Russia hits social media with 45,000 anti-west messages

RUSSIAN-CONTROLLED “bot” accounts have bombarded social media with anti-western propaganda 45,000 times since the chemical attack in Syria as part of a “dirty disinformation war” by the Kremlin.

Whitehall officials have measured a 4,000 per cent increase in posts from automated Twitter and other website accounts linked to Moscow in the past two weeks.

Some accounts, which are disguised as Western in origin, pumped out up to 200 posts per day. Theresa May said Russia was using its cyber capabilities “as part of a wider effort to undermine the international system”.

She spoke after visiting the National Cyber Security Centre. Among the Russian claims was that the Government’s Porton Down laboratory made the chemical agents used in Syria and that Russia was not the source of the Novichok used in the Salisbury attack.