The Incirlik disinformation campaign failed but demonstrates the unique way in which Russia can influence foreign audiences. Incirlik stories on RT and Sputnik news were rapidly promulgated by a curious group of English speakers on Twitter.

One of the first English tweets promoting the Incirlik story came from a Twitter user under the name Marcel Sardo—an account previously identified for instigating pro-Russian campaigns. From this initial tweet, a cascade of Twitter accounts rebroadcast RT and Sputnik Incirlik articles adding commentary and hashtags. Accounts initially broadcasting the #Incirlik story from seemingly different locales and online communities quickly merged in the first 90 minutes after release of the RT and Sputnik news story. An increasingly common social media pattern over the past two years as Russia has become more aggressive both on the ground and online as tensions ratchet in a renewed Cold War with the West.

The evolving pattern of retweets reveal a close-knit network and circular information flow where key amplifiers re-broadcast the base #Incirlik story adding commentary and fomenting fears. And here’s the odd part: many members of this network seem to be Trump fans. Some of the top hashtags attached to tweets broadcasting #Incirlik #Turkey were #nato, #coup, #benghazi, #trumppence16. Each of these add-on hashtags pointed to recently hot button issues in the U.S. Presidential contest. Bios of these English speaking accounts retweeting the #Incirlik story commonly included the words “god,” “country,” “family,” “conservative,” “Christian,” “America,” “constitution,” and “military.” Two or three tweets called for prayers for U.S. service members potentially in harms way, suggesting Americans were again being overrun in another Benghazi type scenario. More than 10 percent of English speakers citing #Incirlik contained the word “Trump” in their user profile information.

From the public view, it’s difficult to determine which of these English accounts are real Americans supporting the Trump campaign or instead manufactured accounts inciting support for the Trump campaign and fomenting dissent amongst the U.S. electorate. This melding of Russian-friendly accounts and Trumpkins has been going on for some time.... More importantly, the propaganda effort comes alongside accusations of Russia meddling in the U.S. election on behalf of Trump.