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Internet Research Agency: Russia's Troll Farm That Reached 126 Million Americans

The IRA ran its US operation on a monthly budget exceeding $1.25 million by September 2016, organized into graphics, data-analysis, IT, and finance departments — and Facebook later estimated its content reached roughly 126 million Americans.

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FILED SEP 7, 2026 · UPDATED SEP 7, 2026 · 8 SOURCES

The Troll Factory: Structure and Operations

By September 2016, the IRA's monthly budget for its US influence operation — internally code-named "Project Lakhta" — exceeded 73 million rubles (over $1.25 million), according to the federal indictment. The agency was organized into graphics, data-analysis, search-engine-optimization, IT, and finance departments, with specialists working day and night shifts to keep posting around the clock. [1]

Facebook later estimated that content from IRA-linked pages reached roughly 126 million Americans on its platform between January 2015 and August 2017, the company's general counsel told the Senate Judiciary Committee in October 2017. [8]

In February 2023, Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin admitted to building the operation, telling The Moscow Times: "I was never just a financier of the Internet Research Agency. I invented it, I created it, I ran it for a long time." He was killed six months later, in August 2023, when his private plane crashed outside Moscow. [2][3]

The "Both Sides" Strategy

The IRA's approach was to amplify both sides of divisive issues at once — not to help one side win, but to maximize conflict between Americans. Analysts who reviewed the data Facebook and Twitter gave the Senate found IRA account teams posing as activists across the political spectrum, with accounts pushing opposite ideologies sometimes run from the very same IP address. [4]

The clearest example played out in Houston on May 21, 2016: an IRA-run Facebook page called Heart of Texas advertised a rally to "Stop Islamification of Texas" outside the Islamic Da'wah Center, while a separate IRA page, United Muslims of America, advertised a competing rally at the identical time and place. Real Americans on both sides showed up, and the confrontation that followed was engineered, Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr said, "for the bargain price of $200." [4][5]

Targeting Black Americans

Of the audience segments the IRA built its Facebook ad campaigns around, the one targeting African-American users drew more ads than any other identity group — 841 ads, more than double the next-largest targeted segment — in the dataset Facebook and Twitter turned over to the Senate. [4]

The IRA's "Blacktivist" page, which posed as a grassroots activist account, was one of the operation's biggest hits, drawing more than 11.4 million combined likes, shares, reactions, and comments. In the run-up to the election it pushed Black users toward disengagement, posting lines like "NOT VOTING is a way to exercise our rights" on November 3, 2016. [4]

Instagram turned out to be the IRA's most effective platform overall: its posts drew nearly 185 million likes, well ahead of the roughly 39 million likes the operation's Facebook posts received. [4]

The Mueller Indictments

On February 16, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office indicted 13 Russian individuals and 3 Russian companies — including the Internet Research Agency itself and its funding vehicle, Concord Management and Consulting — on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States by obstructing the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission, the Justice Department, and the State Department. [1]

Ongoing Operations

The IRA's playbook outlived its indictment. In 2022, ProPublica identified a pro-Kremlin propaganda network across Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram that had sprung up in late 2021 and flooded social media with pro-invasion messaging within hours of Russia's assault on Ukraine. The accounts posted on a schedule tracking Russian business hours and went quiet on Russian holidays — a pattern Clemson University disinformation researcher Darren Linvill said carried "every indicator... to suggest they originate with the Internet Research Agency." [7]

The US Treasury had already sanctioned the IRA's financier, Yevgeny Prigozhin, in 2021 for directing disinformation efforts aimed at the 2020 election as well. His public admission that he built the operation came in February 2023, six months before he was killed in a plane crash. [6][2][3]

SOURCES · 8

  1. [1]Internet Research Agency Indictment (Full Text) — wikisource.org

    72/100 · en.wikisource.org

  2. [2]The Moscow Times - Prigozhin Admits Founding IRA — themoscowtimes.com

    72/100 · themoscowtimes.com

  3. [3]CBS News - Prigozhin Killed in Plane Crash — cbsnews.com

    88/100 · cbsnews.com

  4. [4]Oxford/Graphika - The IRA, Social Media & Political Polarization Report — oii.ox.ac.uk

    90/100 · demtech.oii.ox.ac.uk

  5. [5]Texas Tribune - Russian-Organized Houston Protests — texastribune.org

    72/100 · texastribune.org

  6. [6]Treasury Dept Sanctions — treasury.gov

    96/100 · home.treasury.gov

  7. [7]ProPublica - Anti-Ukraine Propaganda Network — propublica.org

    92/100 · propublica.org

  8. [8]NBC News - Facebook Testimony, 126 Million Reached — nbcnews.com

    88/100 · nbcnews.com

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