About 400 websites spread Russian propaganda and disinformation in Bulgaria - Human and Social Studies Foundation 

This is stated in a study by the Human and Social Studies Foundation.

According to the analysis, one of the reasons for the rapid growth of Russian propaganda in Bulgaria is the growing number of websites that spread it. Thus, by the end of 2022, compared to 2021, the amount of Russian propaganda increased almost 20 times. It grew in two periods - at the beginning and end of 2022.

"At the beginning of the year, a small network of aggregators was formed, which reinforced the Russian point of view. By the end of the year, it was transformed into a powerful machine of “mushroom” websites (370 sites were identified), which increased the dissemination of each message by about 400 times," the report says.

These disinformation sites are likely to operate through the Share4Pay platform. It pays users to share ready-made information from these sites.

In early 2022, the ranking of the most popular sites included aggregators and real media. At the end of the year, media sites dropped out of the top ten.

The study also reports extremely high activity on Facebook in 2022. Over 25,000 posts were recorded in various groups, while approximately 20,000 posts were made on pages, generating 7.6 million interactions.

"Pages that are not presented as informative, but as commercial or entertaining share propaganda, and thus it meets a wider interest," the report emphasizes.

The authors of the study also say that some of the widespread disinformation has not caught on. For instance, the belief in the superiority of Russian weapons has declined, and the approval rating of the Russian president has experienced a threefold decrease.

"Other narratives, however, have a significant impact on public sentiment – for example, that Bulgaria occupies the side of Ukraine because the Bulgarian rulers are dependent on the Euro-Atlantic partners (and not because Ukraine is the attacked country); the claim that the West dragged Russia into war; that the military aid to Ukraine drags Bulgaria into war," the report says.

• On June 15, Ukraine’s Security Service reported that the Russian special services intend to spread fake news about the alleged Russian citizenship of Ukrainian officials and their family members in the Ukrainian information space.