Russia’s role in manipulating foreign elections

Russia’s use of various disinformation campaigns across Western alliances as a form of hybrid warfare is an established practice, which typically intensifies and becomes more visible during elections.

In particular, ahead of Poland’s presidential elections, Russia actively employed the "clone" technique (creating fake social media pages that imitate real Western media outlets).

Nothing new, really. Russia’s roaming band of disinformation agents moves from one election to the next, using well-tested tactics. The question is how to counter them.

Let me remind you that over the past year, many Western media outlets (including The Washington Post) published detailed reports on Russian disinformation campaigns, based on a trove of internal Kremlin documents previously obtained by European intelligence.

Let me remind you:

1. Russia is ramping up propaganda operations as part of the second front, which, "current and former senior Western officials said has become almost as important for Moscow as its military operations." Thematically, most campaigns are aimed at inciting hostility within societies, as well as anti-Ukrainian sentiment.

2. As early as January 2023, the Kremlin began seriously working to undermine Western support for Ukraine. According to documents, Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin's first deputy chief of staff, summoned a team of political technologists already engaged in weakening support for Kyiv in Europe and asked them to expand their efforts. Dozens of troll farm operatives and translators work for these strategists.

3. Among the instruments/technologies used in disinformation campaigns, the following are indicated: Double (creating fake websites that pose as legitimate Western media); Partial truth (80% general information and 20% information of interest to Russia; with the constant refrain: "Here is what is really happening, here is what the official media are silent about"); Short-lived accounts (social media accounts used to distribute links to material and then deleted; "the idea is to conceal the true origin of the information"); Invisible ink letter (spreading only the web address, not the words of the message, to make it harder to find the material); Misdirection tactic – redirecting readers through a series of seemingly random sites until they land on a manipulative article.

Source

About the author. Olesya Yakhno, Ukrainian journalist and political scientist

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