Visibility as Victory: The Strategic Logic of Doppelgänger

I. INTRODUCTION

Doppelgänger is considered one of the most prominent Russian digital influence operations since the start of the war against Ukraine. The campaign gained notoriety for using deceptively realistic clones of Western news and government websites—so-called mirror sites—with current estimates ranging from 70 to 700. These sites were used to spread disinformation, primarily pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian, and anti-Western narratives. Dissemination occurred through a multi-tiered system involving fake accounts, automated bot comments, and paid online advertising. The operation was coordinated primarily by the Social Design Agency (SDA) in cooperation with entities such as Structura and Dialog. According to U.S. authorities, between January and April 2024 alone, the network disseminated roughly 40,000 content items and 33.9 million comments globally. Strategic targets included the 2024 European Parliamentary elections and the Paris Olympic Games.[1]

In this week’s blog post, we look at key takeaways from a major new report that challenges what we thought we knew about the so-called Doppelgänger campaign. "Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency" (2025) digs into over 3,100 leaked internal files from the SDA — a major player in Russia’s influence operations — and offers a fresh perspective on how this organisation works. Given the report's breadth, we do not aim to cover it comprehensively, but instead highlight a few key findings that shed new light on current developments in digital hostile influence. The full report is highly recommended for anyone seeking to understand the shifting strategies, infrastructures, and evaluation metrics that define the contemporary landscape of state-linked information warfare.

II. KEY CONCLUSIONS

The actors involved—above all the Social Design Agency (SDA) and its network—understand the information operations analysed in the report as part of a state-sanctioned information war. Their stated objective is the expansion of a far-reaching digital propaganda ecosystem that has operated under Kremlin direction since 2022. With an estimated annual budget of €600 million, this system targets informational environments in Russia, Ukraine, the West, and increasingly, the global public sphere.[2]

Figure 1: Image used by SDA to demonstrate its campaign goals; Courtesy of Psychological Defence Research Institute at Lund University [3]

SDA is overseen by Sergei Kiriyenko and his team within the Presidential Administration. Together with related entities, SDA does not function as a conventional state media organ but as an outsourced actor in a state-funded, semi-private model of digital propaganda. Within this system, it competes with legacy structures like RT or Sputnik for funding and political relevance.[4]

Figure 2: Network of the Russian propaganda machine [red boxes added by the authors]; Courtesy of Audinet and Gérard [5]

Figure 3: A representation of regular participants in Presidential Administration meetings at which strategic decisions about SDA operations were made, Courtesy of Psychological Defence Research Institute at Lund University [6]

Strategic directives come directly from Kremlin officials—most notably Alexander Kharichev—and are implemented with little discussion or internal review. Campaigns are often deployed within 48 hours. Sofia Zakharova handles operational management, including performance metrics and budget oversight. Leaked documents show that media visibility, regardless of tone, is treated internally as evidence of effectiveness and is used to justify additional funding. [7]

Although SDA and Structura are separate entities, they operate in practice as a single, integrated unit. [8] Crucially, neither Western sanctions nor takedown efforts have disrupted this model. Instead, these external pressures have accelerated its evolution and sharpened its competitive edge within Russia’s influence ecosystem.

SDA played a central role in the Doppelgänger campaign. The report draws on a trove of leaked documents supplemented by publicly available data on affiliated entities such as Structura, the Internet Development Institute (IRI), Dialogue, and Dialogue Regions. The authors also examine a broader set of related operations, including Matryoshka, Overload, and Undercut. Several other campaigns with similar architecture and techniques appear to originate from the same organisational environment. While not all were operated directly by SDA, they likely relied on shared infrastructure or sub-licensed services, and can be understood as part of the same systemic counter-campaign. [9]

The authors issue an explicit methodological critique of prior analysis, stating: “Doppelgänger has been over-hyped and under-analysed, leading to fundamental misunderstandings about its purpose and scope… Our approach has focused on capabilities, foregrounding SDA's activities' strategic and operational components.” [10]

One of the report’s central arguments is that Western interpretations of Doppelgänger have been fundamentally flawed. What has often been described in media and policy discourse as a coherent Russian disinformation campaign is, from the authors’ perspective, only a technical delivery tactic within a much larger strategic framework. Mirror sites for content dissemination—often quickly detected and taken down—are not considered a standalone operation but one among many interchangeable methods. [11]

The SDA’s activities, the report argues, should be understood as strategic counter-campaigns—a hybrid model that blends advertising logic, political campaigning, intelligence tradecraft, and military strategy. Within this framework, the exposure of Doppelgänger was not considered a failure, but a success. With over 350 international media reports referencing the campaign, SDA recorded a high return on investment. Visibility became the metric: attention from Western media, politicians, and fact-checkers was used internally to demonstrate effectiveness, ultimately justifying additional funding and responsibility from the Kremlin. [12]

Doppelgänger illustrates a fundamental insight: Russian influence operations do not measure success by persuasion or approval, but by narrative penetration. The core objective is to ensure the presence of Russian thematic lines within Western discourse, regardless of how they are framed, received, or challenged. [13]

Figure 4: Core objective of the SDA in short, Courtesy of Psychological Defence Research Institute at Lund University [14]

What works is amplified; what fails to generate resonance is discarded. The Social Design Agency (SDA) draws no qualitative distinctions between disinformation narratives, distribution channels, or actors, whether through bots, fake profiles, paid advertising, or influencers. Everything serves the goal of penetrating the Western information environment. A central objective, therefore, is not merely to circumvent Western fact-checkers, analysts, and investigative journalists but to strategically reframe their efforts. Within SDA, exposés and debunkings are interpreted not as setbacks, but as mechanisms that enhance the campaign’s reach. To this end, the agency has developed internal evaluation models and success metrics prioritising visibility in public discourse, regardless of content, as the primary benchmark. [15]

Figure 4: Date from reports analysing the degree of penetration of "Russian propaganda" in the information environments of the leading European countries, Courtesy of Psychological Defence Research Institute at Lund University [16]

The Doppelgänger campaign should not be viewed as an isolated incident, but rather as a symptom of a broader structural shift within the Russian influence apparatus. Sanctions and restrictions targeting traditional Russian state media such as RT and Sputnik have accelerated this transition by forcing the Kremlin to rely more heavily on informal, decentralised channels. However, this shift is not unique to Russia. It reflects a wider transformation across the global information operations landscape, where non-state and commercial actors are increasingly central.

At the heart of this model are professionally organised networks of private and formally independent actors, equipped with significant resources and high-level technical expertise. The Social Design Agency (SDA) exemplifies this new generation of digitally trained propagandists, who systematically leverage social and digital media to manipulate societal dynamics at scale.

III. LESSONS FROM THE DOPPELGÄNGER CASE

The report’s authors believe that the response to the “Doppelgänger” campaign exposed substantial structural and analytical deficiencies, highlighting the need for urgent corrective action.

A central issue lies in the conceptual orientation of many current analyses. The prevailing focus on so-called TTPs—tactics, techniques, and procedures—has led many investigations to become bogged down in technical detail, without grasping the threat actors' overarching strategic capabilities and objectives. The report therefore advocates for a capabilities-based analytical framework that enables a holistic understanding of adversarial strategies and allows for targeted disruption. TTP-based methods remain essential, for example, in the forensic examination of specific campaign components, but they are insufficient for identifying systemic patterns or long-term decision-making processes. [17]

Another key criticism concerns the lack of coordination within the counter-FIMI community. Responses to “Doppelgänger” were largely uncoordinated: more than 60 technical reports were produced independently, without a shared analytical baseline or strategic alignment. This fragmentation, the authors argue, ultimately made it easier for the adversarial network to maintain its operations. The case of Meta exemplifies this: despite playing a key role in uncovering the network and publishing lists of mirror sites, internal SDA documents show that the platform continued to be systematically used for advertising, fully aware of its exploitability. The report references an estimated $338,000 in ad revenue generated within the EU alone since sanctions were imposed in July 2023, which the authors call scandalous. [18]

The report also critically examines the common practice of assigning catchy names to influence operations, whether by SDA or counter-influence actors. Labels such as “Doppelgänger,” “Undercut,” or “Stormkiller” may capture attention but risk reducing complex structures to seemingly isolated operations and suggesting false distinctions. In reality, the authors stress, these are interlinked activities embedded within an adaptive and networked propaganda model. Branding—also on the side of investigators—may inadvertently contribute to strategic oversimplification. [19]

The report finds that the Social Design Agency (SDA) benefited from the public exposure of the “Doppelgänger” campaign. Media and political attention were internally assessed as evidence of effectiveness and used to justify increased funding from Kremlin sources. According to the authors, this visibility was not interpreted as a setback, but as confirmation of the campaign’s strategic success. The report also raises the possibility that parts of the leaked material may have been released deliberately—potentially even by SDA itself—to validate its impact and position within Russia’s influence ecosystem. In this context, public exposure becomes a calculated part of the operation, potentially contributing to its consolidation rather than disruption. [20]

The report clarifies that this is not a blanket critique of investigative work, fact-checking, or digital counterstrategies. On the contrary, the effectiveness of the counter-FIMI community has made it a growing target for strategic exploitation. Therefore, it is all the more urgent for this community to reassess its role critically, act more strategically, coordinate more coherently, and develop more robust models for analysis and intervention. Only then can the next generation of Russian influence operations be effectively detected, understood, and countered. [21]

Footnotes:

(1)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.14. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(2) Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.14. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(3)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.94. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(4)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.41. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(5)  Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.40. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. Source of Image: Audinet, M., & Gérard, C., 2024. Under the Radar: Crisis, Reorganization, and Clandestinization in Russia’s Ecosystem of Information Influence after the Invasion of Ukraine. Academic Policy Paper Series, no. 2, November 2024. [online] Available at: https://therussiaprogram.org/russia_information_influence. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(6)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.41. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(7)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, pp.42-43. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(8)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.20. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(9)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.20. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(10)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.14 [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(11)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.14. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(12)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.15. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(13)    Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.77. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(14)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.16. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(15)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.21. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(16)  Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.76. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(17)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, pp.189-190. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(18)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.190. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(19)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.190. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(20)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, pp.36-37 [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

(21)   Psychological Defence Agency, Pamment, J. & Tsurtsumia, D., 2025. Beyond Operation Doppelgänger: A Capability Assessment of the Social Design Agency, p.191. [online] Available at: https://mpf.se/psychological-defence-agency/publications/archive/2025-05-15-beyond-operation-doppelganger-a-capability-assessment-of-the-social-design-agency. [Accessed May 30 2025].

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