American company, Russian propaganda: New Kremlin tactic reveals escalating effort to sway U.S. vote

Attorney General Merrick Garland, centre, attends an Election Threats Task Force meeting in Washington on Sept. 4, 2024. (Mark Schiefelbein / AP Photo)

WASHINGTON -

Russia has long sought to inject disinformation into U.S. political discourse. Now, it's got a new angle: paying Americans to do the work.

This week's indictment of two Russian state media employees on charges that they paid a Tennessee company to create pro-Russian content has renewed concerns about foreign meddling in the November election while revealing the Kremlin's latest tactic in a growing information war.

If the allegations prove correct, they represent a significant escalation, analysts say, and likely capture only a small piece of a larger Russian effort to sway the election.

“We have seen the smoke for years. Now, here’s the fire,” said Jim Ludes, a former national defense analyst who now leads the Pell Center for International Relations at Salve Regina University. “I don't wonder if they're doing more of this. I have no doubt."

According to prosecutors, the two employees of RT, a Russian outlet formerly known as Russia Today, funneled US$10 million to the U.S. media company, which then paid several popular right-wing influencers for their content — in one case US$400,000 a month. Two of those influencers said they had no idea their work was being supported by Russia.

Intelligence officials and private analysts say Russia's disinformation campaigns are designed to cut off American assistance to Ukraine, clearing the way for a rapid Russian victory after more than two years of bitter conflict.

In the presidential race, Russia supports Donald Trump as the candidate perceived as the least supportive of Ukraine, intelligence officials say. Trump has openly praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested cutting funds to Ukraine and repeatedly criticized the NATO military alliance. On Thursday, Putin wryly claimed he was pulling for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to win.

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A secondary goal of Russian disinformation, officials have said, is to increase political polarization and distrust as a way of eroding American confidence in democracy.

This summer, intelligence officials warned that Russia was using unwitting Americans to spread its propaganda by adapting it to fit existing social debates within the U.S. Instead of creating new conflicts, Russia has found success by identifying and exaggerating existing divides, tailoring disinformation accordingly. When successful, Russia can get Americans to spread its talking points for free, without them even knowing their source.

When an Ohio train derailment caused massive environmental damage last year, Russian voices tried to steer the debate with anti-government posts that were quickly reposted by American users. Some U.S. websites picked up the Russian propaganda and reposted it without attribution.

Earlier this year, Russian state media and networks of fake accounts began to amplify claims about immigration on platforms used by Americans.

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Russian state media claimed without evidence that the virus was the product of U.S. bioweapons experiments and that the U.S. maintained biological laboratories in Ukraine. English-language posts soon started showing up on American social media sites.

Four years later, the conspiracy theory still reverberates on far-right message boards.

“What if Covid was created in a Ukraine biolab, and the War has been to keep that a secret?" a poster wrote last week on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

The company hired by RT was identified as Tenet Media by two of the right-wing content creators it paid — Tim Pool and Benny Johnson. Both men said on social media Wednesday that they had no knowledge of Tenet's relationship with RT and that if the allegations are true, they are victims.

Pool posted that no one told him what to say in his podcast and condemned Russia: “Putin is a scumbag.”

Pool has a long history, however, of espousing pro-Russian, anti-Ukrainian views as well as conspiracy theories about Democrats and American democracy.

On one podcast, he said “criminal elements” within the U.S. government were directing the war against Russia and said Ukraine was the real enemy.

“Ukraine is our enemy, being funded by the Democrats,” Pool said. “Ukraine is the greatest threat to this nation and to the world. We should rescind all funding and financing, pull out all military support, and we should apologize to Russia.”

Trump said on Truth Social that the case amounted to “election interference” by federal prosecutors, who he said were “resurrecting the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, and trying to say that Russia is trying to help me, which is absolutely false," with the last word in capital letters.

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Trump's comments referred to concerns about Russian meddling in the 2016 election, when groups linked to the Kremlin used social media networks and paid ads on Facebook and other platforms to support Trump. Russia also sought to help Trump in the 2020 election.

China and Iran have mounted their own campaigns to use social media to shape American views. Iran covertly supported protests over the war in Gaza and was recently accused of trying to hack into the campaign systems of Trump and Harris, his Democratic opponent.

Russia, however, remains the chief threat, intelligence officials maintain.

During a briefing last month with reporters, an official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Russia was increasingly trying to cover its tracks by “outsourcing its efforts to commercial firms to hide its hand, and laundering narratives through influential U.S. voices.” The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Russian officials have repeatedly bragged about their abilities to shape American views despite U.S. government efforts. RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, who has been sanctioned over her ties to the Russian government, detailed how Moscow tries to hide its fingerprints from American intelligence.

“We create many sources of information that are not tied to us," Simonyan said recently on a Russian talk show. "While the CIA tries to figure out that they’re tied to us, they already have an enormous audience. This is how we chase each other. It’s actually fun.”

Associated Press writer Alan Suderman contributed to this report from Richmond, Va.