Reform UK figures see social media engagement drop after strikes on Russia DCs

Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian data centres severely disrupted Yandex’s infrastructure, cutting bot traffic hosted on its network to just 0.4% of the peak HTTP requests recorded over the prior two weeks, according to bot analysts cited by Tom’s Hardware. The strikes reportedly crippled Yandex - which handles over 70% of search traffic in Russia - and silenced automated accounts tied to Russia-linked operations such as Storm-1516. Observers note a pronounced fall in bot-driven amplification across Europe, with major drops in engagement around narratives promoted to audiences in France and Germany, and reduced activity around Germany’s AfD.

The same collapse in bot amplification shows up in UK social media metrics for Reform UK figures. Richard Tice’s posts failed to reach triple figures for reposts or comments and drew far fewer views than before; Zia Yusuf’s policy clip reached about 8,000 views after three hours versus more than 100,000 for earlier viral posts; Nigel Farage, with 2.3 million followers, saw a policy clip reach roughly 60,000 views after three hours and other posts struggle below typical six-figure view counts. Taken together, the data and these engagement drops support the argument that Russian-hosted bots materially inflated far-right social reach, and their removal has noticeably quieted those channels - summed up by Zelensky’s remark that it’s “a little easier to breathe” online.