Russian state-affiliated media raise UK posts 15% in September

Risk intelligence firm Osavul found Russian state-affiliated media generated about 40,365 UK-related posts in September, up around 15%, The Independent said in a Nov 1 news report.

The finding matters because the analysis covered actors with a combined audience of 1.37 billion and found October volumes at similar levels, as the UK expands its response to hostile information operations.

The report said posts seen by The Independent included false assertions that the UK attacked Voronezh with Storm Shadow missiles, that British police threatened arrests over air-conditioner use, and that Andy Burnham was unable to prevent national decline.

Osavul said the campaign’s purpose was “to leave British readers with a lower opinion of their own state, and readers abroad with the sense that Britain is not a serious power”.

Bill Browder, an anti-corruption campaigner and critic of Vladimir Putin, told The Independent that such campaigns “had very big success” in the UK and warned they could “get exponentially worse” without government action. “I don't think we've even begun to see how AI will be used in this whole thing,” he said.

Osavul said it examined Russian state-affiliated actors, state-owned media, state agencies, government officials and outlets or channels it described as reportedly state-affiliated. The categories matter because the analysis treats the posts as part of a wider influence ecosystem rather than as isolated commentary.

The Independent said one cluster followed reports of an Iran-linked cyber incident at a small power plant in July. Osavul found 337 messages from 117 high-risk accounts, with 1.89 million views between Aug 22 and Aug 26, recasting the episode as evidence that British energy systems were exposed to hostile actors. The government said there had been no danger to the wider grid, according to the report.

The political context is Britain’s support for Ukraine and Russia’s search for adversary narratives, according to experts quoted by The Independent. Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House, said Russia sought to alter public attitudes and, through that, the political position of the target country. He said the UK had moved to the front of Moscow’s adversary framing because the United States was “no longer in that role” under President Donald Trump.

Andy Pryce, a former British diplomat and fellow at Rusi, told The Independent that state-media discussion of the UK as an adversary increased after the Trump administration met Russian officials in Riyadh in February 2025. He said authoritarian governments often need an external enemy and that “the UK is reflected as an enemy more.”

British officials and opposition politicians framed the issue as a national-security problem. The report said the prime minister announced a National Centre for Information Defence in October to counter foreign information attacks. A government spokesperson said the centre would “strengthen the UK’s ability to detect, attribute and disrupt hostile information attacks from foreign adversaries that pose a threat to our national interests and security”.

The material cited by The Independent did not include a Russian government response. The next institutional test is how the new centre works with intelligence agencies, law enforcement and social-media companies, which the government said would be part of its defensive effort.