Facebook removed almost 300 pages from its platform for “coordinated inauthentic behavior” across the former-Soviet space on January 17, 2019. The pages masqueraded as groups with special interests — ranging from food to support for authoritarian presidents — and amplified content from the Kremlin’s media agency, Rossiya Segodnya, especially that of its subordinate online news outlet Sputnik.

The pages represented a systematic, covert attempt to improve Rossiya Segodnya’s online audience across more than a dozen countries. Some had little impact, but others racked up tens of thousands of followers. Sputnik was the main beneficiary, as it was often the only source the Facebook pages amplified.

The Editor-in-Chief of Sputnik Latvia, Valentīns Rožencovs, confirmed that Sputnik ran the Latvian-focused pages. Open-source evidence shows that Rossiya Segodnya employees ran some of the other pages and were aware of even more of them.

In addition to a previous, independent investigation by @DFRLab, Facebook shared the names of the accounts before the takedown. Based on internal evidence, not shared with @DFRLab, Facebook concluded:

Despite their misrepresentations of their identities, we found that these Pages and accounts were linked to employees of Sputnik, a news agency based in Moscow, and that some of the Pages frequently posted about topics like anti-NATO sentiment, protest movements, and anti-corruption.

This post sets out the main findings and patterns, based on the open-source evidence. An accompanying @DFRLab post provides greater detail on the evidence and records the scale, techniques, and impact of the operation.

Amplifiers

The pages acted as amplifiers for two main Rossiya Segodnya outlets: Sputnik and the video service TOK. Sputnik is Rossiya Segodnya’s main media brand, operating in 31 languages, from Abkhaz to Vietnamese. Rossiya Segodnya’s founding charter says its mission is to “secure the national interests of the Russian Federation in the information sphere.” Sputnik officials deny that their parent company’s charter applies to them, but the outlet is notable for its close adherence to Kremlin narratives. TOK is less well known, but its website makes clear that it is part of the Rossiya Segodnya conglomerate.