33% of Americans trust Russian disinformation—NewsGuard-YouGov survey

According to a nationwide survey in the US, Americans are deceived by Kremlin disinformation claims at astonishing rates, and they also tend to trust bogus statements on other topics.

Fake news stories, most of which are produced by Russia’s powerful disinformation machine, seem to be winning in the ongoing conflict between the truth and the fake.

According to a nationwide YouGov survey conducted for NewsGuard, one-third of Americans think that at least one of falsehoods, spread by Russian propaganda media, is true.

Ten false claims that have gone viral online were presented to respondents in the survey, which was distributed to a representative sample of 1,000 Americans. Three of these claims came from or were mainly disseminated by Russian propaganda outlets. For each assertion, respondents were asked to indicate if they believed it to be accurate, untrue, or unclear.

The false claims were chosen from NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprints, an ongoing data stream of online claims that have been shown to be false.

According to the survey results, Americans are unable to consistently recognize Russian fake news stories as false and believe Kremlin disinformation at a worrying rate.

The findings also demonstrate how susceptible Americans are to believing lies that are disseminated online about various subjects, such as elections, global conflicts, and health issues. Less than 1% of respondents correctly identified all 10 claims as false, while 78% of respondents believed at least one of them. Three false statements that came from or were mostly disseminated by Russian propaganda media channels were shown to survey participants.

Thirty-nine percent thought at least one of the statements was accurate. Only 23.8% of those surveyed correctly recognized all three of the Russian disinformation narratives as untrue.

For instance, the statement that “between 30-50% of U.S. aid money provided to Ukraine has been misappropriated by Ukrainian officials for personal use” was not able to be identified as untrue by 61% of respondents. The assertion, which was first made in an article by the Russian propaganda platform RT (formerly Russia Today) and then disseminated by other state-run sites, was accepted as factual by one in four respondents. This Russian fake was debunked.

The allegation that “Ukraine President Zelensky’s approval rating is down to 4%” was disseminated by Russian official media outlets RT, TASS, RIA Novosti, and Ukraina.ru, and a similar percentage of respondents (64 percent) were unable to recognize it as untrue. Almost one in five Americans agreed with the statement. In truth, no such poll has been issued, and prior polls showed Zelenskyy polling between 57 and 63 percent. This Russian fake was debunked.

The assertion that “Ukraine sold Hamas weapons that were donated to Ukraine by the United States” was accurately classified as untrue by 44% of respondents. This deception began from an unverified social media video and was propagated by high authorities in Russia, including Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council and former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. The assertion was then extensively covered by pro-Kremlin website TopWar.ru, certain U.S.-based websites, and Russian official media outlets, such as Sputnik Africa, Sputnik India, RT, and Ukraina.ru. This Russian fake was debunked.

Russian disinformation tactics targeting Americans have kept on intensifying and become more sophisticated in recent years. NewsGuard’s analysts have documented nearly 300 false claims disseminated by the Kremlin about the war in Ukraine and recently revealed how a Russian-operated network of websites has infiltrated Western AI tools, including the most frequently used chatbots, with Kremlin propaganda assertions.

The survey questioned respondents on false statements across a range of topics, beyond Russian disinformation.

For example, fewer than half of respondents accurately classified as incorrect the claim that COVID-19 vaccinations had killed between 7.3 and 15 million people globally, whereas one in five respondents considered the claim to be genuine. Approved COVID-19 vaccinations are safe and effective, according to data from health organizations and peer-reviewed research.

Nearly half (45 percent) of those polled could not correctly determine as false the claim that Starlink, an internet company owned by Elon Musk, was used to rig the 2024 election for Donald Trump. A similar amount (45 percent) could not identify as untrue the claim that Haitian immigrants stole, slaughtered, and ate dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Both the Starlink claim (14.3 percent) and the claim about Haitians consuming pets (15.6 percent) were deemed true by the same number of people.

Methodology of NewsGuard’s research

• A nationally representative sample of 1,000 Americans aged 18 and over was surveyed as part of a study that NewsGuard commissioned with YouGov in February and March of 2025.
• Ten texts expressing false claims that are circulating online were presented to respondents in the online survey. For each assertion, respondents were asked to select “True,” “False,” or “Not Sure.”
  
  To make sure the survey didn’t unintentionally spread false information, participants were given factual material refuting each allegation after completing it.