Russians have been managing online trolls in EU, Africa, and Latin America, Institute for Global Threats and Democracies Studies said, having published the results of their own probe.
Information and psychological operations analysis in Latin America and Africa indicates the presence of an extensive network operating in Russian military intelligence's interests under the operational control of the structures close to Yevgeny Prigozhin, InformNapalm reports citing an investigation by the IGTDS think tank.
Spain's El Mundo earlier claimed that Russian online trolls helped spin the Catalonia referendum in social networks, the head of the Kremlin-funded Russian anti-globalists was behind it.
El Mundo points out that Spanish law enforcement officials are investigating whether Russian anti-globalists helped the Catalans "to clone referendum sites and create bots to spread the messages of such figures and organizations as Assange, Snowden, RT or WikiLeaks through social networks".
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IGTDS studies show that the same social network accounts are involved in the developments both in Chile and Barcelona. Account activity studies during the protests in Santiago have identified a group of active users, involved in public outrage in Catalonia, particularly during the riots at El Prat Airport.
The system of accounts leads to the RT Spanish-language channel, most of them being its subscribers. The accounts have a clear political focus and contain mostly left-wing views.
If such accounts are not directly linked to Russia, it is possible that they are administered from Cuba or Venezuela. However, some indications of consistency suggest that campaigns are likely to be coordinated on purpose. Some of these accounts are positioned as originating from Spain, while others are from Latin America.
