By EUvsDisinfo
Over the past week, pro-Kremlin FIMI outlets smeared Ukrainian athletes at the Olympics, declared France on the road to authoritarianism, and tried to deflect attention from a report on Navalny’s poisoning by pointing to the Epstein files. And that was just the beginning. Let’s have a look.
For the Kremlin, disinformation is a sport
Russia is currently banned from competing in Olympic events owing to a long series of doping scandals and its war of aggression against Ukraine, which entered its fifth year this week. However, some of its athletes are still allowed to compete under a neutral flag. But instead of focussing solely on its own competitors during the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, pro-Kremlin outlets launched an AI-enhanced FIMI campaign smearing members of the Ukrainian team.
This BBC Verify report gives an overview. The main thrust of the campaign appeared designed to portray Ukrainian athletes as aggressive and unpleasant. The campaign impersonated legitimate outlets such as Euronews and AFP and even used AI to mimic the voices of credible public figures allegedly criticising made-up Ukrainian bad behaviour.
Another example was reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). A fake TV report disguised as a CBC story claimed that Ukrainian athletes were housed ‘as far away as possible from others participating in the Olympics’ because of their ‘toxic behaviour’. The original footage, uncorrupted by AI, says nothing about Ukrainians.
Vituperative over VPNs
A couple of pro-Kremlin FIMI outlets attacked French president Emmanuel Macron, falsely alleging that a mischaracterised remark by the president meant that the French president is moving to block virtual private networks, or VPNs. A commentator sputtered, ‘Has the Enlightenment in France died?’ The writer went on to denounce the ‘totalitarian and concentration camp systems’ that would follow the demise of VPNs.
In fact, after the French National Assembly passed a ban on children less than 15 years old accessing social media, the president affirmed in an interview that VPNs would not be banned. He noted that VPNs could help some children avoid the age restriction. But he believed that most young people would not do so.
Let us remember the Russian government’s attitude towards VPNs and internet freedom more generally. Since November 2017, only VPN services that accept Kremlin censorship have been available in Russia. Meanwhile, many popular sites and services including WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are blocked. If such censorship leads to totalitarianism, Russia is already there.
Using a distraction to distract
Another disinformation trope that stood out this week was the Kremlin’s effort – led by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, no less – to use the Epstein files to distract from Moscow’s efforts to silence its internal critics. Specifically, Maria Zakharova baselessly alleged that a report stating that the late opposition figure Alexey Navalny was poisoned with a toxin found in poison dart frogs native to South America was an attempt to distract from fallout over the release of the Epstein files.
The backstory is that on 14 February 2026, the UK, Swedish, French, German, and Dutch governments issued a joint statement stating their finding. The conclusion was reached after two laboratories conducted tests on samples of Navalny’s biological material that his family managed to smuggle out of Russia. There is no evidence that the release of the Epstein files played any roles in the release of the statement, the product of a joint investigation carried out by five governments. Zakharova’s claim served to distract from Moscow’s probable role in poisoning a dissident, while held in a Siberian penal colony.
This false claim concerning the Epstein files is but the latest in a ‘firehose of falsehoods’ that the Kremlin has sprayed at Navalny and his memory. In the past, pro-Kremlin FIMI outlets have alleged that US special services killed Navalny, that the UK probably assassinated Navalny, and that Navalny died after using an mRNA vaccine supplied by Germany, among many other deceptions.
Don’t be deceived.
By EUvsDisinfo
