Russia is fighting the West, in the West
Yet more indications this week that "the war in Ukraine" is actually way bigger
Earlier this week, I posted Class 18 of my Foreign Influence Operations course: The French Connection (to Moscow). We see a lot of the same themes we’ve seen with Russian influence ops in other countries. I hope you’ll check it out.
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ALEX’S WEEKLY RANT
Another week filled with reminders that even if we don’t think we are at war with Russia, Russia thinks it is at war with us. As one senior NATO official told The Washington Post, “Russia is fighting the West in the West, on Western territory.”
First up: The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) this week warned that Russia has big plans, once again, to interfere in US elections, aiming to denigrate Biden and boost chaos (and, therefore, Trump).
“Russia is fighting the West in the West, on Western territory.”
As I have warned they would do, they are targeting narrow but key voting groups in swing states in order to exploit political rifts. Why? To undermine Biden and support for Ukraine. According to an ODNI official:
“We are beginning to see Russia target specific voter demographics, promote divisive narratives and denigrate specific politicians. Moscow seeks to shape electoral outcomes, undermine electoral integrity and amplify domestic divisions. To accomplish this, Moscow is using a variety of approaches to bolster its messaging and lend an air of authenticity to its efforts. This includes outsourcing its efforts to commercial firms to hide its hand and laundering narratives through influential U.S. voices.”
I wonder who those “influential US voices” might be? Any ideas? Hmm, maybe a good time to revisit this article I wrote for The New Republic.
Russia harnesses the power of AI
While ODNI was warning about Russian election interference, the US Department of Justice announced a joint effort by the US, Canada, and the Netherlands had taken down a Russian AI-enhanced bot farm that had been disseminating reams of disinformation. The bot farm was the idea of RT (formerly Russia Today), a Russian government-run propaganda outlet, which was seeking out new ways to spread disinformation, beyond RT’s usual television broadcasts. RT developed the AI-enhanced system, which registered nearly a thousand fake people on social media sites, building a wide network through which to distribute disinformation. The fake people had AI-generated photos and bios were made to look like US citizens. The operation was run by the FSB, Russia’s internal intelligence agency.
The information spread through this network aimed, among other things, to justify Russia’s actions in Ukraine and to rewrite history, claiming Ukraine and other countries had been “gifted” to Russia at the end of World War II.
Real World Sabotage
While Russia’s bots and trolls have kicked into high gear in the virtual world, human proxies of Russia’s intelligence agencies have been busy in the real world. As I wrote about here and here, Russia has been waging a shadow war in Europe.
Yesterday, CNN reported that the US and Germany had foiled a Russian plot to assassinate the CEO of a German weapons manufacturer that makes weapons for Ukraine. And that wasn’t meant to be a one-off; Russia is planning a series of assassinations of defense industry executives across Europe.
In April, Germany arrested two German-Russian nationals who had been casing US military facilities in Germany in order to carry out sabotage attacks on them on behalf of Russian military intelligence (allegedly).
Now, US military bases across Europe have been placed on heightened alert after the US received new intelligence (within the last two weeks) pointing to a Russia-backed attack on facilities and/or personnel being likely.
Russia is getting pretty brazen in its use of proxies to carry out attacks in Europe. Its security services have to rely on proxies because so many of their spies have been kicked out and many of their illegals (deep cover spies) have been arrested, as I’ve written about here.
All these arrests and expulsions have proved a huge disruption to their support network. As a result, we are seeing Russia increasingly turning to petty criminals to carry out their dirty work.
Kremlin documents collected by a European intelligence service and seen by The Washington Post outline how Russia is perusing social media sites to find individuals who might be recruitable online. Kremlin political strategists have created Excel spreadsheets of people’s online activity and ideological leanings. Have they posted negative things about immigrants, for example, or given indication of being against the war in Ukraine?
(Quick thought: it would be funny if all the intelligence groups running these ops weren’t communicating well, and the group trying to recruit humans aimed their recruitment efforts at the fake bots the other group had set up.)
Another reason Russia is utilizing proxies might have to do with NATO’s Article 5: the article that outlines collective defense of the alliance, stating that an attack on any single member of the alliance is an attack on all.
Does sabotage carried out by proxies fall under Article 5? Could a sabotage attack in a European country trigger a collective response from NATO? What about assassination? These are certainly questions attendees are asking at this week’s NATO summit in Washington.
Lastly: I get results!
This past Monday, I posted Class 18 of my Foreign Influence Operations course: The French Connection (to Moscow), outlining how Russia made Marine LePen’s National Rally political party the political party of Russia in France.
On Tuesday, news came out that French prosecutors are investigating LePen for financial irregularities connected to her 2022 presidential campaign.
Coincidence? I think not!
THE WEEK’S LINKS
A roundup of things you should be reading
RUSSIA REWRITES HISTORY
The Kremlin is rewriting Wikipedia: A new version of history is taking shape (The Economist)
RUSSIAN CORRUPTION
Same as the old boss: New deputy head of Russia’s Defense Ministry Oleg Savelyev conceals his wife—and her luxury properties (The Insider)
Alex Finley is a former officer of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, where she served in West Africa and Europe. She writes and teaches about terrorism, disinformation / covert influence, and oligarch yachts. Her writing has appeared in Slate, Reductress, Funny or Die, POLITICO, The Center for Public Integrity, and other publications. She has spoken to the BBC, MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, France24, and numerous other media outlets. She was also invited once to speak at Harvard, which she now tells everyone within the first ten seconds of meeting them. She is the author of the Victor Caro series, satirical novels about the CIA. Before joining the CIA, Alex was a journalist, covering Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the Department of Energy. She reported on issues related to national security, intelligence, and homeland security. Did she mention she was invited to speak at Harvard?
Nice to see that France is finally recognizing you as the 'Cartman" the intelligence world !! "Respect my Authoorheti". An investigation into the French Fascists that's been long overdue.
Ending the world to your will, one Republic at a time!! Use your power for good
Thank you for referring to the the fascist parties' single stranded DNA leader has the petty Russian criminal that he is.