Russia is using its spy network, state-run media and social media to undermine public trust in elections around the world, according to a US intelligence report released on Friday that was shared with about 100 countries.
“Russia is focused on carrying out operations to degrade public confidence in election integrity,” the report said, citing findings from the US intelligence community.
“This is a global phenomenon. Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including in the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective,” it said.
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The assessment, which was sent in a cable to the embassies of about 100 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, was released amid heightened tensions between Washington and Moscow over Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia engaged in a “concerted effort” between 2020 and last year to undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the US, the report said.
An additional 17 democracies were targeted through “less pronounced” methods involving Russian messaging and social media activity that sought to amplify domestic narratives related to election integrity, it added.
Without naming the targeted countries, the report said the US government had shared with them information about the Russian operations.
It alleged that Russia utilizes “covert and overt mechanisms” to influence elections.
That includes networks managed by its security agency, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which covertly attempted to intimidate campaign workers in an unspecified European country’s 2020 election, it said.
Russian state media amplified “false claims of voting fraud” in multiple elections in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America in 2020 and 2021, it added.
Russia also exploited social media platforms and “proxy Web sites” to cast doubt about the integrity of elections in one South American country last year, the report said.
“For Russia, the benefits of these operations are twofold: to sow instability within democratic societies, and to portray democratic elections as dysfunctional and the resulting governments as illegitimate,” the report said.
A US Department of State official said that Russia was encouraged to press ahead with election influence operations after its perceived success in spreading disinformation about the 2020 US election and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Russia is capitalizing on what it perceives as a relatively inexpensive success in 2020 in the United States to take this more broadly, globally,” the official said on condition of anonymity. “We definitely see the US election as a catalyst.”
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