This report examines the coordinated Russian Matryoshka bot network malign influence campaign of February 2026. It combines cross-platform narrative analysis, network amplification mapping, and visual-content forensics.

Russian information operations increasingly rely on AI and leverage large networks of inauthentic social media accounts, synthetic media, and coordinated cross-platform amplification. High-profile scandals - such as the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein—are frequently repurposed to discredit Western political leaders.

The Matryoshka operation demonstrates the growing sophistication of Russian influence operations. These campaigns integrate bot networks, fabricated media artifacts, and synchronized cross-platform dissemination, using emotionally charged scandals to support geopolitical messaging.

This report analyzes the 3 January 2024 bombing in Kerman as both a mass-casualty attack and a catalytic information event. It integrates geospatial indicators, narrative attribution patterns, and cross-platform information flows to assess how competing actors shaped and contested meaning in the aftermath across regional and transnational audiences.

On 3 January 2024, twin bombings near the grave of Qasem Soleimani in Kerman killed more than 90 people during a mass commemoration ceremony marking the fourth anniversary of his death in a U.S. drone strike. The attack was later claimed by Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), triggering an immediate information contest over attribution and strategic meaning.

The event illustrates how violent incidents function as both operational acts and narrative inflection points. ISIS-K framed the bombing as a sectarian strike against a Shi’a ritual gathering, while Iranian authorities embedded the event within their “axis of resistance” narrative and broader confrontation with Israel and the United States.

This EdgeTheory Narrative Insight report examines how political legitimacy was contested in real time following the February 28, 2026 U.S.–Israeli strike that killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and senior IRGC officials.

Drawing on cross-platform collection—including Telegram, X, state-aligned media, diaspora networks, and diplomatic channels—the report tracks how narratives fragmented within minutes of the strike. Competing frames quickly took shape: martyrdom and resistance, regime decapitation, escalation warnings, sovereignty violations, and doubt about the reported death.

The analysis details how AI-generated imagery, recycled combat footage, religious symbolism, and coordinated state messaging accelerated distrust and conflict-aversion narratives—often shaping perception before verification cycles stabilized.

The event illustrates how modern military operations now unfold simultaneously across kinetic and informational domains, where legitimacy is contested in real time.

This EdgeTheory Narrative Intelligence report examines how the nomination of Nouri Al-Maliki for a third term is reshaping Iraq’s information environment — and what that reveals about Iranian influence, sectarian risk, and U.S. strategic exposure.

Drawing on narrative volume tracking, emotional language analysis, and amplification mapping across Iraqi, Kurdish, militia-affiliated, and international sources, the report identifies spikes in anger-laden and instability-focused narratives following the announcement. Coverage surrounding U.S. pressure, Kurdish political negotiations, ISIS prisoner transfers, and security transition timelines demonstrates how perception battles are unfolding alongside political maneuvering.

Rather than viewing the nomination as a routine leadership contest, the analysis shows how narrative dynamics are amplifying instability risk — potentially influencing coalition negotiations, protest mobilization, and international policy response long before a prime minister is confirmed.

This report synthesizes geospatial indicators, narrative attribution, and networked information flows related to Islamic State recruitment, propaganda dissemination, and operational signaling in the contemporary digital environment. Drawing on multi-platform collection streams—including Telegram channels, X posts, online newsletters, open-source media reporting, and extremist-affiliated publications—the analysis maps how jihadist narratives originate, adapt, and amplify across regions and audiences.

This EdgeTheory report synthesizes geospatial, narrative attribution, and network analysis surrounding Chinese military activity around Taiwan in late December 2025 and early January 2026, with a focus on the large-scale "Justice Mission 2025" exercises.

Drawing from multi-platform collection streams—including websites, social media actors, RSS feeds, and X posts—the brief maps how competing narratives about PLA drills, deterrence signaling, sovereignty assertion, and regional escalation propagate across the global information environment.

The report employs EdgeTheory's network-detection, emotion-classification, and narrative-amplification tools to trace how state-affiliated amplifiers, Taiwan-focused security monitors, U.S.-based analysts, Russian-aligned commentators, and other actors interact and reinforce messaging. In doing so, it provides a layered view of how information power, emotional framing, and geopolitical competition intersect to shape public understanding of the exercises and the risks of broader Asia-Pacific friction.

This EdgeTheory report synthesizes geospatial, narrative attribution, and network analysis surrounding the 2025 Thailand-Cambodia border conflict, specifically focusing on pro-Chinese narratives that position Beijing as a stabilizing mediator amid escalating clashes. Drawing from multi-platform collection streams, including websites, social media actors, RSS feeds, and X posts, this brief maps how competing narratives about mutual blame, failed ceasefires, and geopolitical proxy elements propagate across the global information environment. The report uses EdgeTheory’s network-detection and narrative-amplification tools to trace how nationalist and diplomatic actors organize, interact, and reinforce messaging—particularly alarmist pro-Thai claims of Cambodian aggression versus skeptical pro-Cambodian depictions of Thai opportunism—providing a layered view of how information power shapes perceptions of regional instability and the risk of wider US-China rivalry.

This EdgeTheory Narrative Intelligence report examines the 2026 Iranian protest cycle through the lens of information power, narrative competition, and foreign influence—revealing how perceptions of instability, legitimacy, and escalation are actively shaped in the global information environment.

Drawing on geospatial analysis, narrative attribution, and network detection across websites, social media, RSS feeds, and X, the report maps how narratives around economic collapse, state violence, foreign interference, and regime change propagate and reinforce one another. The analysis traces how state media, diaspora influencers, foreign-aligned information actors, and automated networks interact—using emotional framing and coordinated amplification to shape public understanding and policy risk.

Rather than treating protests as isolated events, the report shows how narrative dominance has become a decisive factor in crisis escalation, influencing legitimacy and international response long before ground truth can be independently verified.