For a month, celebrity deepfakes have urged Americans not to vote Democratic; researchers and US intelligence point to Russia

This piece has two parts: a sourced news report, followed by the Sardaana News editorial position.

What happened

Since early September 2026, videos in which Hollywood stars appear to urge Americans not to vote for Democrats in the 3 November midterms have been circulating online, Meduza reports. They include Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts and Cher; other clips feature Sarah Jessica Parker, Christopher Lloyd, Ed Begley Jr. and Emma Caulfield. As MS NOW reported, the footage is real — lifted, for example, from a Gucci campaign or personalised Cameo videos — while the voices are AI clones. The clips carry unauthorised CNN logos and push the hashtag #AllDemocratsAreCriminals.

Scale and platforms

Bloomberg reviewed 130 videos and doctored newspaper front pages published by the network from 10 September to 9 October, most flagged by the anonymous research group Antibot4Navalny and corroborated by Graphika and dTeam. X is the main venue, with Bluesky and TikTok also used. Bots inflate views — up to 200,000 in the first hour before counts flatline, with almost no likes or reposts. X suspended 80% of the accounts Bloomberg saw, but new ones replace them.

Who is behind it

Researchers attribute the clips to the Russian state-backed operation Matryoshka (Operation Overload, Storm-1679). Separately, on 20 October, deepfake videos appeared on X in which a supposed former student accuses Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico of sexual assault; one post drew over 1.3 million views (Meduza). Graphika assessed “with high confidence” that Russia’s Storm-1516 produced them; Clemson University’s Darren Linvill, ISD and the Gnida Project said the same (AFP, NBC News). NewsGuard reported the account was created in September with Romania as its signup country (PolitiFact).

On 21 October Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrats on the intelligence committees, said a classified intelligence briefing showed Russia running a covert influence campaign against Democrats and pro-Ukraine candidates of both parties (Politico, Reuters). Warner cited fake AI ads targeting Talarico and Sen. Jon Ossoff. They saw no sign of attempts to hack election infrastructure. Moscow has previously denied meddling in US elections.

Context

In 2017 US intelligence concluded that Putin ordered an influence campaign against the 2016 election, including the Internet Research Agency troll farm (ODNI, 2017). In 2021 ODNI found that Putin authorised influence operations in 2020 as well (ODNI, 2021). On 1 November 2024 ODNI, the FBI and CISA said “Russian influence actors” manufactured fake election videos (joint statement). Earlier on Sardaana News: UAE bots and Russian information attacks.

Sardaana News editorial position

Russia is openly meddling in the US election race that ends on 3 November 2026. The celebrity deepfakes and the fakes against candidates continue the same Kremlin disinformation machine that ran in 2016, 2020 and 2024. Platforms, X above all, must take these networks down faster than they regrow, and US authorities must name the culprit publicly and punish it.