The disclosure follows a warning from Digital Affairs Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski, who on May 6 said Moscow was carrying out an "unprecedented" interference campaign.
Brazilian President Lula da Silva claimed that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha had appealed to his Brazilian counterpart, Mauro Vieira, to ask Putin if he was willing to conclude a peace agreement.
Earlier reporting from the Washington Post cited a former Russian official who claimed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, would represent Moscow in the talks.
The Council of Europe on May 14 approved the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Russia's top leadership for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian lawmaker Maria Mezentseva reported.
Viktoria Roshchyna, 27, disappeared in August 2023 while reporting from Ukraine's Russian-occupied territories. Moscow admitted she was in Russian detention the following year.
Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel speaks about the future of the EU-led special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine and its role in bringing Russia to justice.
Turkish officials told Bloomberg that while they don't expect Trump to visit Istanbul, they are not ruling it out, and preparations for any scenario are underway.
Melkonyants was arrested in August 2023 in connection with the activities of the European Network of Election Monitoring Organizations (ENEMO), which was co-founded by Golos's legal predecessor, the Golos association.
Ukraine's underground storage facilities are currently using 19.4% of their capacity. Almost 32%, or 2.79 bcm, less gas is available in the storages than in the previous year, according to the estimates.
The majority of Ukrainians, 71%, do not support holding elections before a full peace deal, even in the case of a ceasefire and security guarantees, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) on May 14.
"He'd like me to be there, and that's a possibility. ... I don't know that he would be there if I'm not there. We're going to find out," U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Qatar, Reuters reported.
Trump has long demanded that NATO allies increase their military spending, previously calling for the alliance to raise its benchmark from 2% to 5% of GDP.
Donald Trump surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, United States, a few moments after an assassination attempt carried out against him on July 13, 2024. (AP)
Pro-Kremlin websites masquerading as American news outlets spread incendiary falsehoods ahead of the U.S. presidential election, the AFP news agency reported on Aug. 19.
Washington's rivals like Russia or Iran have been reportedly adjusting their propaganda strategies in the wake of a turbulent period in U.S. politics.
Using artificial intelligence, the fake media sites disseminated provocative false statements in the run-up to the presidential election in November. The number of fake news outlets has increased in the past few months, AFP said, citing disinformation researchers.
Fake websites, mostly created with the help of widely available artificial intelligence tools, fuel the spread of controversial and false narratives. U.S. officials are warning that foreign powers, including Russia and Iran, are stepping up efforts to interfere in the upcoming elections.
Several similar websites, owned by John Mark Dougan, a former U.S. Marine who fled to Russia amid racketeering and wiretapping charges in Florida, spread the false claim that the Democratic Party was behind the assassination attempt on Trump in July, AFP said.
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The articles referred to an audio recording of an alleged conversation between former U.S. President Barack Obama and an unnamed Democratic strategist. A voice impersonating Obama said that getting "rid of Trump" would ensure "victory against any Republican candidate."
According to NewsGuard, an American disinformation watchdog, the audio was created using artificial intelligence. The fake audio is believed to be from an article titled "Top Democrats Are Behind the Assassination Attempt on Trump; Obama Knows About the Details" on an obscure website, DeepStateLeaks.org.
The audio was distributed through Dougan's 171 fake news websites network, citing DeepStateLeaks.org as the source. Their articles turned out to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story, NewsGuard said.
NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi told AFP that Dougan's network is increasingly being used to spread political disinformation ahead of elections, and Dougan himself is "a key player" in the Kremlin's global disinformation network.
NewsGuard has identified at least 1,270 "pink slime" outlets, politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets.
In July, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had seized two domain names and searched over 950 accounts on X that were involved in a bot farm linked to the Russian state-run media outlet RT.
The bot farm used generative AI to create accounts for X, who often claimed to be in the U.S. The falsified accounts then spread Russian propaganda talking points aimed at the American public.
Top intelligence officials also revealed on July 29 that the Kremlin was using unsuspecting Americans and commercial public relations firms in Russia to spread disinformation about the U.S. presidential race.
Kateryna Hodunova is a News Editor at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a sports journalist in several Ukrainian outlets and was the deputy chief editor at Suspilne Sport. Kateryna covered the 2022 Olympics in Beijing and was included in the Special Mentions list at the AIPS Sport Media Awards. She holds a bachelor's degree in political journalism from Taras Shevchenko University and a master's degree in political science from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
Chris York
