The young Ukrainians battling pro-Russian trolls

What is it like to be a young Ukrainian experiencing war while wading through chaos and misinformation on social media?

Katrin, 24, woke up to the sound of an explosion in Kyiv last Thursday – and before long her social media feed was flooded with disturbing posts.

“The first thing we had to do was pack up and go down to the basement,” she tells me, now safe in her small hometown outside of Lviv, where she fled with her boyfriend, neighbors and dogs.

“But right after we went down, I started scrolling Instagram. And it was all in my Instagram stories and my posts.”

Not only did she see scary, factual posts from friends, but false information — including comments on TikTok from accounts claiming the war was “not real” or a “hoax.”

“After I blocked this one account, another one showed up with another girl’s profile picture and texted me in Russian,” says Katrin.

The trolls have been prolific – and they have interacted with young women across Ukraine.

Alina, 18, panicked when she saw posts in Russian suggesting that her neighborhood in Zaporizhzhya, southeastern Ukraine, was on the verge of shelling and destruction. But the rumors were wrong.

Alina spoke to me from her bedroom, exhausted from nights of air raids and shelter. She says rumors spread quickly on chat app Telegram by people who appeared intent on causing panic.

“Russians specifically find our chats and write that something is exploding. Someone writes that there are signs of a bomb in the area – then others refute the information,” she says.

Another video she saw on Telegram suggested that there had been an explosion at her hometown’s airport. It turned out to be another explosion in the nearby city of Mariupol.

Old footage from other conflicts, including the massive explosion in Beirut in 2020, has also been widely shared – including on TikTok, where clips have garnered millions of views.

Marta is 20 years old and was stuck in the UK visiting friends when war broke out. She says she saw videos from Syria and Iraq.

“But they posted it as ‘Ukraine,'” she says.

She says videos on TikTok’s For You Page – the main gateway to the video-sharing app – have left her scared and angry while she worries desperately about friends and family back home.

All three women struggle with accounts where they post comments in support of Russia.

“Some of them started posting videos, they started calling Ukraine ‘liars,'” says Marta.

Some blamed Ukraine for the violence and wrote Glory be to Russia — and others falsely claimed the war was somehow staged.

“Every time I decided to look at these accounts, they were a profile with zero followers, zero likes, zero followers, with a profile picture of a Russian flag or something,” says Marta.

Many of the TikTok accounts the women have shared with me appear to have stolen photos from other accounts online. As Marta says, they have few or no followers and don’t use their real names — or use generic usernames.

One I looked at used the name “Jess” and only had one follower. The only videos on the account were shared just a few days ago, indicating that the account was only recently created.

Almost all of the videos the account shared contained debunked and false claims: that a woman injured in a Russian attack was an actress, that the coverage is filled with footage of old conflicts, and even that the war somehow wasn’t takes place .

An account that Katrin finally quarreled with on TikTok again had only a few followers – his profile picture seems to have been copied from a Korean’s Pinterest page.

None of the accounts have responded to my attempts to contact them – so it’s hard to tell who is running them. Russia has previously created inauthentic accounts to spread news and sow division. However, it is also possible that the accounts are held by real people who believe false claims.

Misinformation is a problem that social media companies have been grappling with for a while. Now their policy is being re-examined.

Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, along with Twitter and Google, have all announced they will crack down on misinformation and propaganda surrounding the war in Ukraine.

But much of this disinformation continues to spread in its apps like Telegram and TikTok, which are widely used by young Ukrainians.

TikTok told the BBC it has “increased resources to respond to emerging trends and remove hurtful content, including harmful misinformation and promotion of violence.” Telegram did not respond to our request for comment.

It’s clear that what’s happening online is causing even more panic and pain in the real world.

“We’re scared of those who create this fake information,” says Alina, ready to go downstairs again as the air raid siren sounds.