The reelection campaign of President Petro Poroshenko is utilizing the services of Ukrainian digital agency Postmen to run a “black PR” ad campaign against election frontrunner Volodymyr Zelenskiy on social media, according to an investigation by TheBabel, a news site with ownership ties to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky.
While it is impossible to know the exact cost of the campaign, TheBabel estimates that the campaign of Facebook ads in just five groups cost at least Hr 2 million (roughly $75,000).
The revelation comes amid a sustained campaign of negative social media ads portraying comedian-turned-politicians Zelenskiy as drug addict who will direct Ukraine back into Russia’s orbit. In a number of cases, the “black PR” has even crossed the line into clear disinformation, according to experts.
Previously, the Kyiv Post reported that domestic disinformation had largely out shadowed foreign disinformation during the 2019 presidential election.
Read more: Disinformation, ‘black PR’ emerge before April 21 runoff election
TheBabel journalist Yevhen Spirin used his Facebook account’s ad settings page to determine which political groups sent him the most advertisements between in late March and early April, the most active period of the president campaign. This led him to President Poroshenko’s official account, two pro-Poroshenko pages, and five other pages with negative ads aimed at other top contenders in the election’s first round March 31: former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, former Defense Minister Anatoliy Grytsenko, and Zelenskiy.
Once the first round ended, the five pages critical of other candidates then turned their attention to Zelenskiy, the presidential frontrunner and Poroshenko’s opponent in the second round.
According to theBabel, the anti-Zelenskiy pages were significantly more popular than the pro-Porosheneko ones, which largely shared endorsements of the president from prominent Ukrainians, promoted his pro-Western policy positions, and called on social media users to support him.
The news site also found that one of the Facebook groups in question posted a controversial ad that showed Zelenskiy being hit by a truck. Previously, Poroshenko denied any connection to the video.
That National Police have said they will investigate that ad. Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, whom some believe opposes Poroshenko, characterized the ad as a threat against a public figure.
In March 2019, Facebook made information about who pays for political ads available to the public. As a result, Spirin examined the advertiser information provided with these ads.
There he discovered that all eight groups were connected to one woman, Hanna Sipacheva. TheBabel found her on Facebook, where she listed Postmen as her workplace.
TheBabel reached out to both the woman in question and Postmen. The former did not respond to phone calls or messages. The latter declined to comment, although a company representative said they might comment after April 21, the day of the runoff vote.
The site also reached out to the Poroshenko campaign headquarters, where Volodymyr Horkovenko, deputy head of the Presidential Administration’s information politics division, confirmed that the campaign had indeed worked with Postmen. He did not respond to questions about whether the campaign used Postmen for “black PR.”
Postmen has previously worked with Poroshenko’s allies. Between 2016 and 2018, the Petro Poroshenko Bloc party paid Postmen Hr 4.7 million ($176,000) to run ad campaigns on Facebook and make videos for the party, theBabel reported citing publicly available information.
In 2015, the company also ran a “black PR” campaign against Sergii Leshchenko, a pro-reform Poroshenko Bloc lawmaker who openly criticized his party and the president, in Facebook groups, a former Postmen employee told theBabel on condition of anonymity. Leshchenko publicly announced that he left Poroshenko Bloc’s party and is now part of Zelenskiy’s team.
Oligarch Kolomoisky, a businessman with a long-standing conflict with Poroshenko, is among the investors in TheBabel. The site’s two top, Gleb Gusev and Ksenia Kobernyk, have ties to other media organizations connected to Kolomoisky.
Read more: Poroshenko and Kolomoisky rivalry takes center stage
Presidential frontrunner Zelenskiy’s television shows air on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel, raising concerns about the degree of influence Kolomoisky will have on a potential Zelenskiy administration. An investigative report also showed that Zelenskiy frequently traveled to and from Geneva and Tel-Aviv, cities where Kolomoisky has resided for the past two years.
However, the presidential candidate has denied that his ties with the oligarch extend beyond business.
