Exclusive: Facebook Ran Pro-Russian Disinfo Ads Designed To Topple Ukraine’s Neighbour

Facebook owner Meta ran paid adverts for a Russian-backed disinformation campaign to destabilise Ukraine’s neighbour Moldova even after they promised to stop, according to researchers and former officials who examined a covert campaign discovered by VICE World News.

The adverts, on behalf of the pro-Russian political party of fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor, were part of a Russian attempt to tap into populist anger in Moldova over rising energy prices, and ultimately overthrow Moldova’s pro-European government.

The US Department of Treasury placed sanctions on Shor last October accusing him of engaging in massive corruption, and Facebook subsequently banned his eponymous Shor Party from buying political advertisements. But evidence we uncovered shows it has repeatedly failed to stop fake accounts from paying to post explicitly pro-Shor ad campaigns. 

The social media campaign against the pro-EU government of Europe’s poorest country is widely considered to be part of a Russian backed plan to return the one time part of the USSR to Russia’s orbit. With the Transnistria breakaway republic, home to hundreds of Russian army peacekeepers, along the border with Ukraine, Moldova finds itself in an outsized role for a tiny country of 2.6 million and hardly any military. 

Last week, despite Facebook’s repeated claims that it had banned Shor Party paid advertising, VICE World News discovered at least two sets of sponsored ads appearing on Facebook’s Romanian language feeds that advertised a rally taking place in the capital Chișinău on the 16th of March, more than a month after Facebook had said it would prevent paid posts. 

VICE World News provided the ads to RESET, a social media monitoring company that has worked with the Moldovan government, which determined that the posts had cost between €1,500 and €1,800 paid for by two accounts that had conducted no other activity.

“Unregulated, inauthentic Facebook advertising continues sanction-free in Moldova to promote the anti-government protests of the Shor Party in Moldova,” said the RESET analysis. “Since yesterday, we have identified two anonymous Facebook pages that have published ads about the protests. The first page spent $600 on promoting the protests on the 16th of March. The second page has spent between $900 and $1,200 on three ads promoting Ilan Shor’s party.”

Although the ads were not placed by Shor directly, it’s clear from the RESET analysis that the effort to evade notice was unsophisticated. 

“The pages in question have been completely inactive since they were created and have produced no content but for the ads that they launched yesterday,” said RESET. “They are anonymous, pretend to be “personal blogs” but offer no information but for the two names “Peter George” and “Vasile Ciobanu.” It appears the fake profiles, known as sock puppet accounts, helped avoid Facebook’s ban on Shor or his party. 

A Meta spokesperson told VICE World News that the ads had been remove shortly after they ran.

Meta had removed Shor’s, “ability to advertise on our apps when he was added to the US sanctions list. In response, we detected efforts to use other Pages and accounts in an attempt to amplify his content.”

The ads, according to the statement, were taken down, “as a result of our own internal detection and also tip-offs by civil society in Moldova.”

Dorin Frasineanu served as foreign policy adviser to the Moldovan government forced to resign in February over Shor-backed protests inflamed by high energy prices related to the war in Ukraine that hit Moldova’s generally pro-Russian rural poor particularly hard. Frasineanu said the country is under a wide ranging attack by Moscow that uses hybrid tactics as the war in Ukraine prevents Russia from taking military steps.

“We are now in a hybrid war, where disinformation, propaganda, fake news and manipulations are the main aims, and the goal is to destabilise the country, undermine the government and change the course of the country,” Frasineanu told VICE World News. “It’s Russia’s only possibility at the moment, as invading Moldova in the near future doesn’t seem realistic, considering the brave Ukrainians are keeping the front line far from here.”

Frasineanu describes disinformation campaigns against Moldova during a nearly ten fold increase in energy prices hitting an already distressed community that hadn’t recovered from the COVID economic downturn. And social media disinformation plays a crucial role in moving the blame from Moscow’s intentional decision to limit energy exports to Moldova to the pro-EU government in Chisinau.

“What’s even crazier is that FB still allows sponsored ads from Ilan Shor and the party, which are promoted through sham accounts to spread more lies and more propaganda. It’s a perfect cocktail: worsening of the economic situation + propaganda and disinformation = angry population,” he said by messenger.

But despite repeatedly flagging the issue to Meta while still in government, Frasineanu said that the company barely noted his concerns. 

“[The government has] tried to reach FB, but we don’t have a contact person only for Moldova where we can report these ads,” he said, adding the Moldovan ambassador to the US has also attempted to meet with American officials on the issue. 

Meta said that Moldova had ways to contact Facebook both directly and via reporting possible ad violations. “As with other countries across the world, we are in touch with the authorities in Moldova,” a Meta statement issued to VICE World News said. “We know that malicious actors like this are persistent and we’re continuing to monitor and take action.”