NewsGuard details a Russian disinformation campaign by Storm-1516 targeting France

False information generated by AI was widely disseminated on social media, even being repeated by chatbots.

NewsGuard, an American company dedicated to combating fake news, published a report on April 17, 2025, detailing a disinformation campaign targeting France, led by the Russian group Storm-1516. This information warfare operation appears to be a response to France’s increased support for Ukraine following the withdrawal of support from Donald Trump’s United States.

The campaign consists of five AI-generated fake news stories, each launched shortly after a statement by the French government regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, between December 2024 and March 2025. These five pieces of disinformation were shared in 38,877 social media posts, generating 55.8 million views. For comparison, between August and November 2024, only one false narrative had targeted France, with 938 posts and 845,000 views.

Two of these fake news stories sought to discredit French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron. A third accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of financial collusion with France, while the remaining two aimed to stir up community-based hatred within the country. The disinformation achieved such virality that some chatbots repeated these narratives as established facts.