Kremlin bots blamed Russia’s fuel shortage on panic, resellers and “frozen programs”

Kremlin bots blamed Russia’s fuel shortage on panic, resellers and “frozen programs”

Over the past week, pro-government bots on VKontakte left more than 3,100 comments under posts about fuel shortages. This is shown by data from the Botnadzor project analyzed by Verstka.

During the disinformation campaign, the bots did not have a single narrative — they adapted to the news agenda. Early last week, they simply urged people “not to panic” over the introduction of limits because it was “not the end of the world” and a “temporary phenomenon.” According to them, this was a process of “holding prices down,” and Vladimir Putin personally ordered officials to “deal with the problem.”

Then they began explaining the causes of the fuel shortage and limits as technical problems at gas stations. For example, some bots claimed that stopping fuel sales was “preventive maintenance of IT systems before major deliveries, so that nothing freezes during the holiday season.”

“Stop stirring things up. Gasoline and diesel reserves at oil depots are huge; the state controls this. They will sort out the frozen programs or limits now, and the wheels will turn again.”

However, most of these accounts blamed Russians themselves for the shortage. “How many times do we have to explain that the problem is not the shortage, it’s people’s heads. They read a couple of scary Telegram posts and all ran to buy everything up. Now in Saransk, out of 10 gas stations, only two have anything. So who is to blame?” the messages said.

More than 1,200 accounts were involved in the disinformation campaign over the week. The bots left comments under almost 800 publications. Their comments made up almost 5% of the total.

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