Info‑ops mapped and timed

Researchers tracking pro-Kremlin influence campaigns say Telegram often acts as the first staging ground, with related posts appearing there before wider reposting elsewhere. (openminds.ltd) OpenMinds said in January 2026 that it mapped more than 3,600 political and news Telegram channels across Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, linked by 24,500 audience-overlap connections. Its project uses Telegram’s “similar channels” feature, which recommends public channels based on shared subscribers. (openminds.ltd) That recommendation system does not prove common ownership, but it does show which audiences cluster together. OpenMinds said the overlap exposed pseudo-Ukrainian channels serving Russian propaganda, occupied-territory media folded into Kremlin-aligned networks, and opposition hubs that sit outside those clusters. (openminds.ltd) Telegram has become central to Russia’s war information space since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab said the Kremlin restricted Western social platforms while continuing to tolerate and use Telegram, helping make it one of the main channels for wartime narratives. (dfrlab.org) Earlier investigations found the same pattern in multilingual distribution networks. In March 2023, the Digital Forensic Research Lab identified 56 pro-Kremlin Telegram channels in three networks — Info Defense, Node of Time, and Surf Noise — operating in more than 10 languages and targeting users in 20 countries. (dfrlab.org) The largest of those clusters was a group of 34 Info Defense channels that frequently forwarded one another’s posts across language lines. The lab said open-source analysis tied one network to NVP ROKOT, a Kremlin-affiliated voluntary military training program. (dfrlab.org) Researchers have also documented more automated activity on Telegram itself. A July 2025 report by OpenMinds and the Digital Forensic Research Lab said 3,634 automated accounts posted pro-Russian comments between January 2024 and April 2025 in channels targeting Ukrainian populations in occupied territories. (atlanticcouncil.org) That report said the bot network pushed 69 narrative themes, mixing praise for Russian rule, attacks on Ukraine, and abstract anti-war slogans tailored to local events such as water and power outages. The authors said some messages were reactive to events, while others were proactive and launched without any outside trigger. (atlanticcouncil.org) Academic work has found parallel coordination in official Russian channels. A 2025 study in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications analyzed 129 public Telegram channels run by Russian embassies and consulates and said they formed a coordinated network connected to known pro-Kremlin disinformation sources. (nature.com) Other researchers say reach is uneven, not universal. A RAND report published in January 2025 found Russian and pro-Russian actors on Telegram and X did push dehumanizing narratives into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Serbian, and Bulgarian communities, but said the most extreme conversations still remained heavily Russian-language and concentrated in specific communities. (rand.org) Telegram says it now uses proactive moderation, artificial intelligence tools introduced in early 2024, user reports, and outside referrals to remove illegal content from public groups and channels. But the platform’s own design still gives investigators a way to trace how narratives move from clustered channels into wider audiences — and how fast that relay can happen. (telegram.org)