A Telegram channel claiming to be run by a woman living in Denmark is spreading distorted and misleading stories about Danish politics to Russian audiences.
The activity has been uncovered in a fact-check and investigation by the Danish fact-checking outlet TjekDet, a partner in the Nordic fact-checking collaboration NORDIS. The story shows how a small Telegram account appears to be amplified by well-known figures in the Russian propaganda ecosystem.
Although the channel itself has only a few hundred subscribers, its messages have reached hundreds of thousands of viewers after being shared by prominent pro-Kremlin accounts.
Experts say the pattern resembles coordinated information operations designed not necessarily to change election results, but to undermine trust in democratic institutions.
A “Danish woman” on Telegram
The Telegram channel, translated into Danish as “The Danish woman around the corner,” emerged in January during the political tensions surrounding Greenland.
The profile picture shows an animated woman with a Danish flag in her hair and a small Viking helmet. The account posts daily about Danish politics, often referring to current stories in Danish media.
Some posts appear neutral, but others distort political debates and policy proposals.
For example, a recent Social Democratic proposal for a wealth tax is framed as a necessity because Denmark has donated large sums of money to Ukraine. In another post, the candidacy of Liberal Party politician Troels Lund Poulsen for prime minister is criticized on the grounds that he allegedly lacks a higher education degree.
According to Jeanette Serritzlev, a military analyst at the Danish Defence Academy, the channel fits into a broader pattern of Russian propaganda.
“There is an imbalance in the fact that such a small channel has such close contact with a much larger Telegram channel. That strengthens the indication that these profiles are part of a network that can amplify each other’s messages,” she says.
Small channel, powerful amplification
At the time of writing, the Telegram channel has just 362 subscribers.
However, its messages reach a much larger audience because they are shared by major pro-Russian accounts.
One of them belongs to Nikolai Starikov, a Russian commentator with about 92,000 Telegram followers. In late January he announced a joint project with the Danish-language channel, sharing its content with his own audience.
Starikov has previously been identified on the Ukrainian sanctions monitoring site War-Sanctions as a public figure spreading pro-Russian narratives.
TjekDet’s investigation shows that posts from the Danish-language account have also been shared by Vladimir Soloviev, a well-known propagandist from Russian state television with more than 1.1 million followers on Telegram, as well as by Dmitry Vasilets, another pro-Kremlin influencer.
Because of this amplification, the posts from the small Telegram channel have collectively been viewed more than half a million times.
Narratives targeting Danish politics
In recent weeks the account has increasingly focused on the Danish parliamentary election scheduled for 24 March.
One post claims that Danish public broadcaster DR is already preparing an excuse in case Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen loses the election, referencing a security assessment warning that foreign powers – particularly Russia – could attempt to influence the vote.
Another post criticizes Troels Lund Poulsen’s political career by highlighting that he did not complete a university degree.
The channel has also shared graphics portraying Frederiksen pouring gold coins onto Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, suggesting that Denmark’s wealth tax debate is driven by the country’s financial support for Ukraine.
According to Serritzlev, these messages closely mirror narratives often used by the Kremlin.
“The goal is not necessarily to influence the election outcome directly. It is about throwing sand into the machinery and irritating the politicians in power – especially Mette Frederiksen, because she has shown strong determination in supporting Ukraine,” she explains.
The narratives also support a broader storyline promoted by Russian authorities that European democracies are corrupt or dysfunctional.
From Telegram to AI chatbots
Some of the content shared by the Telegram channel eventually appears on websites belonging to the Pravda propaganda network, which republishes pro-Kremlin material across hundreds of domains and in multiple languages.
These sites automatically copy articles and social-media posts from Kremlin-aligned sources.
A previous investigation by NORDIS found that AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot occasionally reproduced information from these Pravda sites when answering questions in Nordic languages.
“If the posts only existed on an encrypted service like Telegram, they could not easily be used to feed chatbots,” Serritzlev says.
“But when they are republished on Pravda sites, the information can end up appearing in Google searches or chatbot answers.”
Part of a larger propaganda network
Posts from the Telegram account frequently include the hashtag #InfoDefenseAuthor.
TjekDet has identified references indicating that the channel may be connected to the InfoDefense network, a coordinated propaganda initiative that operates Telegram channels in dozens of languages.
The network reportedly includes channels run by volunteers in more than 30 countries and was launched after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 by Russian blogger Yury Podolyaka, who has millions of followers online.
Despite repeated attempts, TjekDet has not been able to identify who operates the Telegram channel claiming to be “the Danish woman around the corner,” or whether the person behind it is actually located in Denmark.