Is Zelensky right to say data centre strikes have taken down Russian bots?

Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks have spread widely online, but experts have told BBC Verify there is no evidence the attacks have significantly reduced them.

Viral social media posts have claimed there has been a significant drop in influence operations in recent days, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggesting on Monday there was “less hate, less division and fewer provocations” online because of “fewer bots”.

Russian influence operations, which promote pro-Kremlin narratives and spread disinformation, have been tracked by researchers and journalists including BBC Verify for more than a decade.

These campaigns push disinformation on to people’s social media feeds on issues like the Ukraine war or post messages in support of Moscow’s interests.

Ukraine has struck three of Russian tech giant Yandex’s five data centres since 8 October in response to Moscow’s attacks on Ukrainian internet hubs.

The second of these strikes on Thursday caused Yandex, often referred to as Russia’s Google, to announce it was struggling to maintain its services.

But claims these attacks have affected Russian disinformation operations, including accounts posting supportive messages about groups including the Make American Great Again (MAGA) movement in the US and the far-right AfD party in Germany, appear to have come from a misinterpretation of data produced by tech firm Cloudflare.

Some social media users have been sharing charts of Cloudflare data which show bot activity using Yandex’s network has declined.

While bots are commonly associated with fake social media accounts that may post false, divisive and inflammatory content, they are also used to automate tasks like scanning web pages so they appear on search engines.