AI-rewritten: This is a summary of an article from The Verge, rewritten by AI (Qwen, running locally) to make it easier to read. The facts come from the original article – read it for the full story.

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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed on Monday that Ukrainian military drone strikes on Yandex data centers reduced hate and division on social media. He stated it became easier to breathe online with fewer provocations. However, this assertion is not supported by available data regarding the actual impact of the operation.

While some users reported less spam from MAGA-affiliated accounts and the far-right Alternative for Germany party, these observations are incorrect. The strikes targeted Yandex’s web crawlers rather than disinformation operations. Consequently, bot traffic remains steady as ever according to antibot4navalny, an account tracking state-sponsored troll farms.

Danish analyst Valdemar Osted reported that interactions on MAGA and AfD accounts actually increased since the strikes. Charts suggesting a decline in bot activity appear to be AI-generated. Ultimately, claims that the drone strikes hindered Russian disinformation campaigns are themselves considered a form of disinformation regardless of Zelenskyy’s statements.