The Russian government has waged a global effort to undermine confidence in election integrity and democratic processes, according to a new unclassified assessment by the U.S. intelligence community, broadening a decades-long pattern of behavior that has taken on new dimensions with the rise of social media. The intelligence community took note of efforts ranging from organizing protests and sabotaging voting to online efforts to spread conspiracy theories.
Calling Russia's activity targeting democratic processes a "new emerging area of concern," a senior State Department official said Friday that Russia's known tactics of seeding or amplifying false information had intensified after what Kremlin officials perceived to be successes in influence campaigns that targeted previous American elections.
"[W]e are seeing them look at their perceived success in 2016 and their perceived success in 2020 in gumming up outcomes to be something that should be continued moving forward, and even maybe expanded," a senior intelligence official said. Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
The recently downgraded U.S. intelligence community assessment said Russia waged campaigns in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the U.S., between 2020 and 2022. It also identified a "less pronounced level" of Russian activity targeting 17 other democratic countries. The countries involved were not identified, but U.S. officials said the...
Pro-Kremlin actors are using disinformation to take aim at Western efforts to facilitate a peace settlement for Ukraine. A Kremlin-aligned disinformation operation is falsely accusing Ukraine's ...