Welcome to NewsGuard’s Foreign Influence Risk Briefing — now on Substack. This exclusive briefing summarizes NewsGuard’s analysis of false claims by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian influence operations targeting democracies.
In this briefing:
Russia’s state RT evades EU ban, gets millions of views on X
Pro-Iran users claim that a U.S. weather manipulation device caused earthquakes in Iran
Russian influence campaign concocts claim that Germany’s Merz paid $8,000 for OnlyFans session
Chinese network of TikTok accounts deploys AI to portray U.S. soldiers in distress
Editing by Sam Howard, Dina Contini, and Eric Effron
Russian State Media Bypasses EU Ban with New RT Account on X, Gains Millions of Views
By Alice Lee
A new X account named @RT_on_X appears to be an attempt by Russian state propaganda outlet RT to bypass EU sanctions and reach European audiences who have been barred from accessing RT content, NewsGuard found. In just five days, the account garnered 6 million views.
RT was blocked by the EU from the feeds of all European residents following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Yet it does not appear to be trying to disguise its connection to the new X account. Posts are often branded with the official RT logo, and the account has the same tag line as RT: “Freedom over censorship, Truth over narrative.” The new X account is followed by RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan — an endorsement that would be unlikely if the channel were not backed by RT.
Posts by the new @RT_on_X account consistently amplify pro-Kremlin talking points, such as describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “liberation,” denigrating Europe for its support of Ukraine and levels of immigration, and praising Russian ally China for its technological advancements.
RT, then known as Russia Today, launched in 2005 as part of a Russian government effort to extend its influence activities abroad. Since then, it has been a disinformation powerhouse, with 3.5 million followers, according to the platform. Starting in early 2022, NewsGuard has identified 100 provably false claims amplified by the network. In addition to the EU, the outlet is banned or severely restricted in the U.K., Ukraine, Canada, and Australia.
Although RT is not banned in the U.S., government sanctions restrict its ability to conduct business in the U.S. Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, has removed RT’s accounts from its platforms globally.
Asked about the new X account, a European Commission spokesperson said in a July 1, 2026, emailed statement to NewsGuard: “The sanctions cover all means for transmission and distribution,” including by “platforms, websites and apps. We are in contact with the national authorities on this matter.”
NewsGuard emailed the press offices of RT and X asking about the account but did not receive any responses.
Read the full story in Reality Check.
Pro-Iran Users Push Conspiracy Theory that U.S. Triggered Iranian Earthquakes
By Julia Senzon
Pro-Iran social media users are claiming that the U.S. used weather manipulation technology to trigger two large earthquakes in Iran, framing the supposed incident as an act of aggression violating the peace agreement between the two countries.
On June 17, 2026, leaders of the U.S. and Iran signed a preliminary peace deal to end the war between the two countries that began in February 2026. Ten days later, on June 27, 2026, pro-Iranian social media users began alleging that the U.S. government triggered back-to-back earthquakes in Iran. For example, pro-Iran user @liderfiscal said on June 27, 2026: “#URGENT USA is using weapons never seen before in Iran … now two consecutive earthquakes of magnitude 5.8 and 6.0 have occurred in Iran.” The post received 1.2 million views, 12,000 likes, and 8,100 reposts in two days.
However, the June 27, 2026, earthquakes hit Afghanistan and Pakistan, not Iran. NewsGuard reviewed credible international news coverage and found no evidence that Iran suffered any earthquake damage or was struck by any strong earthquakes in late June 2026. Even if the earthquakes had struck Iran, there is no evidence suggesting the existence of weather manipulation technology that the U.S. could have used to trigger the earthquakes.
Some pro-Iranian users said the U.S. used HAARP, a program run by the University of Alaska-Fairbanks to study the impact of space weather on satellite and radio communications, to start the earthquakes. However, multiple experts have said that it is not possible for radio waves to trigger earthquakes.
David Malaspina, a research scientist at the University of Colorado-Boulder’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, told Reuters in February 2023 that radio waves from HAARP penetrate less than 1 centimeter into the ground. The Afghanistan earthquake took place 62 miles below the surface, while the Pakistan earthquake occurred 22 miles below the surface, according to news accounts.
Russian Influence Campaign Claims Germany’s Merz Paid $8,000 for an OnlyFans Session; Gets Two Million Views on X
By Mascha Wolf
A Russian influence operation is spreading a fabricated video imitating celebrity news magazine OK! USA to claim that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz paid $8,000 for a private online role-playing session with a transgender model on OnlyFans, an adult-content subscription platform. The fake video drew 2 million views on X.
In late June 2026, pro-Kremlin and conservative X users circulated a video bearing the logo of OK! USA that claimed that Merz spent a session with the model on June 16, 2026, while he was at the G7 summit. The video asserts the online encounter was arranged by Thorsten Frei, Merz’ Chief of Staff, and included instructions to the model to role-play as an airplane co-pilot and to address Merz as “Captain.”
In fact, OK! USA, the U.S. edition of the U.K. publication OK!, published no such report, according to a NewsGuard review of the magazine’s website and social media accounts. An OK! USA magazine spokesperson told NewsGuard in a June 26, 2026, email: “OK! USA did not create, publish, or distribute the video in question. The video is not affiliated with OK! USA in any way.”
There are no credible news reports or other evidence that Merz opened an OnlyFans account or booked or paid for private sessions. Merz’s office did not respond to NewsGuard’s June 25, 2026, emailed request for comment.
Andrew Bridgen, a Conservative former British Member of Parliament, posted the video to his X account on June 25, 2026, stating that “all our puppet leaders are compromised and controlled by their globalist masters.” The post received 1.1 million views, 3,400 likes, and 830 reposts within one day. Bridgen, who has frequently advanced pro-Kremlin talking points, was suspended from Britain’s Conservative Party in January 2023 after comparing COVID-19 vaccine side effects to the Holocaust.
The Gnida Project, an anonymously run group of researchers that tracks Russian influence operations, stated in a June 25, 2026, X post that the video is likely the work of Storm-1516, a campaign that NewsGuard has found repeatedly fabricates articles and videos impersonating legitimate media outlets to target European leaders. The operation has previously targeted Merz with fabricated claims advanced on sites that impersonated the German outlet Der Spiegel, German fact-checker Correctiv, and Politico.
Network of AI-Generated, Distressed U.S. Soldiers Has Chinese Links
A network of Chinese-operated accounts on TikTok is spreading AI-generated videos of supposedly distressed U.S. soldiers, in an apparent effort to portray the American military as demoralized amid the Iran war, according to a June 2026 report by influence operation-detection startup dotNex.
The network of 110 accounts used Chinese-language text or posted videos that had audio of Chinese speakers in the background, indicating the operators were Chinese speakers, the dotNex report found.
The report said that 33 of the accounts posed as female soldiers and 77 posed as male, collectively publishing more than 52,000 posts that drew 3.9 million views and roughly 444,000 likes, comments, and shares between March and June 2026. The female soldiers were depicted as crying or distressed, while the videos of men mostly showed them expressing how much they missed their families.
Despite the apparent Chinese origin of the accounts, dotNex did not find a direct link to the Chinese state. “These are infrastructure signals consistent with Chinese-operated or Chinese-hosted tooling, not a confirmed state attribution,” company founder Luca Luceri, told NewsGuard in a June 15, 2026, LinkedIn direct message.
NewsGuard found that the accounts and videos remained live on TikTok as of July 1, 2026, despite violating the platform’s policies against influence operations and unlabeled AI content. TikTok did not immediately respond to NewsGuard’s July 1, 2026, request for comment sent through a website contact form.
Luca Luceri, an assistant professor at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute, launched dotNex last year. The company says it uses AI to detect online influence operations.
Recent False Narratives
For a sample of newly published debunks of false narratives related to state-sponsored falsehoods, please see the links below.
(Note: To view these links, you must have a license to NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints — a constantly updated catalog of the top false narratives spreading online. If your organization would like to learn more about accessing NewsGuard’s False Claim Fingerprints, please contact partnerships@newsguardtech.com.)
+ 19 other false narratives cataloged last week
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