The Russian campaign also released footage designed to resemble genuine news reports warning of credible threats of violence at the Paris Games, Microsoft found.
A faked report purported to have come from Euronews, in Brussels, falsely “reported” that Parisians were buying property insurance in case of terror attacks affecting their homes.
Terror fears
In another sham news clip impersonating France 24, the French broadcaster, the Russian campaign falsely claimed that 24 per cent of tickets bought for Olympic events had been returned because of terror fears.
Another fake video claiming to come from the CIA and France’s main intelligence agency warned potential attendees to steer clear of the 2024 Olympics because of the risk of a terror attack.
Another group, which Microsoft called Storm-1099 but is commonly known as Doppelganger, has also joined the campaign.
“The most worrisome disinformation advanced by pro-Russian actors has sought to impersonate militant organisations and fabricate threats to the Games amidst the Israel-Hamas conflict,” Microsoft said.
Some images depicted the attacks at the 1972 Munich Olympics, where an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organisation killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team and a West German police officer.
Russia’s history of criticising Olympics
Microsoft said Russia, like the Soviet Union before it, had a long history of criticising the Olympics.
“If they cannot participate in or win the Games, then they seek to undercut, defame and degrade the international competition in the minds of participants, spectators and global audiences,” the report said. “The Soviet Union boycotted the 1984 Summer Games held in Los Angeles and sought to influence other countries to do the same.”
Microsoft said the online influence campaign picked up shortly after Russia was banned from the 2024 Games over the war in Ukraine.
The committee decided that qualifying athletes from Russia and Belarus, its close ally, may compete in the 2024 Summer Games only as “individual neutral athletes”, prohibited from flying their national flags.
Microsoft warned that the smear campaign would very probably gather steam as the Games approached.
“Predominantly French-language activities will likely expand to English, German and other languages to maximise visibility and traction online and the use of generative AI will also likely increase,” wrote Clint Watts, the general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre.
Three arrested in Paris
The Microsoft report emerged as police in Paris arrested three people on Sunday: a Bulgarian, a Ukrainian and a German, after five coffins were found near the Eiffel Tower draped in French flags with the inscription “French soldiers in Ukraine”.
French authorities have suspected foreign – notably Russian – interference in domestic affairs in several other recent incidents, including last month when red hand graffiti was painted on to France’s Holocaust Memorial.
The three suspects in that case are believed to have fled abroad.
Mr Macron has invoked Russian wrath by insisting that the spectre of sending Western troops to Ukraine would “legitimately” arise if Russia broke through Ukrainian front lines and Kyiv made such a request.