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Vladimir Putin has launched a global cyber war against the West with a 4,000% rise in Russian trolls since the Salisbury attack.

Russian social media bots and automated accounts have fuelled a massive increase in the spread of lies and disinformation connected to the chemical weapons attacks in both Salisbury and Syria.

The extent of the Kremlin-inspired campaign was revealed last night in new Whitehall analysis.

UK officials believe Russia is actively trying to create confusion about the two attacks.

It follows warnings of cyber attacks against Britain’s national infrastructure in the aftermath of the air strikes against Putin’s ally Bashar al-Assad, carried out by US, French and British forces.

(Image: PA)

The new analysis found the same Kremlin-operated, pro-Kremlin or anti-Western voices and accounts spreading lies in relation to the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury and the devastating chemical attack in Douma, Syria.

This includes spreading propaganda claiming the poison used on the streets of Salisbury was not produced in Russia.

However, despite the scale of the Russian disinformation campaign, the EU, G7, NATO and a string of other countries have backed Britain’s conclusion that Russia is highly likely to be responsible for Salisbury.

Separately, government social media experts have discovered 45,000 posts spreading disinformation in the two weeks since the Syria attack on April 7 - with a potential reach of 20 million social media users.

Theresa May said: “Recent events have strongly underlined the need for nations to stand together in the face of those who would challenge and undermine the rules-based international system which keeps us safe.

(Image: REUTERS)

“Last month, a military grade nerve agent was brazenly and recklessly deployed on the streets of Salisbury. As the UK, EU, G7, Nato and many other countries have concluded, there is no other plausible explanation than Russia is to blame.

“In Syria, a dangerous pattern of behaviour has developed in which chemical weapons – the use of which has been banned for almost 100 years - are being used by the Assad regime against its own people in the most abhorrent way imaginable.

“Meanwhile, Russia is using cyber as part of a wider effort to undermine the international system.

“This disinformation campaign is not just aimed at social media and the UK - it is intended to undermine the actual institutions and processes of the rules based system, such as the Organisation for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). We must do all we can at every turn to challenge this.”