The United Kingdom announced sanctions on Monday against three Russian organizations and three Russian individuals who have been running Kremlin-funded disinformation campaigns intending to undermine support for Ukraine.
The entities added to Britain’s sanctions list include the Social Design Agency and its partner company Structura, both of which were previously sanctioned by the United States in March of this year, and the European Union in August of last year.
Ilya Gambashidze, the founder of the SDA, and Nikolay Tupikin, the SDA’s current chief executive and the owner of Structura, were also both sanctioned.
The individuals and the companies have been widely accused of engaging in an influence operation tracked as Doppelgänger that the British Foreign Office said on Monday was attempting to “undermine democracy and weaken international support for Ukraine.”
The companies are known to have attempted to impersonate recognisable news outlets, including The Washington Post and Fox News, to push false stories.
“Content including fake posts, counterfeit documents and deepfake material has been pushed out to audiences in English, German and French through a complex online network,” said the British government on Monday.
According to Meta, these efforts have been largely ineffective and are increasingly low-quality and high-volume influence attempts, mirroring Russia’s military tactic of attempting to swamp entrenched Ukrainian positions with waves of poorly equipped and trained personnel.
Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, stated on Monday: “Putin is so desperate to undermine European support for Ukraine he is now resorting to clumsy, ineffective efforts to try and stoke unrest.
“Today’s sanctions send a clear message; we will not tolerate your lies and interference, and we are coming after you. Putin’s desperate attempts to divide us will fail. We will constrain the Kremlin, and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said Lammy.
The U.S. Department of State welcomed the United Kingdom’s move, describing the actions as “an important contribution to protecting the integrity of our global information environment.”
The Foreign Office did not immediately respond to explain why the British sanctions were being issued so much later than those of the United States and European Union.
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