A pro-Russia disinformation campaign is leveraging consumer artificial intelligence tools to fuel a “content explosion” focused on exacerbating existing tensions around global elections, Ukraine, and immigration, among other controversial issues, according to new research published last week.
The campaign, known by many names including Operation Overload and Matryoshka (other researchers have also tied it to Storm-1679), has been operating since 2023 and has been aligned with the Russian government by multiple groups, including Microsoft and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. The campaign disseminates false narratives by impersonating media outlets with the apparent aim of sowing division in democratic countries. While the campaign targets audiences around the world, including in the US, its main target has been Ukraine. Hundreds of AI-manipulated videos from the campaign have tried to fuel pro-Russian narratives.
The report outlines how, between September 2024 and May 2025, the amount of content being produced by those running the campaign has increased dramatically and is receiving millions of views around the world.
In their report, the researchers identified 230 unique pieces of content promoted by the campaign between July 2023 and June 2024, including pictures, videos, QR codes, and fake websites. Over the last eight months, however, Operation Overload churned out a total of 587 unique pieces of content, with the majority of them being created with the help of AI tools, researchers said.
The researchers said the spike in content was driven by consumer-grade AI tools that are available for free online. This easy access helped fuel the campaign’s tactic of “content amalgamation,” where those running the operation were able to produce multiple pieces of content pushing the same story thanks to AI tools.
“This marks a shift toward more scalable, multilingual, and increasingly sophisticated propaganda tactics,” researchers from Reset Tech, a London-based nonprofit that tracks disinformation campaigns, and Check First, a Finnish software company, wrote in the report. “The campaign has substantially amped up the production of new content in the past eight months, signalling a shift toward faster, more scalable content creation methods.”
Researchers were also stunned by the variety of tools and types of content the campaign was pursuing. “What came as a surprise to me was the diversity of the content, the different types of content that they started using,” Aleksandra Atanasova, lead open-source intelligence researcher at Reset Tech, tells WIRED. “It’s like they have diversified their palette to catch as many like different angles of those stories. They’re layering up different types of content, one after another.”
Atanasova added that the campaign did not appear to be using any custom AI tools to achieve their goals, but were using AI-powered voice and image generators that are accessible to everyone.
While it was difficult to identify all the tools the campaign operatives were using, the researchers were able to narrow down to one tool in particular: Flux AI.
Flux AI is a text-to-image generator developed by Black Forest Labs, a German-based company founded by former employees of Stability AI. Using the SightEngine image analysis tool, the researchers found a 99 percent likelihood that a number of the fake images shared by the Overload campaign—some of which claimed to show Muslim migrants rioting and setting fires in Berlin and Paris—were created using image generation from Flux AI.
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#ProRussia #Disinformation #Campaign #Free #Tools #Fuel #Content #Explosion
![Europe got its own TBPN-style live show, and everyone’s angling for a guest spot | TechCrunch
The European answer to TBPN is here and ready to go live five days a week, starting June 27.
Luke Knight and Ronan Chambers first launched the London-based European Technology Network (ETN) last October, breaking down tech trends and news during a two-day-a-week live stream. Right now, the show is live-streamed on X and YouTube and has garnered more than 5 million views.
On Monday, the network announced a .6 million seed round from top players in the media ecosystem, including Powerhouse Capital, Axel Springer SE (which owns Business Insider and Politico), the popular media publication LadBible, and angel investors from OpenAI and DeepMind. With this fresh capital, the network is announcing its largest expansion yet.
It’s now moving into a big studio in Kings Cross (where all the hot London AI startups are situated), expanding the team (right now of just eight), launching a newsletter, and is, starting today, moving into a five-day-a-week live show schedule, which will soon see Knight and Chambers interview the likes of George Robson (a partner at Sequoia) and Rishi Sunak (former UK Prime Minister and senior advisor to Anthropic and Microsoft).
Speaking to TechCrunch, Knight and Chambers said ETN has already become a hot stop on the press tour for European startups — they’ve spoken to the founder of Synthesia, the CFO of Legora, the founder of Granola, and Kanishka Narayan, the UK’s first AI Minister. They’ve even had American investors stop by the show when they are in town, including one from Andreessen Horowitz.
“ETN was born out of a gaping hole in the industry,” Chambers told TechCrunch. “It’s centered around pace.” He said the current media ecosystem in the UK cannot keep up with how fast the tech scene is moving. For example, so far this year, London startups have raised .7 billion according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than 0 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni.
“These are things that have never happened in Europe before,” Chambers continued, referring to the speed at which capital is flowing through the ecosystem. As the show became more popular, Chambers said they were getting around 70 pitches a week from guests looking to come on the show. They would try and cram 12 interviews into two hours, twice a week, but eventually it got too much. “We needed an outlet that could move at the pace of that,” he said of both the interest in the show and how fast Europe’s tech ecosystem is moving, “which is the reason we’re going from two days a week to five days a week.”
The five-day format will look quite similar to the two-day format. There will be a live show from 12 p.m. UK time to 3 p.m., breaking down trending stories, and then for two hours, they will have guests on the show talking about whatever they want. Chambers said they also want to start hosting debates, roundtables, and a Shark Tank-style pitching session on the show.
“We want to make it as useful as we can for the ecosystem,” Chambers said. “There needs to be more discourse around AI in Europe. There needs to be more discourse around venture capital and cash flowing into the ecosystem. There needs to be more discourse around the amazing things that are happening in the tech ecosystem, and our role is to be the stage in which people can shout about all the amazing things they’re doing.”
The show makes its money from ad dollars, like most media publications, and big-name sponsors already include prediction market Polymarket, blockchain company Base, and the AI audio darling ElevenLabs.
When asked about the influence TBPN has had on them, Knight and Chambers said they indeed do look at John Coogan and Jordi Hays, founders of TBPN (which recently sold to OpenAI for what some say was a nine-figure sum), as pioneers of this new tech media ecosystem. The show became a place for tech guests to appear and chat with friendly faces, announcing new product releases, hires, or funding news. “My thinking was, if we can have an ITV and a BBC, why wouldn’t we have a regional version of this?” Chambers continued.
Europe is a big place, though, with more than 40 different countries and over 200 languages spoken (24 of which are recognized by the European Union). Chambers said that although ETN will report from London, he and Knight are making an effort to bring on guests from across the continent. Aside from bringing guests into the studio, they also travel to the hottest tech conferences around Europe. For example, they’ve broadcast from the Panathenaea Conference in Athens and from inside the Louvre in Paris for the RAISE AI Summit.
“You have all these different cultures, these different minds coming together and creating different products,” Chambers said. “You get a taste of what makes [Europe] a superpower.”
With all this, they said they would never turn an American founder away should they want to come on the show. “It’s a European technology network, but we think there’s massive [global] opportunities,” Chambers said. Knight added to that, noting how often conversations pit the European tech ecosystem against that of the U.S.
“We are globally optimistic,” Knight said. “We are pushing global prosperity from Europe. Wherever you want to go and build your company, wherever is the best place to go and build that company, go and do that, and we will shout for you to go and do that.”
He and Chambers also don’t necessarily see themselves as journalists; rather, they consider themselves tech insiders curious about what is going on and why. They also don’t see themselves as replacing traditional media and instead intend to work in tandem with those publications. “We rely on traditional media,” Chambers said, adding that is how they find much of the news that they to talk about on ETN.
Overall, the duo hopes to help document the stories coming from the new wave of European success, from ElevenLabs in London to Lovable in Stockholm, to help the upcoming generation understand that technology is one way to drive a nation forward.
Discussing the impact of European success stories, Chambers said, “It riles up the next generation to the point where it’s no longer cool to finish university and go into banking or consulting. People want to leave university and go straight into building a startup, and I think that’s an amazing thing.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Europe #TBPNstyle #live #show #everyones #angling #guest #spot #TechCrunchEurope,London,UK](https://i3.wp.com/techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/ETN.jpg?resize=1200%2C800&ssl=1 "Europe got its own TBPN-style live show, and everyone’s angling for a guest spot | TechCrunch
The European answer to TBPN is here and ready to go live five days a week, starting June 27.
Luke Knight and Ronan Chambers first launched the London-based European Technology Network (ETN) last October, breaking down tech trends and news during a two-day-a-week live stream. Right now, the show is live-streamed on X and YouTube and has garnered more than 5 million views.
On Monday, the network announced a .6 million seed round from top players in the media ecosystem, including Powerhouse Capital, Axel Springer SE (which owns Business Insider and Politico), the popular media publication LadBible, and angel investors from OpenAI and DeepMind. With this fresh capital, the network is announcing its largest expansion yet.
It’s now moving into a big studio in Kings Cross (where all the hot London AI startups are situated), expanding the team (right now of just eight), launching a newsletter, and is, starting today, moving into a five-day-a-week live show schedule, which will soon see Knight and Chambers interview the likes of George Robson (a partner at Sequoia) and Rishi Sunak (former UK Prime Minister and senior advisor to Anthropic and Microsoft).
Speaking to TechCrunch, Knight and Chambers said ETN has already become a hot stop on the press tour for European startups — they’ve spoken to the founder of Synthesia, the CFO of Legora, the founder of Granola, and Kanishka Narayan, the UK’s first AI Minister. They’ve even had American investors stop by the show when they are in town, including one from Andreessen Horowitz.
“ETN was born out of a gaping hole in the industry,” Chambers told TechCrunch. “It’s centered around pace.” He said the current media ecosystem in the UK cannot keep up with how fast the tech scene is moving. For example, so far this year, London startups have raised .7 billion according to Dealroom. Six companies have raised more than 0 million: Wayve, Superintelligence, ElevenLabs, Recursive, Ineffable Intelligence, and Isomorphic Labs, the latter three of which were founded by DeepMind alumni.
“These are things that have never happened in Europe before,” Chambers continued, referring to the speed at which capital is flowing through the ecosystem. As the show became more popular, Chambers said they were getting around 70 pitches a week from guests looking to come on the show. They would try and cram 12 interviews into two hours, twice a week, but eventually it got too much. “We needed an outlet that could move at the pace of that,” he said of both the interest in the show and how fast Europe’s tech ecosystem is moving, “which is the reason we’re going from two days a week to five days a week.”
The five-day format will look quite similar to the two-day format. There will be a live show from 12 p.m. UK time to 3 p.m., breaking down trending stories, and then for two hours, they will have guests on the show talking about whatever they want. Chambers said they also want to start hosting debates, roundtables, and a Shark Tank-style pitching session on the show.
“We want to make it as useful as we can for the ecosystem,” Chambers said. “There needs to be more discourse around AI in Europe. There needs to be more discourse around venture capital and cash flowing into the ecosystem. There needs to be more discourse around the amazing things that are happening in the tech ecosystem, and our role is to be the stage in which people can shout about all the amazing things they’re doing.”
The show makes its money from ad dollars, like most media publications, and big-name sponsors already include prediction market Polymarket, blockchain company Base, and the AI audio darling ElevenLabs.
When asked about the influence TBPN has had on them, Knight and Chambers said they indeed do look at John Coogan and Jordi Hays, founders of TBPN (which recently sold to OpenAI for what some say was a nine-figure sum), as pioneers of this new tech media ecosystem. The show became a place for tech guests to appear and chat with friendly faces, announcing new product releases, hires, or funding news. “My thinking was, if we can have an ITV and a BBC, why wouldn’t we have a regional version of this?” Chambers continued.
Europe is a big place, though, with more than 40 different countries and over 200 languages spoken (24 of which are recognized by the European Union). Chambers said that although ETN will report from London, he and Knight are making an effort to bring on guests from across the continent. Aside from bringing guests into the studio, they also travel to the hottest tech conferences around Europe. For example, they’ve broadcast from the Panathenaea Conference in Athens and from inside the Louvre in Paris for the RAISE AI Summit.
“You have all these different cultures, these different minds coming together and creating different products,” Chambers said. “You get a taste of what makes [Europe] a superpower.”
With all this, they said they would never turn an American founder away should they want to come on the show. “It’s a European technology network, but we think there’s massive [global] opportunities,” Chambers said. Knight added to that, noting how often conversations pit the European tech ecosystem against that of the U.S.
“We are globally optimistic,” Knight said. “We are pushing global prosperity from Europe. Wherever you want to go and build your company, wherever is the best place to go and build that company, go and do that, and we will shout for you to go and do that.”
He and Chambers also don’t necessarily see themselves as journalists; rather, they consider themselves tech insiders curious about what is going on and why. They also don’t see themselves as replacing traditional media and instead intend to work in tandem with those publications. “We rely on traditional media,” Chambers said, adding that is how they find much of the news that they to talk about on ETN.
Overall, the duo hopes to help document the stories coming from the new wave of European success, from ElevenLabs in London to Lovable in Stockholm, to help the upcoming generation understand that technology is one way to drive a nation forward.
Discussing the impact of European success stories, Chambers said, “It riles up the next generation to the point where it’s no longer cool to finish university and go into banking or consulting. People want to leave university and go straight into building a startup, and I think that’s an amazing thing.”
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#Europe #TBPNstyle #live #show #everyones #angling #guest #spot #TechCrunchEurope,London,UK")
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