Ahead of the 80th anniversary of the World War II Nazi-Soviet Pact on August 23, 2019, official Russian diplomatic Twitter accounts launched the hashtag #TruthAboutWWII to present a distorted narrative concerning the signing of the pact and the start of World War II.

The Kremlin has long presented the Soviet Union and its regime as the lone defender against Nazi Germany during World War II, and the fact that the Soviet Union initially allied itself with the latter would undermine the myth-making. Successfully distorting history, in particular by covering up the Soviet Union’s crimes, would provide the current Russian government with a basis to justify some of its contemporary actions as allegedly predicated on history. The DRFLab has previously exposed the Kremlin’s attempts to rewrite history, including by rehabilitating Stalin’s image and building statues of Soviet icons in an effort to glorify the Soviet past.

Kremlin Twitter trolling dates back years

As the DFRLab has previously noted, the Kremlin tends to employ a full spectrum model of propaganda. This model marshals both traditional state-sponsored media outlets, such as RT and Sputnik, and social media accounts to disseminate disinformation. Some of these social media accounts are bots and trolls, which do not claim an official affiliation with the Russian government, but a portion of them are official government channels: the Kremlin’s diplomatic Twitter accounts.

In recent years, Russia has used its official government Twitter accounts to reproach its critics and troll Western officials. The Twitter accounts of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the Russian embassies in the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and the Russian Mission to the OSCE have been particularly active in this regard.

In one example, the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom posted a photo of Darth Vader, the iconic villain of the popular Star Wars series, and urged people to “come to our side” by following the account.