For regular audiences of Polish public broadcaster Polskie Radio, the headlines on its website appeared strange: "The unacceptable truth: The EU will manage without Poland" and "Ukraine will stay outside of the EU."
The pro-Russian, Euroskeptic narratives didn't align with the broadcaster's usual coverage. But at first glance, the website appeared legitimate.
Those who looked closer saw the giveaway: The domain name of the site was polskieradio.icu. The real Polskie Radio’s domain is polskieradio.pl. The pro-Russian narratives were placed on a Russian cloned website — one specifically designed to mislead.
The incident, recorded in April, is part of a wider trend of fake websites employed in a "persistent" disinformation campaign spanning two years, according to an article published on the website of the Austria-based International Press Institute and signed by it and three other European press freedom groups. These watchdogs say Russian agents are creating false news websites that mimic reputable sources and posting fake stories to those phony sites.
"It’s really hard to see that it’s a fake website, so it really works," said Camille Magnissalis, who monitors press freedom violations for the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ). "If you don’t know, you can be easily misled."
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a September press release that such websites are part of "Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns" informally known as "Doppelganger," after the German word for a person who is almost exactly identical to another.
At the time, the Justice Department announced its "ongoing seizure" of 32 internet domains used in Doppelganger campaigns.
The websites may look like trusted European media outlets but in fact mislead readers with malicious stories and propaganda. That content is often shared on social media either through advertisements or bot accounts.
"It’s often related to political stakes because they want to influence people," Magnissalis told VOA. "In the end, these stories are integrated into the media landscape and have impact."
The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium described the Russian disinformation campaign in its biannual media monitoring report covering the first half of 2024. European press freedom watchdogs, including EFJ and IPI, make up the consortium.
In 2023, fake articles made up most of the content on the phony websites, according to the MFRR report. This year, most attacks have involved artificial intelligence, or AI, either as deepfake images or fake audio clips of well-known journalists.
Such content destabilizes trust in the news and creates a "climate of chaos" for European news readers, according to the report.
The domains for these fake websites were purchased through cryptocurrency transactions, obscuring the identity of the purchaser. The crypto wallets used were associated with Russia, according to the IPI article.
"They use really refined techniques to mask the fact that they’re trying to misinform anyone," said Karol Luczka, IPI's Eastern Europe monitoring and advocacy officer. "They try to make sure nobody realizes that Russia is doing this."
The Russian operation has targeted Ukraine, Poland and Germany. It targeted France ahead of its presidential elections last summer, spoofing the website of the French daily Le Monde.
The Russian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to VOA’s request for comment.
Although the campaign is widespread throughout Europe, doppelganger websites first started appearing in Ukraine, attempting to manipulate the public's opinion of the Russia-Ukraine war, Luczka said.
According to Luczka, the false stories on those sites primarily pushed one of three narratives: that Ukraine is losing the war, that Ukraine is running out of resources, or that the Ukrainian government is corrupt.
Before 2022, in Ukraine Russia had primarily published disinformation in the Russian language. The modern-day doppelganger campaign, however, adapts its language to the targeted country. This difference makes audiences much more likely to believe what they are reading, Luczka told VOA.
"Russian disinformation tactics are becoming more subtle and more refined," he said. "That means they are also becoming more efficient, sadly and worryingly."
Facebook has been crucial to the popularization of these websites and their false information, Luczka said, adding that it is one of the main social media platforms where Ukrainians receive news.
Around 54% of the Ukrainian population uses Facebook, according to data collected by the World Population Review.
This creates a challenge for big tech companies like Meta, Facebook's owner, Magnissalis of EFJ said. These platforms have a responsibility to monitor the disinformation posted to their website, she said, including that coming from Russian actors.
"They just create fake accounts and spread links to those websites everywhere," Magnissalis said. "It's not new, but it is problematic."
