Russia has created a large botnet to disrupt US support for Ukraine. While the bill on additional funding for Ukraine is stuck in the House of Representatives, Russia is creating thousands of fake accounts to inflame anti-Ukrainian sentiment in American society.
The Washington Post writes about this with reference to internal Kremlin documents shared by the European intelligence service.
Kremlin political technologists and botfarms are publishing tons of fake news, social media posts, and commentary promoting American isolationism. They are sowing fear about US border security and trying to increase economic and racial tensions in the States.
Fake comments do not exceed 200 characters. They are usually written on behalf of a resident of the suburbs of a large US city who allegedly does not support military aid to Ukraine. The main message of such publications is to assure that average Americans believe that money should be spent on protecting Americaʼs borders, not Ukraine, and that "Joe Bidenʼs policies are leading the United States to collapse."
The newspaper notes that Russiaʼs information operations have become almost as important as the events at the front. Russia understands that this financing project is important for Ukraine, because Ukraineʼs ability to defend itself and to attack depends on it in many ways.
"Russiaʼs priority is to stop arms supplies to Ukraine. They spread different messages to see what fits. Weʼre seeing a broad campaign that includes multiple strands — some of which work better than others. The Russians donʼt care. They are just trying to "seed the environment," one of the members of the Republican Party told the newspaper.
The bots depict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a corrupt official, and also emphasize the number of migrants illegally crossing the US border. Bots claim that "white Americans" stand to lose the most from helping Ukraine. The strategy promotes the views of the far-right wing of the Republican Party and calls for some of the messaging to be voiced by American "opinion and policy leaders," according to one of the documents obtained. However, it does not name the people being used for this.
Many documents contain metadata indicating that they were written by members of the team that worked for Ilya Gambashidze, the head of the Moscow PR company Social Design Agency. Last month, the United States imposed sanctions on Gambashidze because he was spreading fake news about Ukraine at the behest of the Russian government.
Analysts say the campaign is part of a broader strategy that builds on the Kremlinʼs nearly 10-year effort to raise the voices of populist politicians around the world who oppose the U.S. global role. According to the head of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Center, Clint Watts, the influence of the Russian disinformation campaign can be seen in how the American funding package for Ukraine was delayed.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner said that some Republicans in Congress are repeating Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine. Some of them are heard even in the House of Representatives, but Turner did not name those who spread Russian propaganda.