Putin’s Next Target: U.S. Support for Ukraine, Officials Say
Russian spy agencies and new technologies could be used to push conspiracy theories, U.S. officials say.
American officials said they are convinced that Mr. Putin intends to try to end U.S. and European support for Ukraine by using his spy agencies to push propaganda supporting pro-Russian political parties and by stoking conspiracy theories with new technologies.
Russia has been frustrated that the United States and Europe have largely remained united on continued military and economic support for Ukraine, American officials said.
But Mr. Putin believes he can influence American politics to weaken support for Ukraine and potentially restore his battlefield advantage, U.S. officials said.
Mr. Putin, the officials said, appears to be closely watching U.S. political debates over Ukraine assistance. Republican opposition to sending more money to Kyiv forced congressional leaders to pass a stopgap spending bill on Saturday that did not include additional aid for the country.
Moscow is also likely to try to boost pro-Russian candidates in Europe, seeing potential fertile ground with recent results. A pro-Russian candidate won Slovakia’s parliamentary elections on Sunday. In addition to national elections, Russia could seek to influence the European parliamentary vote next year, officials said.
Russia, according to American officials, is constantly running information operations aimed at denigrating NATO and U.S. policies and is likely to ramp up efforts in the months to come. The American officials spoke on the condition their names not be reported so they could discuss sensitive intelligence.
The ultimate goal of Russia would be to help undermine candidates who support Ukraine and to change U.S. policy. Some U.S. officials doubt Russia would be able to do that.
But even if Moscow cannot influence the final election result, Russians may believe they can stir up enough debate over Ukraine aid that a future Congress could find it more difficult to pass additional support, U.S. officials said.
Beth Sanner, a former senior intelligence official, says artificial intelligence and other new technologies will change how Russia conducts influence campaigns. Russia is also likely to conduct influence laundering efforts, sending messages to the American public through allies inside nominally independent organizations, according to a recent declassified analysis.
It is easy to overstate Russia’s ability to influence U.S. politics. Some American officials and social media executives have questioned how effective Russia’s troll farms and influence operations were in 2016, as opposed to hack and dump operations targeting Mrs. Clinton’s emails.
But Russia is better than any other country at combining state media, private troll farms and intelligence service operations to attack in the digital space, U.S. officials said.
And it has continued to refine its efforts. Many of the disinformation experts who once worked for the Internet Research Agency, the Russian troll farm active in American elections in 2016 and 2018, have migrated to new firms or joined Russian military intelligence. And the internet, one U.S. official said, is the one place Russia will never run out of ammunition.
U.S. officials say that escalation could include additional financial support for pro-Russian political parties in Europe or even covert operations in Europe aimed at weakening support for the war in Ukraine.
As a result, underestimating Russia’s ability to conduct influence operations would be a mistake, American officials said.
But my favorite paragraph did not include any mention:
Russian disinformation that falsely claimed America had bioweapons labs in Ukraine continues to reverberate around the globe, for example.
It's like that article highlighted by Moon of Alabama which was co-written by Julian Barnes.
But my favorite paragraph did not include any mention:
TIL Victoria Nuland is a Russian.