Russian state-owned media outlet RT has been operating a sophisticated, AI-powered bot farm to spread disinformation on X (formerly Twitter), according to US investigators.

The bot farm used custom software called Meliorator to create and manage fake online personas of people pretending to be US citizens in order to distribute propaganda and disinformation on a large scale across the US and other countries, including justifying the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

The Justice Department accused RT of running the operation, which was allegedly overseen by an officer from the Kremlin’s Federal Security Service.  A deputy editor-in-chief at RT allegedly led the development of the bot farm's software.

In response, federal agents seized the Twitter accounts and took over the associated domain names and the Justice Department issued a security advisory to prevent similar incidents in the future.