Russian ‘Matryoshka’ Bot Farm Targets US Midterms With AI

A Bloomberg News investigation revealed that the Russian state-backed disinformation operation “Matryoshka” is deploying automated bot farms to inflate view counts of AI-generated videos attacking Democratic candidates ahead of the US midterms. The campaign produced synthetic videos mimicking prominent actors and fabricated news broadcasts from ABC and CBS targeting candidates in 20 Senate and 29 gubernatorial races. Forensic data from Antibot4Navalny showed view numbers spiking to 200,000 within an hour before flatlining, driven by dormant bot profiles. The disclosures follow ODNI warnings on AI election interference and coincide with network disruptions following Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers.