Russian intelligence services have once again set their sights on the US election in a bid to install former President Donald Trump in the White House, according to a new report.
Several US officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in Washington confirmed the existence of the Russian plan when speaking with The Wall Street Journal.
“We have not observed a change in Russia’s preferences for the presidential race compared to the previous election,” a senior official said. Several security agencies have previously confirmed that similar Kremlin attacks on American democracy favored Trump.
The report also mentions diminished Iranian influence aimed at stirring discontent by encouraging people in the United States to protest Israel’s war in Gaza, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, said this week.
In the contract, the WSJ report says China will not engage in any sabotage, as Beijing views both US President Joe Biden and Trump as hostile. That decree goes so far as to prevent government officials from even mentioning a preference in the election.
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines confirmed that her office is also tracking an Iranian election sabotage operation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long maintained that his security services do not interfere in foreign elections.
Once again, Russian agents are trying to install Donald Trump in the White House
In addition to their online operations, the report alleges that operatives are attempting to influence members of Congress, but the scale of the operation is smaller than that seen in 2016, which helped propel Trump to power.
Iran’s operation, meanwhile, is more that of an “agent of chaos,” Haines said.
‘The Americans participating in the protests are expressing their views on the conflict in Gaza in good faith; this information does not indicate otherwise.’
Haines added that many protesters may not know they are talking to agents of a foreign government.
On Tuesday, the Justice Department declared victory after agents successfully dismantled a Russian-run bot farm.
Officials described the Internet operation as part of an ongoing effort to sow discord in the United States by creating fictitious social media profiles purporting to belong to genuine Americans.
In reality, the profiles are designed to advance the goals of the Russian government, including by spreading disinformation about its war with Ukraine.
The scheme was orchestrated in 2022 after a senior editor at RT, a Russian state-funded media organization that registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, helped develop technology for a so-called social media bot farm, law enforcement officials say.
He received financial support and approval from the Kremlin, with an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service – or FSB – leading a private intelligence organization that promoted disinformation on social media through a network of fake accounts.
President Joe Biden continues to struggle in the polls against Trump while also facing allegations of cognitive decline
RT’s press office did not directly respond to a question about the allegations.
The bot farm outage comes as U.S. officials have raised alarm over the potential for artificial intelligence technology to impact this year’s election and amid ongoing concerns that foreign influence campaigns by adversaries could sway the opinions of unsuspecting voters.
This happened during the 2016 presidential campaign, when the Russians launched a massive but covert social media trolling campaign aimed in part at helping Trump defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
“Today’s actions represent a first in the disruption of a Russian-sponsored generative artificial intelligence-enhanced social media bot farm,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement.
‘Russia intended to use this bot farm to spread AI-generated foreign disinformation, expanding its AI-assisted work to undermine our partners in Ukraine and influence geopolitical narratives favorable to the Russian government.’
Among the false posts, according to the Justice Department, was a video posted by a purported Minneapolis, Minnesota, resident that showed Russian President Vladimir Putin saying that areas of Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania were “gifts” to those countries from liberating Russian forces during World War II.
In another case, the Justice Department said, someone posing as an American constituent responded to a federal candidate’s social media posts about the war in Ukraine with a video of Putin justifying Russia’s actions.
As part of the disruption, the Justice Department seized two domain names and searched 968 accounts on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
According to a joint cybersecurity advisory published Tuesday by U.S., Dutch and Canadian authorities, the software was used to spread disinformation to countries including Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and Israel.
The notice said that as of last June, the software, known as Meliorator, only worked on X, but that its functionality could likely be expanded to other social networks.
