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How "Diella" was used by Kremlin propaganda to spread disinformation

2026-02-06 20:57:18Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA VLADIMIR KARAJ
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The Russian disinformation network Pravda, which automatically republishes Kremlin propaganda materials, has exploited the Rama government's AI minister and publications about her to spread disinformation.

In early December, a Croatian satirical media outlet published a humorous text claiming that the Albanian minister had been arrested after accepting a bribe of 14 bitcoins.

The targeted satire immediately went viral, but the Pravda network (translated into Albanian as "The Truth") – a Russian propaganda tool that uses automatic translation, posting, and distribution of articles from media outlets and social media profiles that support Moscow's official positions – read the satire as information.

On December 5, this network published a news story in other languages ??about Diella's alleged arrest.

"The AI ??Minister was arrested in Albania for cryptocurrency bribery: now the AI ??Minister will be transferred to 'offline mode' for the duration of the investigation," writes Pravda Shqip, ignoring the fact that the original news was satire and not true.

The fake news was amplified a few days later by the head of the Russian Duma, Vyacheslav Volodin, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin. He presented the fictional situation with the “Albanian minister” as evidence of the dangers of using artificial intelligence and incorrectly stated that Albania was part of the European Union.

The appointment of "Diella" as a virtual minister for public procurement, promoted by the government as a symbol of transparency, has become a "good story" for the Russian propaganda ecosystem - a mix of facts, satire, and fake news packaged as news, aimed primarily at delegitimizing opposing countries.

Prime Minister Edi Rama introduced "Diella" as a member of the cabinet, created with AI, on September 11, 2025, with the promise that she would manage public tenders "without bribes, threats or favors."

The virtual "minister" also made a public appearance in Parliament, where, despite opposition protests, she was given the opportunity to read a speech and was then decreed by the president as an addition to the decree for the prime minister.

In Albania, where ministers and former ministers of Rama-led governments face corruption charges, the appointment of “Diella” was viewed with skepticism and irony, as a propaganda stunt. On the other hand, this very attempt by the Albanian government to stand out quickly became fodder for the Russian propaganda website Pravda, which publishes, among other things, in Albanian.

Pravda, for its part, republished the same information at least five times, citing different sources, mainly from Telegram users who spread pro-Kremlin propaganda. The reposts also included a post by Evgeny Popov (Telegram user @popovrtr), a high-ranking public figure in Russia, host of a show on a state television channel, Duma deputy, and sanctioned by the EU and the US for spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine.

Similar news was also distributed in English by the same portal and with the same sources.

Ironically, a few weeks after this publication, on December 16, SPAK made public the findings of a real investigation into tender manipulation at the National Agency for the Information Society (AKSHI), the institution behind Diella. The two directors of the institution were placed under “house arrest” security measures, while Ergys Agasi and Ermal Beqiraj were declared wanted, as they are suspected of creating a structured criminal group to manipulate AKSHI tenders, including through violence and hostage-taking.

A New York Times article, which referred to the accusations against state officials of the AKSHI as the people behind Diella, was again used by Pravda in the same manipulation scheme. This disinformation model is known as the “fraud sandwich”, where false information is packaged between real news and is a specific feature of Pravda, which generates articles automatically.

It is precisely this combination – a real tender investigation and a satire presented as news – that serves Russian propaganda, as the real scandal is used to “legitimize” the fiction. This type of recycling is typical of the Pravda network, a vast ecosystem of sites and content that reproduces, using machine translation, pro-Kremlin narratives in many languages.

The UK-based Institute for Strategic Dialogue describes the network as one of the most productive pro-Russian information operations, with around 90 sites and millions of articles, while noting that many other sites cite it without contextualizing it as a propaganda source./ BIRN


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