News, views and top stories in your inbox. Don't miss our must-read newsletter Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Russia is planning to destabilise Britain by sparking a race war – using scantily clad models instead of armed soldiers.

Cyber warriors at a heavily-guarded NATO base have identified President Vladamir Putin’s sinister strategy of stirring up violence through so-called “bikini bots”.

And for the first time they have revealed to a former Cabinet minister the extent of the threat our society faces.

The bots appear on social media as seductive sirens spouting vitriolic messages of racial hatred. But they are really robot trolls run automatically by software, like planes on autopilot, using stolen pictures of women as bait to lure users in. One shameless example known to NATO bot-watchers as “Robotic Jana” uses the pho to of an unsuspecting former Bulgarian beauty queen.

Each troll can spew out 144 messages in a day – one every 10 minutes for 24 hours – adding up to millions of tweets and posts.

And they fire up supporters of extremist groups such as the English Defence League and National Action.

The danger they represent to Britain and the West was made clear to shadow Digital minister Liam Byrne last week on a visit to the StratCom base in Latvian capital Riga.

StratCom – the Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence – is an 11-nation facility set up in 2104 for digital analysis. Mr Byrne, who was there on a fact-finding mission, said: “Going to StratCom was like the scales falling from my eyes. I knew about this online poison but now I understand how it works and it’s truly terrifying.”

As well as pretending to be beautiful women, Moscow’s bots pose as Islamist extremists to get people with opposing viewpoints going for each other’s throats.

A senior StratCom officer told Mr Byrne: “Russia has to create division. Where there’s confusion there’s apathy and it is harder to get people to fight.”

(Image: Getty Images Europe)

A NATO general warned: “Be under no illusions, the Russian threat is real. And we can’t defend ourselves by standing on the goal line.”

And Robin Niblett, of think tank Chatham House, added: “Tanks and planes cripple your defences. Digital weapons do the same but you can’t see them coming.”

Behind the bots software are Russia’s totally modernised and overhauled military hardware and special forces.

One well-aimed computer code could take down banks, mobile networks and hospital systems. But Russian leader Putin believes the best way to defend his country is to sow race hatred in ours.

Mr Byrne said: “A favourite tactic is to use different bots to pump two extreme sides of an argument. On one hand robo-trolls amplify messages that radical Islam is destabilising Europe. And on the other, that Europe’s neo-Nazis are on the rise.”

The banned neo-Nazi group National Action is a favourite fishing ground of the computerised trolls.

Its supporters praised Thomas Mair, the deranged white supremacist who murdered Labour MP Jo Cox in her Yorkshire constituency during the Brexitreferendum in 2016.

(Image: PA)

(Image: PA)

And four members who were serving soldiers are awaiting trial on terror offences.

Mr Byrne said: “National Action target the Army because they want weapons to fight the race war when it begins.”

Russian Twitter bots shared Donald Trump ’s tweets 470,000 times in the final months of the 2016 US election.

And last week British ministers said Moscow’s military was directly behind a “malicious” cyber-attack on Ukraine that spread widely in 2017.

The UK government took the unusual step of publicly accusing Russia of June’s NotPetya ransomware onslaught. Giant consumer goods firm Reckitt Benckiser – the maker of Dettol, Durex and Strepsils – was among British companies whose sales were affected.

Russia has denied responsibility for the attack, which is estimated to have cost firms £1billion, claiming its own firms were among those whose systems were affected.

But anti-virus experts believe about 2,000 separate attacks were launched and mainly aimed at Ukrainian government networks and financial and energy assets.

Today it was claimed bots were promoting pro-gun messages in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in which 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz killed 17 pupils and teachers. Hamilton 68, a tool launched to track “Russian propaganda and disinformation online”, said it noted a flood of hashtags, topics and URLs related to the tragedy.

Weapons of mass division

By Liam Byrne, shadow digital minister

Behind the heavily-guarded walls of the whitewashed office block tucked away in downtown Riga is the new frontline in the cyber war with Russia.

This is where StratCom fights the invisible battles that could cripple our way of life.

NATO’s centre of excellence is devoted to analysing Russia’s digital threat so we can figure out how to block it.

Most of Britain is on Facebook and Twitter. It’s the place we feel surrounded by “friends”, where we “like” things that catch our eye.

But it is also where Russia has launched its weapons of mass division.

The Kremlin has built a new virtual vanguard of thousands of Robo-trolls, automated “bots” which can be turned on in seconds to pump out divisive messages.

(Image: PA)

They act like social media “shock jocks”, creating the appearance that certain views are “trending”.

Accounts like “Robotic Jana”, as the team call her. The picture on it is a former Miss Bulgaria.

It pumps out thousands of tweets, in synch with a team of online “sisters” filling cyberspace with bile.

Behind them come financial links to extremist far-right parties skilled in whipping up a fight.

France’s far-right Front Nationale was caught taking a secret £8million loan from one of Mr Putin’s friendly banks.

Russia’s warplanes buzz Britain’s airspace while its subs lurk in the North Atlantic. Brits are at the core of the StratCom team and say: “Hit the Russians where it hurts. In the wallet.”

London has become home to Russian oligarchs, some entrusted with the delicate task of laundering Putin’s billions.

Last week judges issued ‘McMafia Orders’ which require suspicious individuals to explain where their fortunes come from.

But it’s hardly a crackdown. The National Crime Agency think as much as £92billion a year is laundered in London – and almost none of it is seized.

Why Kremlin wants UK to know that it's behind attacks

By Dr Rory Cormac, security expert

Covert operations are nothing new. Diplomats facing Russian subversion in the Cold War debated whether to fight fire with fire by unleashing MI6.

Others thought doing so was too un-British.

A similar debate is likely taking place in Whitehall’s most secret corridors.

A destructive cyber-attack targeted Ukraine in 2017. Now the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre has pointed the finger at Russia.

This was the latest attack attributed to Moscow, including targeting the 2016 US presidential election.

These operations have generated great concern amongst Western spies and policymakers.

They raise questions about what Putin wants, and how to respond.

Rather than world domination Russia is pursuing interests in its backyard, whilst undermining NATO and the European Union.

The Kremlin has not admitted much of the activity it is accused of.

Yet these operations are not especially secret.

Surprisingly, that is less counter-productive than we might expect. In fact, it is deliberate.

Unacknowledged yet visible operations demonstrate resolve without escalating crises into more conventional, devastating conflict.

These operations, aided by the spread of so-called “fake news”, also create ambiguity. They blur the lines between truth and fiction, internal disorder and even war and peace.

This makes it difficult for the West to respond.

Knowledge of Russian activity – without acknowledgement – allows the Kremlin to cultivate a fearsome image of omnipotence.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has dismissed as “blather” charges made by the FBI on Thursday against 13 Russians for meddling in the US 2016 election.

Spotting the bots

Social media users should be on constant alert for Russian bots.

Here are some tips on how to spot them from watchdog body the Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Be suspicious of frequency. The more often a user posts, the more likely they are to be fake. Many bots post 72 times a day but some send twice that number.

Beware of anonymity. Bots often lack personal information, with generic profile pictures and political slogans as “bios”.

Watch for amplification. A bot’s timeline will often consist of re-tweets and verbatim quotes, with little original wording.

Common content is another clue. Multiple profiles tweeting the same content at the same time point to networks of bots.