Russian Operation Storm-1516 Seeds AI Deepfake Videos on X Fabricating Abuse Claim Against Texas Senate Candidate Talarico

An X account created in September 2026 posted the two videos on Oct. 20 (the posting date), fabricating a sexual-abuse claim against Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, a Texas state Rep. Graphika found the account very likely impersonating a real person of the same name, and assesses “with high confidence that the Russia-aligned influence operation Storm-1516 produced the video.” Researchers say the allegation isn’t real, Straight Arrow News reported; Mother Jones reports the real former student told a factchecking site he had never been abused by Talarico, and X suspended the impersonating account. Talarico is in a toss-up race against his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

NPR, which does not name the candidate, reports that two fraudulent videos targeting the Senate candidate were posted on Tuesday on X by an account created last month that had few followers, and that X publicly flagged the account as possibly using a proxy such as a virtual private network. The videos were likely created using artificial intelligence, according to Graphika; Clemson University Media Forensics Hub co-director Darren Linvill said a hallmark of Storm-1516 videos is the use of real actors whose faces are swapped using AI. The post was immediately shared by a network of 15 accounts Linvill flagged as bots. About 12 hours later, three X accounts with large followings shared one of the videos, accounts researchers said have previously amplified other Storm-1516 narratives; one of them has solicited paid partnerships on X. One of the two fake videos racked up roughly 857,000 views within 24 hours, according to an analysis by Alethea. By late on Wednesday, X had suspended the account that first posted the videos and one of the large accounts. Linvill and several other research groups attributed the videos to Storm-1516.

Anonymous researchers who track Russian trolls, quoted by Straight Arrow News, called it “one of the few Storm-1516’s campaigns (so far) targeting the US midterms.” The template is not new: in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Storm-1516 posted fraudulent videos making similar unfounded accusations against Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, and an ODNI official said then that “Russian influence actors created and amplified content alleging inappropriate activity committed by the Democratic vice presidential candidate during his earlier career.” Related midterm fake-video coverage: 2026-09-21–graphika-assesses-operation-overload-and-r-fbi-produced-fake-videos-targeting-us-midterm-candidates-and-berlin-election, 2026-10-17–bloomberg-matryoshka-bot-network-inflates-fake-videos-targeting-democratic-candidates-20-senate-29-governor-races. Talarico’s opponent: 2026-05-26–paxton-defeats-cornyn-texas-senate-primary-trump-loyalty-enforcement-endorsement.