Russia began spreading disinformation online to influence the November midterm elections in the US, The New York Times writes, citing secret reports from American intelligence. According to these data, the Kremlin authorized a campaign whose goal is to sow chaos and deepen divisions in American society, rather than support any party.
According to researchers, this activity is currently mainly directed against Democratic candidates in competitive districts. Artificial intelligence is being used to create and distribute fake content, and many videos are styled after materials from CNN, BBC, and The New York Times.
These posts accuse candidates of corruption, antisemitism, and support for LGBTQ people. One of the most notable examples was a fake video in which actress Jamie Lee Curtis was attributed with criticism of Democrats over transgender policy.
This statement was denied, but the fake post on X still managed to gather nearly 200,000 views. Researchers recorded two waves of such posts over the past week.
The analytics company Graphika linked this activity to the Russian operation Overload, also known as “Matryoshka”. Graphika senior researcher Jean Le Roux said he does not think the campaign participants will stop and expects it to continue expanding.
US intelligence, according to the report, did not find attempts to hack election infrastructure that could directly threaten voting. American officials quoted by the publication consider this campaign less масштабной and coordinated than previous Russian operations, and say Moscow is less interested in the midterm elections than in the presidential ones.
In their assessment, the attention of the Russian authorities is also distracted by the protracted war with Ukraine. At the same time, the publication’s interlocutors expect the interference campaign to continue gaining momentum in the near future.
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