“Vile” Russian trolls are believed to have bombarded a council with horrific abuse on social media while it celebrated helping displaced Ukrainians.

The avalanche of derogatory slurs became so intense Canterbury City Council was forced to remove the Facebook post praising a councillor.

Significant numbers of personal attacks – believed to have come from Russian bots or trolls - were levelled towards Cllr Connie Nolan (Lab) after the authority commended her work for helping fleeing refugees.

But despite the sustained Cllr Nolan remains unfazed, saying “it’s not the first time I have been trolled.”

Since Vladimir Putin’s invasion in February 2022, CCC has helped house 170 families through the Homes 4 Ukraine project.

There are also many other refugees in the district under central government programmes such as the Ukraine Family Scheme.

The cyber-drama unfolded on Friday when Cllr Nolan was commended by the Local Government Information Unit (LGiU) think-tank as a ‘resilience champion’ for her work with the Ukrainian community.

Following its annual councillor awards, the LGiU posted on its website: “Cllr Nolan assisted the displaced Ukrainian people and their hosts to settle well into Canterbury, and is highly regarded by both the Canterbury and Ukrainian communities due to her friendly nature and dedication to engaging with individuals and groups despite language barriers and her busy schedule.”

However, when CCC published words in a similar vein on Facebook it was bombarded with abusive comments from “Russian-backed trolls or bots”, forcing the authority to delete the post.

A CCC spokesman explained: “A Facebook post celebrating the fact Cllr Connie Nolan was named resilience champion at the awards for helping displaced Ukrainians to settle in Canterbury became the target of what appeared to be Russian-backed trolls or bots on Friday evening.

“A number of the comments were vile. They questioned, in very derogatory terms, the motives of Ukrainians fleeing the conflict in their country and attacked Cllr Nolan in very personal terms.

“Because of the number, frequency and offensiveness of comments, a decision was taken to delete the original post.

“We only delete posts on very rare and exceptional occasions.”

The council said similar posts on other social media sites were not subject to such attacks.

It is known that the Russian government uses accounts on western social media sites to spread propaganda and disinformation and harass politicians.

Government funded research in May last year found a wide-ranging “troll factory” linked to the Russian state targeting politicians in the UK, South Africa, India, and other countries.

Speaking after the incident, Cllr Nolan said: “It’s not the first time I have been trolled so I’m certainly not having the attack of the vapours.”

“Anyone who knows me knows I do not back down from a fight and, while it was not my decision, I fully understand the action taken by council officers.

“The arrival of our Ukrainian guests, the positive contribution they are making to the district and the way the community has come together to welcome them is inspiring and far outweighs any insults thrown in my direction.

“This really is a case of sticks and stones.”

Cllr Nolan added that she was proud “people in the Canterbury community stepped up” to help Ukrainian refugees.