Digital Sovereignty

A Fake Think Tank Targeted France And Germany With AI

OpenAI shut down a Russian network that used ChatGPT to write fake think-tank reports rating France and Germany for the Kremlin. Here is how it worked.

Digital SovereigntyBy Servola Tech Desk2026-08-252 min read

AI-assisted, edited by humans. | Editor-in-Chief: Leon Soliman | Editorial standards

A Fake Think Tank Targeted France And Germany With AI

What OpenAI Actually Found

OpenAI disclosed on August 25, 2026 that it had disrupted a Russian-operated network using ChatGPT to run a fake foreign-policy think tank called the International Burke Institute. The site was registered in February 2025, presented itself as Israeli, published English-language commentary, and posted that content across Substack, Telegram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn. The operators used VPNs to keep accessing ChatGPT despite OpenAI's country-level restriction on Russia.

The centerpiece of the operation was a "sovereignty index" that scored countries against each other, consistently favorable to Russia and critical of the West. OpenAI flagged the index's reports on France, Germany, the United States and the EU specifically for crossing from analysis into polemic.

The Byline Was The Product

The operation's credibility rested entirely on invented experts, not on the writing itself. The site falsely listed academics including Francis Fukuyama and Noam Chomsky as contributors, and neither had any involvement.

OpenAI reviewed 36 articles published under the site's named "experts" between September 2025 and May 2026. Thirty-four of them were plagiarized from other sources online and republished under the fabricated bylines, in some cases misattributed to real people who never wrote them.

Why France And Germany, Specifically

France and Germany were not incidental targets; they were the two EU member states the sovereignty index singled out for direct criticism, alongside its coverage of the United States and the wider EU. The index format let the operation dress up country-specific criticism as neutral scoring, a genre that is harder to flag automatically than a direct propaganda post because it reads like policy analysis rather than a political statement.

What This Means For European Communications Teams

Any European business running press monitoring, PR or content moderation now has a named, documented case of AI-laundered state disinformation aimed specifically at French and German public debate. Unfamiliar think-tank rankings or expert commentary with unverifiable institutional details are worth checking before amplifying, especially country-scoring formats presented as neutral data.

OpenAI's disclosure itself functions as a threat-intelligence resource: the takedown method, VPN evasion of a country ban, fabricated academic bylines and plagiarism-with-reattribution, is now documented and repeatable across other AI vendors' enforcement work.

Frequently asked questions

What did OpenAI disclose on August 25, 2026?

OpenAI said it disrupted a Russian-operated network that used ChatGPT via VPNs to evade its Russia access ban, producing content for a fake think tank called the International Burke Institute.

What was the International Burke Institute?

A fake foreign-policy website posing as an Israeli think tank, registered in February 2025, that published a sovereignty index rating countries favorably toward Russia and critically toward the West, including France, Germany, the US and the EU.

Were Francis Fukuyama and Noam Chomsky really involved?

No. OpenAI said the site falsely listed both academics as contributors; of 36 reviewed articles credited to its experts, 34 were plagiarized from other sources under invented bylines.

What should European businesses take from this?

Treat unfamiliar think-tank rankings or expert commentary with unverifiable institutional details as a red flag, especially country-scoring formats, since OpenAI's disclosure shows this genre is now a documented vector for state-linked disinformation.

OpenAI did the identification work for anyone reading this: a real disinformation operation, aimed at real European countries, built entirely on invented experts and plagiarized text. The pattern it exposed, VPN evasion, fabricated bylines, a scoring format dressed up as analysis, is now a checklist, not a mystery.

OpenAIRussiadisinformationFranceGermanyAI safetyinfluence operations

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