Russia is spreading disinformation about Ukraine in the United States through a network of trolls, targeting aid - WP

Russia is spreading disinformation about Ukraine in the United States through a network of trolls, aiming to undermine the allocation of aid from the United States. The Washington Post writes with reference to internal Kremlin documents obtained by the European intelligence service, UNN reports.

Details

"When President Biden proposed $24 billion in additional funding for Ukraine in August, Moscow experts working for the Kremlin were ready to try to undermine public support for the bill," the newspaper writes.

It is noted that in the ongoing campaign to influence Congress and other political debates to stir up anti-Ukrainian sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism and cause fear in the United States.

"One of the political strategists, for example, instructed an employee of a troll farm working for his firm to write a comment "no more than 200 characters on behalf of a resident of a suburb of a large city." The strategist assumed that this fictitious American "does not support the military assistance that the United States provides to Ukraine and believes that money should be spent on protecting America's borders, not Ukraine's. He sees that Biden's policy is leading the United States to collapse," the publication adds.

The publication adds that Russia is stepping up its propaganda operations on a second front, which current and former senior Western officials say has become almost as important to Moscow as the military campaign in Ukraine, especially as congressional approval of further aid has become critical to Ukraine's ability to continue to defend itself.

"Russia's top priority is stopping the weapons, so they're throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. We're seeing a broad campaign that includes several avenues, some of which are working better than others," said one GOP official.

It is also noted that the disinformation campaign tried to paint Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as corrupt, emphasized the number of migrants crossing the US-Mexico border, and called for funding for border security instead of any assistance to Ukraine.

The Kremlin got serious about undermining American support for Ukraine in January 2023. Moscow media researchers have been ordered to create media content for Americans that would promote allegations of corruption involving the Ukrainian leadership - "the sale and theft of weapons" transferred to Ukraine, the publication writes.

Recall

On the eve of the June elections to the European Parliament, Czech counterintelligence exposed a pro-Russian network of influence on MEPs in Prague.