Roska Bridge: pro-Russian IMS exploits decentralised platforms
Uncovered a Russian IMS using the Brid.gy service to auto-cross-post from hundreds of Mastodon accounts to Bluesky, laundering sanctioned RT/Sputnik/Pravda content via decentralised platforms' weak moderation.
Executive summary
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Check First investigated a pro-Russian information manipulation operation, dubbed Roska Bridge, that exploits the cross-posting service Brid.gy to automatically funnel content from hundreds of Mastodon accounts into Bluesky. Researchers tracked account behavior and content-synchronization patterns across roughly ten Mastodon instances, including the large mastodon.social server, and found the network active since at least September 2025, operating in short, intense monthly bursts targeting audiences in Ukraine, France, Germany, and the United States.
The investigation concluded that the operation launders sanctioned content originating from outlets such as RT, Sputnik, and Pravda-linked sites by routing it through decentralized platforms whose moderation infrastructure is comparatively weak and fragmented, allowing banned narratives to resurface under looser enforcement.
Analysts identified indicators of coordinated inauthentic behavior linking Roska Bridge structurally to the broader Pravda network, framing decentralized social media as an emerging front that foreign influence operations are exploiting as centralized platforms tighten enforcement against known propaganda sources.
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