"They could see the origins," Paisley says. "It was people pretending to be Americans, or even bots pretending to be Americans, attacking in a way that seemed very believable"

When Brad Paisley released “Same Here,” his anthem of solidarity with the people of Ukraine , in 2023, he watched it connect with his listeners across the board. But then, something peculiar happened: The song, which featured a recording of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, started to be seen as polarizing and criticisms popped up online.

Paisley says a Russian bot campaign was to blame.

“When it came out, the response was 98 percent positive, based on what my web guy was tracking,” he tells Rolling Stone ’s Nashville Now podcast. “[Ukraine] had their own web guys over there. They’re tracking and so are we. And then the Russian bots got ahold of it and we watched it flip to…90 percent negative. It was all incredibly believable avatars.…