Researchers from the “Bot Blocker” project, which tracks the activity of pro-Russian bots on social media, provided The Insider with information about 16 videos that appeared over the past two days. According to them, it was the “Matryoshka” network that launched the campaign to interfere in the U.S. midterm congressional elections.
During this time, at least eight posts appeared on the social network X, and each of them contained two videos featuring Alison Hannigan, Eric Roberts, Jeri Ryan, Ed Begley Jr., Sarah Jessica Parker, Lea Thompson, Melora Hardin, Christopher Lloyd, Julia Roberts, and other American actors. All the videos bore the CNN logo, one of the largest TV networks in the U.S., and the “celebrities” urged people not to vote for Democrats in the elections to the House of Representatives and the Senate on November 3, 2026.
The videos were accompanied by the hashtags #midterms2026 and #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. In them, Democrats were accused of pedophilia, promoting hormone therapy, using children “for their own purposes”, supporting the “Zelensky regime”, popularizing rejection of family and faith, and corruption.
In one of the videos, Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, was accused of intending to “bring another 15 million migrants into America”. According to the researchers, most of the videos followed the same template: a “celebrity” supposedly learns something about Democrats and then says they cannot vote for them, and at the end of the video viewers are urged to spread such videos.
According to current polls, Democrats have a strong chance of taking control of the House of Representatives, while the race for Senate seats remains more tense. Against the backdrop of declining approval ratings for the Republican Party, U.S. President Donald Trump promised to pay every adult American $5,000 if Republicans retain control of both chambers following the midterm elections.
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