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Russia is seizing on an apparent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump to further amplify political divisions in the United States and undermine support for Ukraine.
Russian state media has played up the would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh's support for Ukraine as a motivating factor behind the alleged plot, which some pundits framed as "blowback" for Washington's support of Ukraine's self-defense.
At the same time, Moscow is denying its own efforts to sow division in the U.S. and influence the November 5 presidential election.
Commenting on the alleged assassination attempt, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow sees how "tense the situation is" ahead of the presidential election, "including between political rivals."
"The political struggle is escalating, various methods are being used," Peskov said. "We are watching this closely, but we have never interfered in this in any way, and we are not interfering now."
That is false.
In a September 17 report, the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center said that while Russian "influence of U.S. elections has remained a constant over the last decade," Moscow has changed tactics "for reaching American audiences amidst a dynamic social media environment and a shifting electoral calculus."
Those tactics are reflected in the most recent U.S. government indictments and sanctions against Russian influence actors.
On September 4, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had seized 32 internet domains used "in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns," called Doppelganger.
The DOJ said that Russian companies, "under the direction and control of the Russian Presidential Administration," used those domains and others to both pose as unique media brands and impersonate "legitimate news entities," with the goal of "covertly spread Russian government propaganda."
That propaganda was aimed at "reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election."
In its report, Microsoft documented a "synchronized shift" by three Kremlin-aligned influence actors, Storm-1516, Storm-1679 and Ruza Flood, "toward maligning the campaign" of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Microsoft said the Russian influence actors produced inauthentic videos implicating Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, "in outlandish fake conspiracy theories."
Those malign actions are further corroborated by records the DOJ obtained from Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Those records show that Russian influence actors used Meta pages and advertisements to spread disinformation.
The DOJ said the Meta records revealed "Doppelganger's apparent use of artificial intelligence tools to generate content, including images and videos, for use in negative advertisements about U.S. politicians."
Leaked internal documents from one of the Kremlin-controlled propaganda centers behind the Doppelganger campaign, called the Social Design Agency (SDA) further supported the DOJ's allegations.
SDA's bot army, called the "Russian Digital Army," produced 39,899 "content units" on social media, including 4,641 videos and 2,516 memes and graphics, and generated 33.9 million comments, leaked files obtained by VSquare, a Central Europe focused investigative outlet, revealed.
Those files indicate "elections in Europe and the U.S. are the primary targets" of their fake news and disinformation campaigns.
One leaked document outlining the SDA's disinformation focus reads:
"The European Parliament elections are in the summer of 2024. Critical milestones are approaching in 2024, including the Bundestag elections and the U.S. presidential election. The outcome of these campaigns will largely determine the West's future sanctions policy towards Russia and support for Ukraine."
On September 16, Meta banned Russian state media networks from its platforms after the U.S. government sanctioned the Rossiya Segodnya media group, which owns and operates RT and Sputnik.
The U.S. alleged "the Russian government had embedded within RT an entity with cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence" that is "focused primarily on influence and intelligence operations all over the world."
"They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracy, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus," U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
Russia falsely attempted to portray those sanctions - and DOJ criminal charges against two RT employees who allegedly laundered $10 million to spread Russian propaganda through U.S. influencers - as an attack on free speech.
Russian efforts to undermine U.S. democracy and society came to the forefront of U.S. political discourse after the U.S. intelligence community and federal investigators revealed Moscow had worked to secure a Trump victory during the 2016 presidential election.
A Senate Intelligence Committee report released in August 2020 further confirmed that Russia had sought to bolster Trump's 2016 campaign and hurt that of his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, while undermining the overall "U.S. democratic process."