in mysterious ways perhaps!”

In a subsequent email to the Bristol Post, she requested that her letter be published, a similar version of which was used as “letter of the week” by the Sunderland Echo.

Bristol Post’s senior reporter, Conor Gogarty, first became suspicious after finding no trace of the sender on social media. Ms Oleksychenko told the paper she avoided social media because it was not “actually very ‘social’”.

He subsequently discovered that a similar letter had been sent to other publications and replied to the email address asking for more details about her background.

She was asked for but failed to provide a photograph of her passport and said she had lived in different parts of the UK since emigrating from Russia. The exact year of her arrival was also said to have differed between otherwise almost-identical versions of the letter sent to the Bristol Post and Sunderland Echo.

The paper tracked down the owner of the house given as Ms Oleksychenko’s address in Bristol, who said it was “concerning that someone would use another person’s address”, adding that Brexit made her feel “frustrated” rather than creative.

Alice Stollmeyer, executive director of Defending Democracy, which works to counter disinformation and cyber-attacks, said there were reasons to doubt the source of the letter.

“Even if she ‘doesn’t like social media’ herself, nowadays your name will be somewhere online. I would say that clearly indicates a fake persona,” she told the Bristol Post. "We can’t know if Veronika is really Russian, if that is her real name or even if she is a ‘she’.

“When people think of Russian interference in our democracies, they mostly think of cyberattacks and of bots and trolls spreading disinformation just ahead of the elections. But manipulation via ‘influence operations’ is much more subtle than that – and it’s taking place 365 days per year, not just during elections.”

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Mr Gogarty told The Independent: “I don’t think I’ll ever be sure who she is. One theory is it is a troll controlled by Russia, as absurd as it sounds that they would be involved. But it is impossible to know.”

He added: “I sent off an email to her and at that point I wasn’t suspicious, but there were a few things that made alarm bells ring. The address that she had given wasn’t a real address, but after googling her name I saw other publication had printed her letter, and each time she was pretending to be local to the area.”