Are Russian bots and trolls taking over our socials? BFBS Forces News data reckons so

A video report I made about British soldiers on Nato exercise Spring Storm in Estonia has had more than 100,000 views and over 900 comments – but some of those comments got me thinking.

Alongside people asking questions about drones and defences, there are other comments which seem out of place, unconnected to a story about a military exercise.

Instead they're about immigration, people coming to the UK illegally and criticism of the Government for failing to take control.

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A war of disinformation

Some people think hostile states like Russia and Iran use social media to stir up debate and division to undermine the Government.

Liubov Tsybulska, a Ukrainian cognitive warfare expert, explained how state-sponsored disinformation works.

"It's about what we think and how we think," she said. "And Russia uses a lot of platforms like TikTok, Facebook, but mostly Telegram, Viber – those social media platforms which are very popular in Ukraine.

"And they conduct this information campaign there and eventually you are a target. You do not understand that you are under attack."

We looked at the data behind our video and analysed more than 750 comments by theme.

Coming in top with 11% were comments on drone warfare and readiness.

But 10% argued Russia is not a threat and the UK's real enemy is the Government.

And 9% of comments were about immigration, urging soldiers to get out of the Baltics and defend the south coast against immigrants.

Creating division

There is no denying many people in the UK genuinely hold strong views om immigration and the effectiveness of our politicians.

But Ms Tsybulska believes these are also exactly the kind of hot topics that hostile states like Russia might seek to amplify to create division.

"They try to use your own cracks within your society, your own mistakes against you," she said. "They try to polarise society.

"They take a topic which has a lot of different voices and they kind of exaggerate, basically creating two pools, two sides when you start fighting with each other.

"This is the problem, because when you fight with each other, you are distracted. You do not pay attention to the external power."

Distraction ahead of military action

Military leaders also warn disinformation and hybrid attacks are an increasing part of the landscape.

Major General Inder Sirel, the Commander of the Estonian 1st Division, has both UK and French troops under his command, including the ones we filmed for our video.

"It's not separate warfare," he said of disinformation. "It's a pretext, a precondition to destabilise the situation.

"And very often it's not only the military who should be a first responder for such threats. And I think this is where society as well have to understand how severe those threats are."

So whether the accounts posting seemingly unconnected comments on a military video are real, coordinated or somewhere in between, the result is still the same: attention pulled away from national defence while a country argues with itself.