The Invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s Influence Campaign on Social Media in South America

Abstract

Moscow has undertaken an international propaganda campaign against Ukraine, which is wide in terms of means employed and its geography, reaching even South America. Russia’s embassies in Buenos Aires, Brasilia, and Lima have used social media to disseminate messages about the war. To investigate this activity, this article combines qualitative and quantitative methods, including document analysis, case studies, and data from the social media research platform CrowdTangle to analyze Facebook and Instagram posts. The findings show that Russian embassies have actively promoted several strategic narratives about Ukraine, including portraying it as a “Nazi” state and blaming NATO “expansion” for the war. The campaign has generated hundreds of thousands of interactions with social media users and, in some instances, adapts its messaging to local contexts. It also relies on partnerships with sympathetic media actors to reinforce its narratives. These findings raise broader questions about the scale and reach of Russian messaging in other Latin American countries and regions of the world across different media platforms.