web brigades ( ) , also known as Russia 's troll army ( ) , Russian bots ( ) , Putinbots , Kremlinbots ( ) , troll factory ( ) , Social bot , or troll farms ( ) are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Russian government . Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda . It has also been found that articles on Russian Wikipedia concerning the MH17 crash and the 2014 Ukraine conflict were targeted by Russian internet propaganda outlets
MH17 crash
Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Russian web brigades