Russian propaganda website hit with record ‘pink slime’ payout at High Court
An Uzbek businessman has been awarded £105,000 in damages and £117,663.38 in legal costs after winning a defamation suit against a UK publishing network – the largest publicly reported payout in a so-called ‘pink slime’ case.
A Morning Wire investigation into British publisher 2Trom was presented as evidence in the High Court case after we reported on a series of articles on its websites attacking international businessmen, many located in the former Soviet states. Pink slime refers to outlets that appear to be legitimate publishers but post content used for propaganda or misinformation.
Ovik Mkrtchyan, represented by Carter-Ruck, sued 2Trom and its director Viktor Tokarev over an article published in October 2024 accusing him of leading an Uzbek corruption network, embezzling state funds, laundering money and using the purchase of Asia Alliance Bank to seize state assets.
Mr Justice Fordham accepted that the London Post article – which is still available online – had seriously damaged Mkrtchyan’s reputation and contributed to his companies and a family member losing their banking services. 2Trom failed to contest the case and the judgment was entered by default. The company also failed to defend a 2025 copyright case brought by a photographer over use of his images.
Pink slime explained
As we revealed in our investigation, pink slime journalism is not necessarily aimed at reaching a wide audience, rather it is a tool used to help influence algorithms used by companies including banking compliance firms and to manipulate AI summaries on search engines.
“Coordinated disinformation and smear campaigns are no longer simply the domain of state actors,” according to Thomas Rudkin, a partner at Farrer & Co. “They are increasingly deployed by malicious actors – the classic MO is to have fictitious content published on paid websites with no editorial scrutiny.
“Worse still, these actions are relatively easy to execute and cheap to deploy. The disinformation can take many different forms, including outlandish allegations of criminality, articles attributing quotes to people who do not exist and articles authored by nameless ‘reporters’. There is often evidence of SEO techniques or content being generated by AI in the fake material.”
Rudkin says there are various avenues for victims to take, although none are straightforward. They can go directly to the websites publishing the material and ask for it to be removed, they can appeal to Google to delist the article, they can request that chatbots such as ChatGPT removes the offending websites from its training modules and outputs, or it can request that due diligence websites such as World-Check remove any infringing articles from their platforms.
“Litigation – as in the Mktrchyan and London Post case – is a tool that some individuals or organisations might also choose,” he says. “This comes with the benefit of a public court judgment if successful.”