Did “Russian bot traffic” really disappear after Ukrainian strikes on Yandex servers?

Despite multiple Ukrainian strikes hitting Yandex servers in Russia, a thread by antibot4navalny, which has long tracked state-sponsored social media campaigns and troll farms, explains that the Cloudflare “Bot Traffic” chart many people have cited is really about automated web crawlers operated by Yandex accessing the web. It’s not connected to “bots” posting on social media, and Russian bot/crawler traffic overall continues to be about the same as normal. Still, are you noticing any difference in the posts and comments you’ve seen online? [Media: https://bsky.app/profile/antibot4navalny.bsky.social/post/3mxmv7t6nxc27]

Ukrainian drones hit three of Russian tech giant Yandex’s data centers in four days. Ukraine’s president says the bots thinned out too

Lithuania’s prime minister wants more such strikes to protect elections. Researchers say the bot data shows Yandex’s web crawlers, not trolls.

Rapid-response fact-check: "Yandex Strikes Caused Russian Bot Activity To Drop By 50 Percent" Is False | Joohn Choe

This is going on viral on Facebook today and it's unfortunately wrong. Ukrainian drone strikes on Yandex data centers in Russia did not cut

Is Zelensky right to say data centre strikes have taken down Russian bots?

Experts say there is no evidence that Russian trolls have been affected by Ukraine’s Yandex attacks.

Russia's Yandex bot traffic nearly eliminated overnight after Ukraine drone strikes cripple multiple of 'Russia's Google' data centers — Ukraine intensifies bombing of Yandex data centers in response to Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv data centers

The world is getting a break from Russian bots thanks to Kyiv.

Did Ukrainian strikes on Russian datacentres reduce online disinformation?

While some viral online graphs suggest less bot activity, Zelenskyy’s claims of improved social media discourse do not entirely pass muster

Zelenskyy Says Yandex Strikes Crippled Pro-Kremlin Bots But Tech Experts Question Evidence

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine's recent attacks on Russian tech giant Yandex’s data centers have resulted in fewer Internet bots promoting pro-Kremlin hate, a claim that has been disputed by many technology researchers.

Fact-checking an engagement drop on MAGA pages because of the Yandex data center strike | Joohn Choe

Zelenskyy tweet: https://x.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/2109602415397749044?s=20 Res Futura Data House tweet: https://x.com/Polityka_wSieci/status

The Yandex outage probably didn’t blitz Russian bots

Not the bots you’re probably picturing, that is.

Zelenskyy: less bots, hostility on social networks after strikes on Yandex data centers

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that following Ukrainian responses targeting the data centers of the Russian company Yandex, there are fewer bots, provocations, and hostility on social media platforms.

Yandex bot traffic drop isn’t a Russian bot farm collapse

0.4% Yandex bot traffic drop reflects stalled web crawling, not proof that Russian troll farms went offline. Read what the data shows