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Russia has long sought to inject disinformation<\/a> into U.S. political discourse. Now, it\u2019s got a new angle: paying Americans to do the work.<\/p>\n This week\u2019s\u00a0indictment of two Russian state media employees<\/a>\u00a0on charges that they paid a Tennessee company to create pro-Russian content<\/a> has renewed concerns about foreign meddling in the November election while revealing the Kremlin\u2019s latest tactic in a growing\u00a0information war<\/a>.<\/p>\n If the allegations prove correct, they represent a significant escalation, analysts say, and likely capture only a small piece of a larger Russian effort to sway the election.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have seen the smoke for years. Now, here\u2019s the fire,\u201d said Jim Ludes, a former national defense analyst who now leads the Pell Center for International Relations at Salve Regina University. \u201cI don\u2019t wonder if they\u2019re doing more of this. I have no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n According to prosecutors, the two employees of RT, a Russian outlet formerly known as Russia Today, funneled $10 million to the U.S. media company, which then paid several popular right-wing influencers for their content \u2014 in one case $400,000 a month. Two of those influencers said they had\u00a0no idea their work was being supported by Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Intelligence officials and private analysts say Russia\u2019s disinformation campaigns are designed to cut off\u00a0American assistance to Ukraine<\/a>, clearing the way for a rapid Russian victory after more than two years of bitter conflict.<\/p>\n In the presidential race, Russia supports Donald Trump as the candidate perceived as the least supportive of Ukraine, intelligence officials say.\u00a0Trump has openly praised<\/a>\u00a0Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested cutting funds to Ukraine and repeatedly\u00a0criticized the NATO military alliance<\/a>. On Thursday,\u00a0Putin wryly claimed<\/a>\u00a0he was pulling for Vice President Kamala Harris to win.<\/p>\n A secondary goal of Russian disinformation, officials have said, is to increase political polarization and distrust as a way of eroding American confidence in democracy.<\/p>\n This summer, intelligence officials warned that\u00a0Russia was using unwitting Americans<\/a>\u00a0to spread its propaganda by adapting it to fit existing social debates within the U.S. Instead of creating new conflicts, Russia has found success by identifying and exaggerating existing divides, tailoring disinformation accordingly. When successful, Russia can get Americans to spread its talking points for free, without them even knowing their source.<\/p>\n When an Ohio train derailment caused massive environmental damage last year,\u00a0Russian voices tried to steer the debate<\/a>\u00a0with anti-government posts that were quickly reposted by American users. Some U.S. websites picked up the Russian propaganda and reposted it without attribution.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, Russian state media and networks of fake accounts began to\u00a0amplify claims about immigration<\/a>\u00a0on platforms used by Americans.<\/p>\n When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Russian state media claimed without evidence that the virus was the product of U.S. bioweapons experiments and that the U.S. maintained biological laboratories in Ukraine. English-language posts soon started showing up on American social media sites.<\/p>\n Four years later, the conspiracy theory still reverberates on far-right message boards.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat if Covid was created in a Ukraine biolab, and the War has been to keep that a secret?\u201d a poster wrote last week on X<\/a>, the platform formerly known as\u00a0Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n The company hired by RT was identified as Tenet Media by two of the right-wing content creators it paid \u2014 Tim Pool<\/a> and Benny Johnson. Both men said on social media Wednesday that they had no knowledge of Tenet\u2019s relationship with RT and that if the allegations are true, they are victims.<\/p>\n Pool posted that no one told him what to say in his podcast and condemned Russia: \u201cPutin is a scumbag.\u201d<\/p>\n Pool has a long history, however, of espousing pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian views as well as conspiracy theories about Democrats and American democracy.<\/p>\n On one podcast, he said \u201ccriminal elements\u201d within the U.S. government were directing the war against Russia and said Ukraine was the real enemy.<\/p>\n \u201cUkraine is our enemy, being funded by the Democrats,\u201d Pool said. \u201cUkraine is the greatest threat to this nation and to the world. We should rescind all funding and financing, pull out all military support, and we should apologize to Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump said on Truth Social that the case amounted to \u201celection interference\u201d by federal prosecutors, who he said were \u201cresurrecting the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and trying to say that Russia is trying to help me, which is absolutely false,\u201d with the last word in capital letters.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s comments referred to concerns about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, when groups linked to the Kremlin used\u00a0social media networks<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0paid ads on Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and other platforms to support Trump. Russia also\u00a0sought to help Trump<\/a>\u00a0in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n China and Iran have mounted their own campaigns to use social media to shape American views. Iran covertly supported protests over the war in Gaza and was recently accused of\u00a0trying to hack<\/a>\u00a0into the campaign systems of Trump and Harris, his Democratic opponent.<\/p>\n Russia, however, remains the chief threat, intelligence officials maintain.<\/p>\n During a briefing last month with reporters, an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Russia was increasingly trying to cover its tracks by \u201coutsourcing its efforts to commercial firms to hide its hand, and laundering narratives through influential U.S. voices.\u201d The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n Russian officials have repeatedly bragged about their abilities to shape American views despite U.S. government efforts. RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, who has been sanctioned over her ties to the Russian government, detailed how Moscow tries to hide its fingerprints from American intelligence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe create many sources of information that are not tied to us,\u201d Simonyan said recently on a Russian talk show. \u201cWhile the CIA tries to figure out that they\u2019re tied to us, they already have an enormous audience. This is how we chase each other. It\u2019s actually fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nRecommended reading:<\/strong>
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