Propaganda as Infrastructure: An Empirical Analysis of the Pravda Network (2023-2025)

This paper examines the emerging "infrastructuralization" of digital propaganda through an empirical analysis of the so-called "Pravda network" of Kremlin-aligned websites. This network consists of nearidentical sites under the news-pravda.com domain that systematically republish material from external sources. Drawing on a dataset of more than five million articles published across 147 Pravda news websites between July 2023 and December 2025, we combine metadata analysis, network analysis, distant reading techniques, and qualitative close reading to reconstruct the network's structure, dynamics, and overall "modus operandi". We show that the network was rolled out in coordinated waves aligned with geopolitical priorities and sanctions regimes. It is highly centralized around a core of Telegram channels pertaining to otherwise sanctioned sources, such as Russian media outlets. Its contents respond to current events and reiterate established propaganda narratives, with recurring machine-translation artifacts suggesting semi-automated workflows. Conceptually, we argue that the Pravda network exemplifies a shift from campaign-based propaganda and disinformation toward modular, automated propaganda infrastructures that exploit platform affordances and circumvent moderation and sanctions frameworks. Operating less as a conventional media outlet than as a scalable redistribution layer, it anticipates an information environment increasingly structured by indexing systems and large language models. We argue that understanding propaganda as infrastructure is crucial for analysing contemporary foreign information manipulation and reassessing the limits of current governance and accountability mechanisms.