“What is it with all these older accounts going abusively pro-Russia?”
Sleeper/puppet accounts. Also part of what’s called “The Delphi Technique” of making a scant minority seem like a majority as a method of forming public opinion and national policy.
You’ll also notice a corresponding decrease in activity from the more familiar Putinista accounts. This is because the people behind the accounts are now using multiple accounts to give a false impression of a mass movement when in fact it’s just a relative few individuals trying to pass themselves off as a chorus.
I’ve noticed a few accounts that were active at the start of the Ukraine war haven’t posted in months.
Meanwhile accounts that had been focused on topics like vaccines and ‘green energy’ or election fraud seem to have suddenly discovered a rabid passion for supporting Putin’s war of conquest.
They’ve also suddenly taken a notably anti-American turn that they never had before.
Add to this they often use the same buzzwords and narratives all at the same time. And then they stop using those same buzzwords and narratives at the same time the rest of us notice them.
Case in point: “Globohomo”
Used to be the Putinistas couldn’t get through a single post without using this term. Then the rest of us noticed that the people who most popularized everything gay on FR were Putin supporters. And then we called them out on it and they stopped using it almost all at the same time. This we see the Russian trolls sometimes switching up to insults about a person’s mental or emotional state - and these are serious insults in Russia where people were often imprisoned without trial based upon false charges of mental or emotional instability.
In Russia such an insult can often be perceived as a death threat.
Now with the Russian army on its heels and starting to give ground to Ukraine and in some places >>> without a fight <<< their messaging has become much more intense and often rife with unprovoked personal insults.
Those insults are even more conspicuous when they come from accounts that have no history of posting personal insults at other FReepers.
A simpler, more plausible explanation is that the FR commentariat of late has gone down the tubes and largely does not know right from wrong.
You, for example.
Some of the pests are probably Russians. Others simply pay for the privilege of insulting others. They’re spoiled rotten and addicted to bothering people.
Here’s another likely motive behind some of the anti-Ukraine, pro-Russia comments. In a news aggregator, I just saw this.
“No to war and surging prices
World Socialist Web Site”