Why did the Russian disinformation machine target French voters?
What do fake news on Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska's multimillion-euro sports car purchase and made-up offers of money to vote for President Emmanuel Macron in the French snap elections have in common?
They were all cooked up by the Kremlin in what is an ongoing all-out assault on French public opinion, researchers claim.
Scores of freshly registered websites, some made to look like mainstream outlets, have been publishing everything from deepfakes to generative AI writing impersonate fringe content and reports on real-world acts of subversion.
For the Kremlin, the National Rally — whose stances on Russia are friendlier than those of President Macron, a staunch supporter of Ukraine — might have been the preferred winners of the French snap legislative elections, and Moscow likely tried to help boost their results on Sunday.
