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... Thirty-four sites that generate more than one million web visits per month linked to Pravda network articles as reliable sources. Articles which treated Pravda network links as legitimate sources appeared in news outlets such as The Atlantic, Politico, Forbes and the Denver Gazette, as well as on high-traffic commentary sites such as the Gateway Pundit and the Jacobin.

ISD also found popular sites providing decontextualized links to Pravda network articles. Fifteen sites with more than one million web visits a month referenced the Russian origins of the link without connecting it to an information operation. These included The Washington Post, Newsweek, Fortune and the Des Moines Register.

NewsGuard was the only site with more than a million monthly visits that provided a properly contextualized link to a Pravda network article. Other sites that provided this information were either think tanks or research institutes such as the Atlantic Council and the German Marshall Fund, as well as fact checkers.

The disparity in webpages that treat the Pravda network as legitimate compared to those that properly contextualize its content enables the network to operate with minimal scrutiny, limiting awareness of its bias and intent. ISD found that webpages with legitimizing links gained more than 22,000 engagements across Facebook, X, Reddit and Pinterest. By comparison, webpages that properly contextualized links were less popular, with roughly 9,500 engagements across those same platforms.
Pravda network links appear in every corner of the internet

ISD found that webpages from across the media landscape linked to the Pravda network, from reputable news outlets to personal blogs. However, more than 75 percent of all reviewed webpages belonged to “commentary” sites, which analysts defined broadly to categorize sites that primarily publish opinion, analysis or other forms of perspective (regardless of the size of the page or ideological leanings). Nearly 20 percent of webpages belonged to news outlets, fact checkers, academic institutions or non-profits. The remaining five percent of webpages belonged to Russian state-linked sites, such as RT....