At first, the Kremlin’s social media team simply copied whatever the Russian opposition did online. If Putin’s rivals criticized him with hashtags, Putin’s people would respond instantly with hashtags targeting Alexey Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader. When this method of retaliation proved too obvious and primitive, the Kremlin’s social media team moved on to other tactics.
They tried spamming social media with “bot” accounts, though networks like Twitter were quick to recognize it and intervene. The Kremlin’s team then turned to its activists in the regions, outside Moscow and St. Petersburg, whom they’d largely overlooked in the past. Now they recruited these people to serve as living, breathing bots. Imagine it: young men and women across Russia enlisted to do nothing but promote trending topics on Twitter and troll the liberal media on Facebook.
"@MarkoZvkvc"
"a media-activist action to counter the EU-wide police actions known as "mos maiorum""