Russian influence operators called it Project 2026. The plan wasn’t just to spread fabricated stories on social media platforms. It outlined efforts to create an alternative information ecosystem.
Leaked documents from a private Russian agency reveal plans to build a sprawling network of Wikipedia-style reference sites, media outlets and phony think tanks to shape how people and AI chatbots understand political issues.
The documents from the Social Design Agency (SDA), which has been sanctioned by the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union for supporting Kremlin-directed disinformation, show how the Moscow-based agency has emerged as a central node in Russia’s cognitive warfare system, involved in false flag operations and planting sham stories online.
Among the 73 leaked files are project proposals and screenshots of chats and websites dating from May 2023 to April 2026. Combined, they suggest Russian influence operators are expanding beyond spreading false stories on social media platforms to trying to control the sources of information that underpin search engines and large language models. Fact Investigation Platform, an Armenian media outlet focused on disinformation, first reported on some of the documents.
Internal planning papers outline an ambitious effort spanning multiple countries and languages to build websites controlled by the Kremlin. The endeavor is designed to capture search traffic and influence AI chatbots with false information about politicians and current events, the documents show.
One proposal outlined plans to build a reference site “cloned” from Wikipedia for Armenia that operators would optimize for search engines and insert Russia-friendly narratives into the most-read pages. The proposal was dated April 14, according to its metadata, just two months before the country’s June 7 election.
Reporters found three Wikipedia-style sites for Armenia created in January that were recently suspended by their web-hosting provider. Despite Russian efforts to spread false stories about Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, he won a decisive victory.
Another project targeting Germany said 200,000 web pages were created, according to a planning document dated Jan. 15. It set goals, including editing 100 articles a month targeting search engines. The plan also aimed to “train” six AI platforms a month using edited articles. It did not disclose the names of the websites. The BfV, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, said it was aware of the leak but declined to comment.
“Their approach is to try to break search engines by flooding the zone with content that cross-references their content or their narratives,” said Katerina Sedova, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former U.S. State Department official who specializes in technology and national security. “This will be their indirect way of breaking into popular chatbots and search engines.”
Most of the leaked documents don’t...