Kremlin disinfo network praises Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev on social media

A network of Kremlin “trolls” — paid operators behind pseudonymous accounts on X (formerly Twitter) — has been spotted praising Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund and a special representative of Vladimir Putin. The anti-disinformation project Bot Blocker (@antibot4navalny), which uncovered the accounts, shared its findings with The Insider.

Analysts with the project identified 50 accounts tied together by their coordinated activity around Dmitriev’s posts. All were registered in January and February 2024 but showed little activity until the fall of 2025. Each had posted, on average, no more than 20 tweets. Notably, seven of them held blue verification checkmarks — the first known case documented by the project of verified human “trolls” spreading Kremlin propaganda.

It is likely that the network operates through the infrastructure of the “troll factory” that was created by the late Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, the analysts said, though the current coordinator of the disinformation apparatus is unknown. Whether Dmitriev himself is aware of this campaign also remains unclear. In one instance, however, he personally responded to a bot’s comment praising his CNN interview by posting emojis of praying hands and a peace dove.

Beyond simply posting approving messages about Dmitriev, the bot accounts promote familiar Kremlin propaganda narratives long seen in similar campaigns: expressing condolences for the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, attacking the U.S. Democratic Party, spreading conspiracy theories about philanthropist George Soros, and praising both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Although the accounts write in English, it is clear the language is not native to them, as their phrasing is rudimentary and is riddled with basic grammatical errors.

Nevertheless, some of these accounts attempt to pose as Americans. One account even “mixes up” its identities, at times presenting itself as an American woman and at other times as a Russian.

Bot Blocker earlier reported that the Trump administration had created its own bot network to attack political opponents, praise Trump’s policies, and support allies such as Republican politician Vivek Ramaswamy. During last year’s presidential campaign, the bots portrayed Trump as a “peace candidate” regarding the war in Ukraine and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, as a supporter of war — all while calling for U.S. resources to be diverted from Ukraine aid towards domestic issues.

Dmitriev, for his part, has repeatedly criticized mainstream Western media on his X account, accusing them of bias and a lack of objectivity. On Sept. 29, he reposted a tweet by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comparing the audiences of conservative and liberal speakers, adding his own commentary: “Conservative thoughts dominate the free thought market of social media, while false globalist narratives live happily in the censored dungeon of legacy media. Conservative thinking wins when it isn’t silenced.”

Apparently, Dmitriev sees neither Russia’s ban on Twitter, nor the artificial boosting of certain ideas and figures by bots and trolls as obstacles to what he calls a “free thought market.”