Larissa Doroshenko

Larissa Doroshenko, an expert on Russian disinformation from Boston’s Northeastern University, told Newsweek last week that the mobilization was part of Putin’s attempt to do something “to turn around this war and change the momentum” but this was not solely in response to the bloggers’ criticism.

Larissa Doroshenko, a Russian disinformation expert who is a teaching associate at Boston’s Northeastern University, said that state media outlets had to address the botched mobilization because criticism from citizens made it impossible to ignore.

Increasingly, Russia is working to spread such messages in Africa and other parts of the global South, where tech companies’ content moderation enforcement tends to be lax, said Larissa Doroshenko, a postdoctoral scholar at Northeastern University who researches disinformation.

Russian operatives typically use five D’s: distort, distract, dismiss, deny and dismay, according to Larissa Doroshenko, a postdoctoral teaching associate at Northeastern University.