Sanctions for Russian misinformation linked to Kate rumours

The Doppelganger group was also claimed by the French government as being linked to efforts to undermine support for Ukraine and to disrupt elections.

The UK’s Foreign Office accuses the disinformation group of creating large numbers of false versions of legitimate news websites, tricking social media users into going to sources of fake information, stoking divisions and causing confusion.

This disinformation campaign “plagues social media with fake posts, counterfeit documents and deepfake material”, says the Foreign Office.

The groups and individuals sanctioned by the UK are the Social Design Agency, Structura National Technologies, Ano Dialog and Ilya Andreevich Gambashidze, Nikolay Aleksandrovich Tupikin and Andrey Naumovich Perla.

Russia has rejected accusations of such online interference.

President Putin last week told the BBC’s Russia editor Steve Rosenberg it was “utter rubbish” to claim that Russia was inciting street protests.

“What’s happening on the streets of certain European cities is a result of domestic politics,” he said.

But the US State Department welcomed the UK’s latest announcement on sanctions, saying it addressed a threat in which “Kremlin-produced disinformation was covertly placed in local outlets to appear as genuine news articles”.

Last month the US government claimed Russian disinformation agencies were trying to influence the outcome of the presidential election.

Prof Martin Innes, director of the Security, Crime and Intelligence Innovation Institute at Cardiff University, claims such groups try to achieve their political goals by causing social and cultural disruption.

“Doppelganger’s signature methodology is deploying very large numbers of disposable social media accounts to flood the information space around particular stories,” he told the BBC.

“This can prove especially influential when they are able to amplify narratives that appear less overtly political.

“This is precisely what they did in trying to exploit the rumours and conspiracies about the Princess of Wales.

“In repeating and reheating these, they were able to disperse their anti-Ukrainian messaging, whilst also attacking a key British institution – the Royal Family.”

Researchers at the institute in Cardiff have been analysing the impact of so-called “political technologists” in Russia who are engaged in such online interference.

They say that such disinformation specialists have studied the Brexit referendum in the UK and have been training others ahead of the forthcoming US presidential elections.

The approach is to focus disinformation efforts to increase tension on “wedge issues”, such as immigration and identity politics, they say.