Tracking the Start and Spread of "10 Billion To Ukraine"
How Russia tricked Americans into posting a phrase on Twitter.
Background
On August 30st I made a video where I mentioned that Hurricane Idalia would be used by Russia to spread disinformation.
Hours later the phrase “10 Billion to Ukraine” was suddenly retweeted by an influential Twitter user.
The phrase was “10 Billion to Ukraine,” was most likely a phrase that was specifically orchestrated by the adversary to be spread by Americans. Many of these Americans may not be aware that their opinion was generated in a foreign country and spoon-fed to them like applesauce to a baby.
Like babies do, the applesauce was regurgitated again as authentic opinion, but had enough nearly identical language that randomness is unlikely.
Popular Twitter user @DC_Draino also known as Rogan O’Handley was also involved in spreading this disinformation, although it cannot be determined if he knew he was spreading inauthentically engineered disinformation.
You can use the following Twitter search string if you wish to follow along:
https://twitter.com/search?q=10%20billion%20to%20Ukraine%20until%3A2023-08-31%20since%3A2023-08-27-06&src=typed_query&f=liveNote that Russia typically uses three phases to a disinformation operation:
Seeding (Spreading misinformation)
Harvesting (Taking what seems to be working and concentrating it)
Amplification (intensifying the message)
The End State
The end state of this operation seems to have been to trick influential conservative Twitter users to amplify the phrase “$10 Billion To Ukraine.” This appears to have been successful.
The Legislative Environment
The US House of Representatives is not in session this August. It’s a district work period meaning that the representatives are all back in their respective states with their constituents.
No new legislation can be passed while the house is not in session. As far as I can tell, there are no new bills before Congress to send $10 Billion to Ukraine The upcoming bills are appropriations bills for the DoD and Homeland Security.
The fact that congress is not in session and no new bills involving Ukraine are in front of Congress indicate that there is no intention in congress to send “$10 Billion” to Ukraine in aid.
The Seeding Phase
Using Cyabra tech, I traced the evolution of the phrase “10 Billion to Ukraine” back to an inauthentic user on Twitter who posted :
At least $10 billion to support Ukraine let all Canadian life getting more miserable. Now Canadians suffering wildfires & housing destroyed, why your stupid Conservative now still agree to support Ukraine & still sending more? $10 billions make us life getting some afford.
The user was @wencougar, an inauthentic account that typically tweets about Canadian politics. The post was made on August 24th, 2023 at 6:52AM UTC.
Note when comparing times, Twitter typically converts times into local time. Cyabra uses UTC.
Note that this account may be a seeding account - literally an account that lets other accounts know the topic of the day.
The topic then gets picked up by a twitter user named @Davidgr62214784 on August 26th at 12:52 PM UTC.
Congress unanimously votes against this but for sending another 10 billion to Ukraine. Our govt stopped working for us a long time ago
This particular user, David Green, is an inauthentic profile.
The phrase gets picked up by inauthentic user @opus_penquin on August 27th at 1:32 PM in response to an article about stolen vehicles.
We need more bail reform and we need to send another $10 billion to Ukraine. That'll solve the problem.
@opus_penquin is an inauthentic account.
Now that the ground is seeded with disinformation, the phrase starts to build over the 27th.
The Harvesting Phase
This builds into the 28th.
@CharlesRingling - Note. This particular user does not appear to be inauthentic and they actually are in the Philippines.
Yet they have picked up the “$10 Billion” talking point and are trying to spread it. This user appears to mistaken 10 Billion for Million.
This may be an indicator that the harvesting phase is complete and the phrase is believable enough to reach the operation’s end state.
The Operation Continues
@topault - This user topault then has several posts where he says the phrase. This may be an indicator that a particular phase is complete.
@Phil27477936 - I’m not sure why a person who claims to be Canadian cares about American politics, but this doesn’t have to make sense.
Finally, by August 30th, we get:
And then the final prize. Now we are in the Amplification Phase.
The Amplification Phase
@DC_Draino - Who is an authentic user.
Inauthentic user @Davidgr62214784 has retweeted content from @DC_Draino
@DC_Draino got the highest level of engagement and views for the “10 Billion to Ukraine” text.
Once @DC_Draino used this phrase “$10 Billion to Ukraine”, other Authentic Twitter users followed suit using the same language.
Conclusions
Our Russia successfully conducted a disinformation campaign against influential social media personalities. This campaign as of August 30th is still ongoing and is in the Amplification phase.
Russia capitalized on the intelligence that most Americans do not know that congress is in session. Nor do they know how funding is sent overseas as aid.
Hurricane Idalia proved to be a perfect springboard to launch the “10 Billion to Ukraine” Campaign.
Ryan,
How can we 'harvest and amplify' your 'signals'?
Excellent analysis Ryan. It also reminds me to stay off social media ;-)