The SBU cyber ​​specialists blocked activities of a bot farm that Russia used to disseminate destructive information.

The SBU officers established that on the eve of the local elections, supervisors disseminated false information in the Internet aimed at fomenting inter-ethnic hatred and separatist propaganda.

The SBU established that several Ukrainian and Russian citizens in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia cities organized the so-called bot farms, using specialized telecommunication equipment. The offenders, using Ukrainian and foreign SIM cards, created and sold anonymous Internet accounts via banned Russian payment systems to disseminate fake news about the political situation in Ukraine. 

During the searches at the offenders’ premises, the SBU seized equipment and SIM cards worth more than UAH 1 million (USD 35,500), namely: 3 SIM banks with 16 slots each one, 2 SIM banks with 32 slots, 14 SIM banks with 128 slots, 9 VoIP SIM Gateways with 32 slots, and more than 22,000 SIM cards, as well as computers with a virtual server and specialized software.

The investigation is ongoing.

The operation was conducted by the SBU Department of the CI defence in cyber sphere jointly with the Solomianskyi National Police Department in Kyiv city under the procedural supervision of the Local Prosecutor's Office of Kyiv city no.9.