The ads were mostly to signal-boost political groups. They were just the tip of the iceberg. There were many Russian state controlled political Facebook group

The ads were mostly to signal-boost political groups. They were just the tip of the iceberg. There were many Russian state controlled political Facebook groups with hundreds of thousands of subscribers who joined because of these relatively tame ads. Those groups then pushed a more extreme set of values onto the subscribers, with the aim of turning those groups against each other. Sure, an anti-Sharia-Law demonstration doesn't seem so bad, nor does a pro-Syrian-Refugee demonstration. But if the same group is organizing both events to take place at the same time and location, then that group is just stirring the pot and trying to divide society against itself. The ads are a big deal for what the accomplished, not just for what they read at face-value.