Russia’s aim is to destabilize societies and portray democratic elections as unreliable. To do this, Moscow uses its spy network and online services.
According to the findings of US intelligence services, Russia is interfering in the elections of several countries around the world in order to sabotage their credibility. Moscow is using its spy network, state media and online networks, according to a US intelligence report published on Friday. Russia is focused on “undermining public confidence in the integrity of the elections,” he said. This is “a global phenomenon”.
“Our information suggests that senior Russian government officials, including in the Kremlin, consider this type of influence valuable and effective,” says the report, which was sent to embassies in around a hundred countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. From north. .
US informed affected countries
Between 2020 and 2022, Russia made deliberate efforts to undermine public trust in at least 11 elections in nine democracies, including the United States. Seventeen other democracies were targeted through “less sophisticated” methods, such as activities on online services designed to reinforce existing narratives about electoral integrity.
Without naming the countries in question, the report indicates that the US government shared its conclusions with them. Consequently, Russia uses “overt and covert mechanisms” to influence elections.
Networks run by the Russian FSB secret service attempted to intimidate election activists in an election in an unidentified European country in 2020. Russian state media spread “false allegations of voter fraud” in multiple elections in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America in 2020 and 2021, according to the report.
Instability and unreliability
Russia also exploited online platforms to sow doubt about the independence of elections in a South American country last year.
From the Russian point of view, there are two desirable effects, according to the US intelligence report: on the one hand, instability spreads in democratic societies and, on the other hand, democratic elections are portrayed as unreliable. – and the resulting governments are therefore not legitimized.
The US acknowledges its own “vulnerability to this threat” in the report. Moscow considered its disinformation campaigns successful during the 2020 US presidential election and the coronavirus pandemic and was encouraged to continue its election influence activities, a US State Department official told reporters. Moscow is taking advantage of this “relatively cheap success” to apply this approach “more broadly and globally”. (APA/AFP)