AISD Forum | Bots of Occupation: Russian Influence Operations on Telegram
The AISD Forum 🤖 ⋂ 🛡️ (AI, Security & Defense) cordially invites you to a special public presentation by Yuliia Dukach (OpenMinds) on the state of Russian bots deployment in influencing public opinions. This event is a part of AISD's Fall '25 series on "Influence Operations".
Title: Bots of Occupation: Russian Influence Operations on Telegram
Speaker: Yuliia Dukach (PhD), Head of Disinformation Research at OpenMinds
Date: 28 October 2025 12h00~13h00 Boston (17h00~18h00 Oslo)
Hosts: Phil Tinn & Olivia Houck
Abstract: Russia’s use of bots is not random noise—it is a calculated strategy to manufacture the illusion of public consensus. Drawing on her recent research, the speaker will present evidence from a network of over 3,600 automated accounts that flooded occupied Ukraine’s Telegram channels with pro-Russian narratives and anti-Ukrainian propaganda. Part of this network later appeared in Moldova, where hundreds of bots attempted to sway political discourse ahead of elections. This presentation will examine the strategy behind these bot farms—how narratives are tailored, localized, and sustained—and explore the challenges of detecting inauthentic activity in the era of generative AI.
Yuliia Dukach, PhD, is the Head of Disinformation Investigations at OpenMinds and a lecturer at the Kyiv School of Economics. She is a researcher and data journalist with over seven years of experience studying disinformation, computational propaganda, and online influence operations. Her work combines investigative methods, data analysis, and machine learning to uncover how propaganda networks function and affect societies. Previously, she led the disinformation research project at the independent Ukrainian media outlet Texty.org.ua, where two collaborative projects on machine-assisted detection of manipulations, to which she contributed, received Sigma Awards.
Upcoming from Fall '25 AISD Series on "Influence Operations":
09 Oct LLM-Consensus: Multi-Agent Debates for Misinformation Detection with Kumud Lakara (University of Oxford; JPMorgan Chase)
16 Oct From Moscow to Beijing: Russian propaganda and disinformation in Chinese Media with Patrycja Krzyśpiak (NASK National Research Institute, Poland)
23 Oct Characterizing Knowledge Manipulation in a Russian Wikipedia Fork with Mykola Makhortykh (Pompeu Fabra University)
28 Oct Bots of Occupation: Russian Influence Operations on Telegram with Yuliia Dukach (OpenMinds)
⚠️ More talks to be announced soon for November and December.
About: the AISD Forum is a collaborative initiative built with the support of the MIT Alumni Association (Norway, France & Germany). Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of MIT.
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