Bloomberg journalists Stephanie Baker and Pri Bengani linked nearly 200 disinformation posts to a Russian influence operation that researchers call Storm 1516.

Western officials believe the Storm 1516 operation is backed by Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU.

Less than 20% of the nearly 200 narratives spread by Storm 1516 on X were flagged with a "Community Note" warning readers of their falsehood.

Russia's overall disinformation campaign is overseen by Sergei Kirienko, Vladimir Putin's first deputy chief of the presidential administration.

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party doubled its vote share in the last election compared to the previous one.

A Ukrainian intelligence assessment linked the Storm 1516 operation to GRU unit 29155, which was also responsible for the 2018 attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in the UK.

U.S. government task forces at the FBI, intelligence agencies, and the State Department that were established to expose disinformation have all been dismantled.

Darren Linville of Clemson University's media lab was the first to identify Storm 1516 as a distinct new operation in late 2023.

The Russian disinformation operation Storm 1516 began in August 2023.

An official from X testified to the UK Parliament in March that the platform had taken down 800 million accounts in 2024 alone.

The European Union's Digital Services Act is the primary regulatory framework for policing large social media companies.

Bugatti confirmed that Olena Zelenska is not a client and that the story of her purchasing one of their cars was a fabrication.

In the week after a false story about Olena Zelenska buying Cartier jewelry was released, it accounted for 11% of the online conversation about the Zelenskys, according to research from Clemson Univer...

Elon Musk's October 2022 acquisition of X and subsequent dismantling of its trust and safety measures enabled the Storm 1516 disinformation operation to expand significantly.

Stephanie Baker predicts that Russian disinformation operations will aggressively target the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.

A false story from the Storm 1516 operation alleged that French President Emmanuel Macron was spending 148 million euros to build a private underground bunker.

The Storm 1516 operation spread fake stories about U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The European Union fined X 120 million euros in December as part of a broader investigation into misinformation.