Fake media brands become a growing front in influence campaigns, NewsGuard says
NewsGuard counted 950 fabricated stories imitating 163 news brands across 21 countries, with French outlets prominent among the targets.
Fake stories impersonating established news brands rose sharply over the past year, according to a NewsGuard report published this week. The report attributes 950 stories imitating 163 brands across 21 countries to three pro-Russian influence operations.
NewsGuard recorded 421 such stories in the first half of 2026, up from 44 in the first half of 2025. It says eight of the 15 most imitated outlets were French. FRANCE 24’s brand was used in 34 fake stories over 12 months.
The report says presidential hopefuls Raphaël Glucksmann, Gabriel Attal and Édouard Philippe, whom it describes as supporters of Ukraine, have recently been targeted by fake stories linked to pro-Russian groups. It provides no precise dates for those cases.
NewsGuard compiled the report with Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation, France’s Viginum and research group Antibot4Navalny. It names the operations Matriochka, Storm-1516 and Doppelganger, and says their aims include discrediting support for Ukraine and weakening trust in Western institutions.
The report describes tactics including copying outlets’ logos and page designs and using similar web addresses. It says the stories can contain invented quotes from real experts, making it harder for readers to identify counterfeits.
