Pushing suspected Russian disinformation

X suspends 15 accounts pushing suspected Russian disinformation about the midterms

By Marshall Cohen

The social media platform X has suspended more than a dozen accounts promoting suspected Russian disinformation about the midterms, though some influential accounts are still active, a disinformation watchdog says.

Russian interference in the 2026 midterms has been limited so far, experts say. But they’ve noticed a recent spike from suspected Russian-connected accounts on social media, pushing false claims about multiple Democratic candidates running for Senate.

Disinformation experts said the suspensions on X, formerly Twitter, occurred Thursday and included some accounts with over 100,000 followers. But many of the most influential accounts peddling the disinformation were still online as of Friday.

“X has shown that they have a beat on this, to some degree,” said Bret Schafer, senior director at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which flagged the suspensions. “A lot of the covert Russian posts that we’ve seen go up have been taken down quickly. But other parts of the infrastructure have been left up.”

The online activity is similar to past disinformation efforts during the 2024 election cycle that US intelligence agencies believe were linked to Russian government operatives.

CNN has reached out to X seeking comment about the takedowns.