Altered videos of Hollywood stars are being exploited to promote a pro-Kremlin message aimed at European officials. Analysts indicate the campaign is coordinated.
Posts circulated on X and TikTok with the hashtag #HollywoodagainstZelenskyy display manipulated footage of celebrities urging European politicians to pressure Ukraine into accepting a peace agreement aligned with Russian conditions.
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The Cube, Euronews’ fact-checking unit, identified instances of these videos on X and Telegram, where they were published by accounts lacking followers, biographies, and featuring generic usernames.
On TikTok, the clips were shared and liked hundreds of times before their removal from the platform. The videos uploaded on X were also deleted.
There is no proof that the involved public figures made such statements, and experts tracking the campaign suggest it is part of an extensive online influence network.
What claims are being made?
The videos showcase personalised messages from celebrities, such as American actors Nikki Blonsky and Jon Seda, speaking directly to the camera.
The Cube discovered that one video featuring actress Gabriella Pizzolo utilized a clip originally uploaded to the platform Cameo, where celebrities provide and sell personalised greetings to fans.
The footage opens with authentic content before transitioning to scenes from the conflict in Ukraine, paired with a manipulated voiceover alleging that European leaders are guilty of tax evasion to fund Kyiv. These accusations are unsupported by any proof.
Another clip displaying Blonsky urges support for the #HollywoodagainstZelenskyy campaign, aiming to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into signing a peace deal under Russian conditions.
The videos are not present on the celebrities’ verified social media accounts.
They have circulated amid Zelenskyy’s growing frustration over peace negotiations with Russia, mediated by the United States, as the war reaches its fifth year.
Efforts to facilitate mediation have stalled due to incompatible demands from both Ukrainian and Russian parties. Zelenskyy has criticized Moscow for refusing to back down from its maximalist conditions maintained since the conflict’s onset.
These demands include a full withdrawal from four partly occupied Ukrainian regions—Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson—that Russia claims to have annexed via illegitimate referendums.
Most European leaders continue to express firm support for Ukraine to counteract Russian aggression.
How the campaign operates
Experts from the Antibot4Navalny collective, which analyses bot networks in Russia and elsewhere, report that the accounts promoted a specific website as part of the campaign; the site was unregistered and non-functional.
They indicate the campaign’s strategies resemble those employed in the long-standing influence operation called «Matryoshka».
This operation frequently impersonates credible sources such as legitimate news outlets, government bodies, and public figures to create confusion and advance anti-Ukrainian narratives.
It is characterized by a small cluster of anonymous accounts posting fake content that is then amplified by a larger network, concealing the origin of the misinformation.
Euronews itself has been impersonated multiple times by the campaign, notably in Moldova, where fake accounts posing as Euronews staff circulated false and damaging claims about the country.
The Cube’s analysis of the recent posts involving Zelenskyy shows that at least 10 accounts shared the videos within a two-hour period, using nearly identical captions and hashtags. Many of these accounts were recently created and lacked profile descriptions and previous activity.
The clips were repeatedly posted and reposted in a short timeframe before being removed from X. Currently, only one video remains available on TikTok.
Researchers mention this campaign as the first known instance where the «Matryoshka» network integrated a hashtag to disseminate its videos and attempted to organize a real-world «event» — encouraging participation in a «flash mob against Zelenskyy» held on Hollywood Boulevard.