In a briefing on Tuesday, US intelligence officials said Russia was seeking to disrupt the presidential elections with faked videos and efforts to foment violence during and after the vote.
According to The Washington Post, in recent weeks, Russia has created a fake video smearing Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, with abuse allegations. The content drew millions of views on social media.
Besides, intelligence officials said that Russian government agencies and contractors – generally supporting Donald Trump’s campaign – are also attempting to instigate actual physical violence during and immediately after Election Day, November 5th.
It’s not clear how exactly Moscow is remotely inciting violence and whether fake posts on social media aren’t really a drop in the ocean of the feverish political atmosphere in the US. Both campaigns have poured billions of dollars into the battlefield.
But American intelligence officials say that Russia doesn’t even care that much who – Trump or Kamala Harris – wins. The aim is allegedly to spread doubt about democracy as a political system.
“Russia is potentially seeking to stoke threats towards poll workers, as well as amplifying protests and potentially encouraging protests to be violent,” the official said during the briefing.
The Washington Post says this was the first such intelligence briefing to raise the specter of violence, and the officials struck a tone of greater urgency in describing the challenges of disinformation.
US intelligence is paying special attention to the period between November 5th and the January 20th inauguration of the next president.
A recently declassified intelligence memo said that Russian actors have already claimed there may be voting fraud by immigrants.
That’s when all the objections to the vote-counting will surface, and that is when foreign adversaries could claim fraud based on faked evidence or exaggerated conclusions from minor incidents. This actually happened in late 2020 and early 2021, culminating in the attack on the US Capitol.
In fact, a recently declassified intelligence memo said that Russian actors have already claimed there may be voting fraud by immigrants.
These are talking points from the conspiratorial wing of the MAGA crowd so Moscow’s operatives wouldn’t exactly be inventing the wheel here. But amplifying such content alone would definitely once again create more societal unrest inside the US.
The US State Department on Friday announced a reward of up to $10 million for information about the identities and location of employees at Russian media operation Rybar, funded by the Russian defense industrial organization Rostec.
The department said the operation ran social media campaigns on X with the hashtags #StandwithTexas and #HoldtheLine, as well as the channel #TEXASvsUSA.
“Rybar has sought to sow discord, promote social division, stoke partisan and racial discord, and encourage hate and violence in the United States,” reads the announcement.
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