Leaked Files Expose How Russian Propagandist Dougan Infected AI Chatbots, Including Claude, to Get Them to Spread Pro-Kremlin Content
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‘I REALLY DON’T CARE WHAT PEOPLE THINK OF ME’
Dougan confirmed the authenticity of the leak to NewsGuard in a Nov. 11, 2026, message on Signal, stating, “Everyone knows I was hacked. Can happen to anyone. Believe me nobody gives a .” He added: “Publish my laptop. I don’t care… I really don’t care what people think of me.”
Since seeking asylum in Moscow, Dougan has become a key player in the Russian propaganda machine, producing elaborate, detailed false narratives using artificial intelligence, according to U.S. officials and news outlets, including NewsGuard. Dougan, seen as part of the Russian campaign dubbed by Microsoft as Storm-1516, is responsible for creating and operating large-scale networks of inauthentic news sites, partly automated with AI, used to launder such narratives to a Western audience, NewsGuard has previously reported.
AIMING TO INFECT AI CHATBOTS
In one of the leaked files, an undated PDF do ent called “AI Server,” Dougan explains his aim of influencing search engine algorithms and the large-language AI models. He describes a strategy of regularly publishing reworded versions of news articles favorable to Russia along with AI-generated material to improve search rankings and attract visitors. “By consistently updating our sites with high-quality, rewritten news articles and uniquely generated literature, we signal to these algorithms that our content is both current and significant, enhancing our visibility and search engine rankings,” the Dougan do ent states.
The scale of Dogan’s operation included the creation of tens of thousands of articles per month. “Currently we are writing 43k articles a month and we can’t possibly afford all of that,” he said in a prompt to Claude after asking the bot to generate a list of expenses for his activities. His files also show operational costs of roughly 2 million rubles (approximately $23,000) per month.
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