Russia's President Vladimir Putin: his country is accused of using misinformation and disinformation “to achieve strategic advantage”. Photo / AFP
Russia's President Vladimir Putin: his country is accused of using misinformation and disinformation “to achieve strategic advantage”. Photo / AFP
Russian media brand Pravda is being used to promote two New Zealand news sites, including one in te reo Māori.
The campaign, called “Portal Kombat”, involves more than 100 subdomains worldwide, which aim to divide communities, according to disinformation experts.
Experts say the Russian-backed network uses AI translations and targets countries ahead of elections.
The Russian-flagship media brand Pravda is being used to push two New Zealand news sites – including one in te reo Māori – that experts say resemble a disinformation campaign to divide our communities.
The New Zealand-focused sites are among more than 100 subdomains set up across the worldin a global campaign dubbed “Portal Kombat”, reflecting the multitude of country-specific internet portals.
Content posted to the New Zealand site includes content sourced from Russia’s state-owned Sputnik news agency on the potential break up of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance to which New Zealand belongs.
Some material appears to have been lifted from a Pasifika social media channel, in which China is highlighted as serving the Pacific better than New Zealand.
And it’s not the first time – the Heraldrevealed that Russian propaganda was consumed in New Zealand at a startling rate ahead of the 2022 protest at Parliament.
Academics have told the Herald two Pravda-supported news sites appear to be a modern version of classic Russian disinformation campaigns aimed at seeding division among communities in Western countries. Photo / Kremlin
The network’s content appears to aggregate Russian media and social media feeds, which is then presented with a favourable push on issues such as the war in Ukraine.
The scale of the network was first exposed by the French Government agency set up to combat disinformation, Viginum, which identified it as a “foreign interference” operation.
The French inquiry described it as a “structured and co-ordinated pro-Russian propaganda network” distributed through dozens of digital “information portals” that emerged ahead of European elections and the Olympics.
The Viginum investigation used the term “Portal Kombat” to describe the broad spread of distribution.
While the network carries the same name as the Russian media outlet Pravda, meaning “Truth”, the investigation found it was not connected to the media company.
In this case, the investigation said a company called TigerWeb, based out of Crimea, built and operated the network.
Now a second investigation has shown how the network expanded to target countries around the world.
DFR Lab, a policy think tank focused on disinformation and digital rights, and a Finnish company called CheckFirst championing digital equity and transparency, said the company and its owner, Yevgeny Shevchenko, had links with the Russian-backed Government in Crimea.
“The portals appear to be fully automated and do not feature original content, but repost videos and translate publications in an effort to reach a wider audience and circumvent sanctions.”
The two New Zealand sites are among 140 country-specific domains producing what DFR Lab called an “information campaign”, with sites emerging in a number of countries ahead of elections.
Māori language experts were divided over the site’s te reo credentials.
Haami Piripi – former head of the Māori Language Commission – reviewed the reo Māori site for the Herald and said the quality of the translated content was such he believed “most definitely” a native speaker was involved.
“It would have to be at least checked [by someone fluent]. It would have to be overseen by somebody and I suspect a native speaker.”
Piripi said artificial intelligence (AI) translations often missed nuance and subtlety in te reo Māori but this wasn’t the case with the “Pravda” content.
“There’s a lot of localised sayings in it that you couldn’t get in AI. There definitely seems to be an air of authority to the work.”
He said the dialect appeared most likely that of te reo Māori speakers in the central North Island.
‘It’s artificial intelligence’
However, Aroha Turner, who runs specialist online te reo Māori translation service Ōkupu, had a different take – she said an expert translator had reviewed the site and believed it was an AI product or someone who didn’t have a strong understanding of language practices.
The expert translator’s review of the content revealed clumsy use of culturally appropriate terms and inconsistencies in macrons and capitalisation.
“These factors strongly suggest that the translation was not produced by a fluent speaker and exhibits characteristics commonly associated with AI-generated content or a non-Māori linguistic approach.”
Victoria University senior media lecturer Dr Michael Daubs – who has studied disinformation – said one benefit to Russia could be flooding the internet with content that was automatically scraped by artificial intelligence that generated fresh content.
Along with the war against Ukraine, Russia is also accused of engaging in “hybrid warfare”. Photo / Ukrainian Emergency Service
He said large language models – AI trained to understand, generate and manipulate language by consuming large chunks of text – could be affected by ingesting a higher level of propaganda content. If so, it could then skew whatever AI models produced.
Daubs said the prolific nature of the network, and the generic nature of many of the domains, could be Russia testing the response to country-specific sites. He noted the emergence of sites in countries ahead of elections, with local government votes cast this year in New Zealand and a general election in 2026.
He said the best response was information literacy – schooling the wider population on recognising misinformation and disinformation online – rather than short-lived technical solutions.
“If you’re looking at putting out factually correct information to counter it, you’re already behind the eight-ball.”
Academics with expertise in international relations said the campaign aimed to sow division in the West – a long-time strategy of Russia.
‘Hybrid warfare’
University of Auckland associate professor Stephen Hoadley said it was a form of “hybrid warfare”.
“I have no doubt it works with the approval of the Russian Government and with their support.”
Hoadley said the premise of setting up local domains likely reflected a belief people in New Zealand would be more likely to accept and believe content that appeared local.
“It looks like it comes from within your own country,” he said.
He said the intent would be to “sow confusion” and to develop “splits – in groups, ethnic communities, political parties – to weaken the West” and portray “Russia as the victim”.
University of Otago associate professor James Headley said the te reo Māori site and similar indigenous language sites in other countries were intended to develop Russia’s narrative that it supported minority populations.
Two Kiwi soldiers on the ground in Ukraine. News sites backed by Russia are part of a bigger plan to weaken the West and portray “Russia as the victim”.
“It looks like a cheap way to get propaganda and disinformation out to as many people as possible.” He said it had the look of an automated or semi-automated site.
The Free Speech Union’s Jonathan Ayling said if the content was automatically generated, then “bots don’t have free speech”.
The answer, he said, was greater digital literacy to achieve better public understanding of how information was presented online.
The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) said the agency had previously highlighted that states, including Russia, were using misinformation and disinformation “to achieve strategic advantage”.
“Even if New Zealand is not specifically targeted by this disinformation, it is still consumed by some New Zealanders in the globally connected world we live in.”
The NZSIS said that emerging technologies offered “huge benefits” but were also being “leveraged by states for strategic purposes” including spying, cyber attacks and spreading false disinformation”.
“Foreign interference is an act by a foreign state, often through a proxy, which is intended to influence, disrupt or subvert New Zealand’s national interests by deceptive, corruptive or coercive means.”
The Russian Embassy has been contacted for comment.
An earlier version of this story described Ōkupu as using AI in translations. It is a human te reo Māori translation service.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards including being twice named Reporter of the Year and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
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