The United States (US) government on Wednesday indicted two Russian nationals and seized more than 30 Internet domains linked to a campaign to influence the American election, according to Politico.
The information provided to the FBI court also revealed another surprise. This is a Russian operation aimed at manipulating politicians, businessmen, journalists and other influential people in Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
The Kremlin’s campaign in Europe was aimed at sowing division, discrediting America and undermining support for Ukraine, according to dozens of Russian documents, memos and minutes of Russian psychological warfare meetings.
The documents were obtained by the FBI and were included in a court filing as part of the charges filed Wednesday. The 277-page dossier details Russia’s plans to win the hearts and minds of Europeans.
One memo from Russia’s “Social Design Agency” describes a plan to direct people through real-life posts and comments on social media to bypass social media companies’ bot filters.
According to an FBI court filing, the “Social Design Agency” operates at the behest of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko.
The Russian document states that the aim of the campaign is to “evoke rational and emotional reactions in the audience”. For example, “really, why do WE need to help Ukraine?” or that “Americans are such assholes!”
The psychological operation also relied on so-called “doppelgänger” domains, which distributed fake articles and content made to look like Western media outlets.
Among the domains were counterfeits of Reuters, Der Spiegel, Bild, Le Monde, Le Parisien, Welt, FAZ, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Delfi and other domains that were paid for in crypto-currencies , such as bitcoins, according to the FBI statement.
Russia’s psychological operations team identified Germany as a particularly vulnerable target for Russian influence.
“The Germans are more dependent than the French,” reads one of the Russian documents, referring to Germany’s economic dependence on Russian gas and exports.
“First we need to discredit the US, Great Britain and NATO, and second” we must convince the Germans to resist the “ineffective sanctions policy,” the FBI quoted an internal Russian memo as saying.
Another document from the “Agency for Social Design” describes an operation called “Inciting International Conflict” specifically targeting France and Germany.
The operation aims to “escalate internal tensions… to promote the interests of the Russian Federation” as well as “influence real conflicts and artificially create conflict situations” through fake articles, opinion leaders and targeted posts and comments on social media.
The Russian document added that the aim was to “destabilize the public situation” in France and Germany by “spreading additional false narratives”.
This was done by spreading “fake videos, documents and phone recordings”, “comments on social media”, “fake and real quotes from opinion leaders”.
Parenthetical phrase “Politician” inf.
2024-09-05 16:09:30