Russia's Social Design Agency (SDA), which has been linked to the international Doppelganger disinformation network, developed influence operations in Israel using fake news websites, commissioned publications and organizations posing as independent think tanks. The findings were published in an investigation by The Insider, based on the agency's internal documents.
Journalists Dada Lindell and Nikita Aronov found that Israel had become one of the SDA's operational targets by early 2023 at the latest. Russian political consultants planned to spread anti-Ukrainian narratives, undermine trust in the United States and influence Israel's Russian-speaking population.
One method involved creating counterfeit pages imitating prominent Israeli news outlets. As cybersecurity company Cybereason previously established, the operators replicated the websites of Walla, N12 and Mako to publish fabricated stories. Such imitations could mislead readers about the origins of the information.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, SDA personnel increasingly sought to exploit the war in the Middle East to spread claims of conflicting interests between Ukraine and Israel, according to the documents. Their proposals included using generative artificial intelligence to create comments purportedly written by Israeli and Ukrainian users.
Another part of the campaign involved placing material in genuine Israeli media outlets. The Insider cites findings from the publication The Seventh Eye, which uncovered cases in which interviews were edited to emphasize messages favorable to Russia. Some interviewees' criticism of the Kremlin was omitted from the published versions.
The investigation gives particular attention to the International Burke Institute, an organization presenting itself as an independent research center in Israel. Its website listed United Nations bodies, the World Bank and other international organizations as partners. In responses to The Insider, those organizations denied having partnerships with the institute.
SDA documents contain a proposal to allocate approximately $80,000 to establish such an organization, along with around 3 million rubles per month to produce and promote content. These figures represent proposed funding, not independently established actual expenditures.
The journalists also examined the activities of the Dor Moriah organization and its contacts with Israeli public and political figures. However, the appearance of a person or organization in SDA documents does not itself establish that they knew of the campaign's Russian origins or knowingly participated in it.
The investigation builds on previously published findings about Doppelganger by detailing how the network operated in Israel and attempted to present influence operations as independent journalism and expert analysis.