Debunked: Graph does not show drop in AfD-related activity after strikes on Russian data centres

A GRAPH SHARED widely online with the claim it showed a drastic reduction in online activity related to a far-right German political party, following the bombing of Russian data centres last week, is not authentic. 

In the wake of recent Ukrainian attacks on data centres belonging to the Russian technology company Yandex, social media users and elected officials claimed more generally that there had been a dramatic drop in disinformation and support for far-right political parties online. 

They claimed that this was because the damage to the data centres had knocked out bots operated by the Russian government.

Yandex, sometimes referred to as “Russian Google”, is an internet company that provides cloud computing, streaming, search engine and other online services. Its search engine is the largest in Russia. 

Following the Ukrainian strikes, the notion that there was a significant decline in online disinformation, expressions of hate and support for far-right political movements was shared by European politicians, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

On Monday, Zelenskyy said: “There was less hate, less division, and fewer provocations. Because there were fewer bots.

“It suddenly became a little easier to breathe on many social media platforms.”

Zelenskyy’s office told BBC Verify that he was “talking about the atmosphere on social media” and not a fall in bot activity. 

A Czech member of the European Parliament, Tomas Zdechovsky, shared the widely circulated graph purportedly showing a decline in online activity related to the Alternative for Germany party, saying: “If confirmed, this is telling. Russian Data centres get hit, and online activity around AfD (Alternative for Germany) suddenly plummets.” 

“I never presented this as an established fact. I highlighted an interesting pattern that needs to be independently verified by data analysts,” he wrote on X on Tuesday.

On social media more generally, many users claimed to have seen a noticeable falloff in bot activity, including accounts posting content supportive of US President Donald Trump and other far-right politicians.

However, groups that monitor Kremlin-linked influence operations have said their activities have not stopped since the Ukrainian strikes. 

There is currently no evidence showing a drop in Kremlin-linked social media activity resulting from the Ukrainian strikes. 

Misleading graph

Many people making the claim that Russia’s activities had been affected shared an image of a graph that does not provide evidence to support it. In fact, the graph shows no useful information at all.

Most of the social media users sharing the bogus graph said it showed online support for Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party plummeting in early October.

AfD is a pro-Russia party and the claim supports the idea that Kremlin-backed online operations artificially inflate engagement with posts supporting it, in an effort to destabilise the European Union.

The first of the Ukrainian strikes on the Yandex data centres was on 8 October. There were further attacks in the days that followed. 

The graph and accompanying claims gained traction on 11 October, the day a third data centre in Russia was hit. 

There are a number of obvious flaws with the graph.

First, there is no source cited for the graph, meaning the information it purports to show cannot be found elsewhere. 

Second, there are no labels noting what its lines are actually supposed to show. 

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The graph is titled “Daily activity over 3 months”. 

Along the Y axis on the left-hand side, it simply reads “Activity per day” in German. 

The figures along this side of the graph range from 2,500 to 7,000, but there is no indication as to what these figures represent. They are just numbers. 

The “activity” it is purporting to chart is not defined at all. 

Third, the timescale makes no sense. 

Along the X axis at the bottom of the graph, dates range from 15 July 2026 to 15 October 2026. 

The graph shows the “activity” level dropping dramatically over the course of a few days, with the “-56%” point apparently being reached on 14 October.

The problem with this date range is that the graph was being shared on 11 October, meaning it was showing data from the future. 

Another issue with the graph is the inconsistency of its scale. On the Y-axis, the distance between the 2,500 value and 3,000 is shorter than the distance between the 3,000 and 3,500 figures. 

The X-axis has a similar issue.

The distance between 1 August and 1 September is the same as the distance between 1 September and 1 October, even though there are 30 days in September and 31 in August. 

Graphika, a social network monitoring firm, said data it compiled “does not indicate a decline in posting activity among AfD-related communities”.

On 11 October, accounts associated with AfD-related online communities published 40,365 posts across 1,022 accounts, compared with 42,040 posts from 1,037 accounts a week earlier.

“That 4% dip is well within the community’s normal week-to-week range,” Graphika said.

No evidence 

The Antibot4Navalny collective, which tracks Russia-linked influence operations, told the AFP news agency that Russia-linked online influence operations are still running.

“The Matryoshka bots (automated accounts linked to the disinformation operation) aligned with the Kremlin are still active today,” it said on Tuesday.

Storm-1516, another Russian propagandist group, is also still active and has just published fake content about German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French presidential candidate Raphael Glucksmann, analyst Pablo Maristany de las Casas of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue told AFP.

“Although Matryoshka and Storm-1516 do not appear to be affected … we cannot rule out disruptions affecting other elements of the online disinformation infrastructure that would result from this,” Maristany de las Casas, a disinformation specialist, added.

“There is currently no evidence to support the claim that the attack on the data centres silenced the Kremlin’s ‘troll farms’,” said Nikola Tulechki, a specialist in monitoring online disinformation operations for the organisation “Data for Good”.

In a post on X, the Antibot4Navalny collective said: “To those implying that Kremlin-controlled social media bot/troll farms became silent after Ukraine hit a Yandex data centre: Hate to disappoint you all.”

With reporting from AFP

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