Russia tried to use the LA wildfires to spread anti-Ukraine propaganda

Pro-Kremlin social media accounts and outlets have been spreading a baseless narrative that mansions belonging to Ukrainian military officers burned down in the Los Angeles wildfires. The claim has been viewed more than one million times on X, the social media platform once known as Twitter. Researchers who study Russian influence operations say it is part of the Kremlin's larger campaign to discredit the Ukrainian government and undermine U.S. support for Ukraine.

"It is the latest in a long string of assertions by Russian officials, media, and the pro-Kremlin online ecosystem that Ukrainian officials are corrupt and use foreign aid money to enrich themselves." Léa Ronzaud, a senior investigator at research firm Graphika, told NPR in an email.

"It's just so typical of what we see from Russia, [to] take advantage of an ongoing crisis for their own ends," said Darren Linvill, a communications professor and co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub.

The Ukrainian general story first emerged on a pro-Russian Telegram channel four days after the fires started in Los Angeles. Within hours, it was amplified by several other sources, including another Telegram channel which labeled it as satire, an X account, and a website that resembles a pro-Russian network that French authorities previously identified. Some of the posts amplifying the baseless claim falsely credited it to United24 Media, a website affiliated with the Ukrainian government.

The Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council's Center for Countering Disinformation issued a statement describing the claim as "Russian propaganda." It said it had verified with United24 Media that it did not create or share the story.

NPR has not obtained evidence that any Ukrainian generals owned homes in Los Angeles that were destroyed by the fires. The Ukrainian government denied to NPR that any general's homes were affected by the fire.

The next day, an influencer using the handle @OlgaBazova, who has previously echoed narratives pushed by known Russian influence networks, shared the story in English with its 700,000 followers on X. The account's bio describes itself as "specializing in humoristic geopolitical analytics, exposing hypocrisy and satire."

Later in the evening, Robert "Buzz" Patterson, an American conservative influencer with 400,000 followers on X, repeated the claim, seemingly without irony, in a post that has been viewed over a million times, according to X's data.

When contacted by NPR on X about the post, @OlgaBazova responded with a link to a Russian-language article that cited the original Telegram claim about the mansions.

Patterson did not respond to messages from NPR asking why he had posted the claim.

The foundation of a destroyed home is seen on Jan. 15, 2025 in Altadena, Calif. "It's just so typical of what we see from Russia, [to] take advantage of an ongoing crisis for their own ends," said Darren Linvill, a communications professor and co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub.

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The story that initially circulated was debunked by professional fact checkers from Greece and the United States. Both @OlgaBazova and Patterson's posts received user-generated community notes on X citing the Greek fact check.

The unverified claim about the alleged Ukrainian-owned mansions also appeared on other social media platforms including Tik Tok, TruthSocial and the Russian site VK, but did not gain much traction.

The story is the latest example of Russia's shift away from using fake social media profiles impersonating real people, as it did during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, and instead relying on influencers to launder and spread their narratives, Linvill said.

In some cases, influencers have said they were paid to post content later identified by researchers and U.S. intelligence officials as Russian propaganda. There is no evidence that the influencers that spread the LA fire claims have been paid.

When asked whether anyone asked or offered anything to @OlgaBazova to post the claim, the account responded in a public post on X: "I won't let anybody question my integrity, especially a malicious establishment ghoul masquerading as a 'journalist.'"

In September, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two employees of Russian state broadcaster RT in a scheme to funnel nearly $10 million to right-wing American influencers who posted videos opposing aid to Ukraine, praising now President-elect Donald Trump, and criticizing Democrats. The influencers have said they did not know the company paying them was linked to Russia.

Other Russian Telegram channels are also spreading false or unverified narratives about the southern California fires and the government's response, as well as amplifying critiques from Americans including the president-elect's son, Donald Trump, Jr., Andy Carvin of the Atlantic Council's DFRLab told NPR in an email. The Russian news site Pravda, which has been associated with prior Russian information operations, then translates and distributes the Telegram posts.

"Over the last week, Pravda has published at least 350 stories of this type [based on Telegram messages about the fires], based on our initial content analysis of the site," Carvin said.

When a fire devastated Maui in 2023, Russian state media also amplified domestic U.S. criticism of the federal response. Accounts tied to previous China influence operations spread false claims about the fire's origins.

While the story about Ukrainian officials got more traction than the other narratives about the fires originating from Russia-allied channels, Linvill said, it has not yet spread as widely as previous narratives linked to Russia.