2. Polarize and Conquer: Russian Influence Operations in the United States

“Information operations and warfare, also known as influence operations, include the collection of tactical information about an adversary as well as the dissemination of propaganda in pursuit of a competitive advantage over an opponent”. See https://​www.​rand.​org/​topics/​information-operations.​html.

The data provided by the major technology companies to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence “illustrate that for approximately five years, Russia has waged a propaganda war against American citizens, manipulating social media narratives to influence American culture and politics”. DiResta, D., et al. (2018). The tactics & tropes of the internet research agency (p. 6). New Knowledge.

Eltagouri, M. (2018). “The rise of ‘Putin’s chef,’ the Russian oligarch accused of manipulating the U.S. election”. Washington Post. https://​beta.​washingtonpost.​com/​news/​worldviews/​wp/​2018/​02/​16/​the-rise-of-putins-chef-yevgeniy-prigozhin-the-russian-accused-of-manipulating-the-u-s-election/​?​noredirect=​on.

“The IRA had a very clear bias for then-candidate Trump’s that spanned from early in the campaign and throughout the data set. A substantial portion of political content articulated pro-Donald Trump sentiments, beginning with the early primaries” (DiResta et al. 2018, 9).

While the Mueller report fell short of accusing President Trump of collusion with Russian agents, it nonetheless concluded that “the Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion”. See Editorial Board. (2019). “The Mueller report and the danger facing American democracy”. The New York Times. https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2019/​04/​19/​opinion/​mueller-report-trump-russia.​html.

“Information warfare can cover a vast range of different activities and processes seeking to steal, plant, interdict, manipulate, distort or destroy information. The channels and methods available for doing this cover an equally broad range, including computers, smartphones, real or invented news media, statements by leaders or celebrities, online troll campaigns, text messages, vox pops by concerned citizens, YouTube videos, or direct approaches to individual human targets. Recent Russian campaigning provides examples of all of the above and more”. Giles, K. (2016). Handbook of Russian information warfare (p. 4). Nato Defense College.

Seddon, M. (2014). “Documents show how Russia’s troll army hit America”. Buzzfeed. https://​www.​buzzfeednews.​com/​article/​maxseddon/​documents-show-how-russias-troll-army-hit-america.

Chen, A. (2015). “The agency. An investigation into the Russian troll farm called the Internet Research Agency”. The New York Times Magazine. https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2015/​06/​07/​magazine/​the-agency.​html.

“A substantial portion of political content articulated anti-Hillary Clinton sentiments among both Right and Left-leaning IRA-created communities” (DiResta et al. 2018, 9).

Ibid., 4.

The New Knowledge reports lament that “none of the platforms (Twitter, Facebook, and Alphabet) appears to have turned over complete sets. (…) Each lacked core components that would have provided a fuller and more actionable picture” (DiResta et al. 2018, 5).

The concept indicates the extent to which supporters of a political party dislike the competing political party and its supporters.

Silverman, C., et al. (2016). “Hyperpartisan Facebook pages are publishing false and misleading information at an alarming rate”. Buzzfeed. https://​www.​buzzfeed.​com/​craigsilverman/​partisan-fb-pages-analysis?​utm_​term=​.​jnB0mGP48x#.​toaL7DxX3l.

Sawka, R. (2011). “Surkov: Dark prince of the Kremlin”. Open Democracy. https://​www.​opendemocracy.​net/​od-russia/​richard-sakwa/​surkov-dark-prince-of-kremlin.

Pomerantsev, P. (2011). “Putin’s Rasputin”. London Review of Books. https://​www.​lrb.​co.​uk/​v33/​n20/​peter-pomerantsev/​putins-rasputin.

Pomerantsev, P. (2014a). “The hidden author of Putinism. How Vladislav Surkov invented the new Russia”. The Atlantic. https://​www.​theatlantic.​com/​international/​archive/​2014/​11/​hidden-author-putinism-russia-vladislav-surkov/​382489/​.

With respect to this, Roudakova (2017) observes that “With the arrival of President Putin in 2000, press freedom was further and unequivocally curtailed as private media began to be harassed, censorship was reintroduced, and independent journalists began to be threatened and even murdered” (p. 3).

Pomerantsev (2011).

Dixon, J. (2016). “Is Vladislav Surkov an artist?” New Minds Eye. https://​newmindseye.​wordpress.​com/​is-vladislav-surkov-an-artist/​.

When Nemtsov was killed in 2015, the IRA trolls received several assignments in order to instill doubts and confusion around his death, pushing forward several narratives meant at shifting the blame from the Kremlin to Nemtsov’s friends or on Ukrainian oligarchs. See Parfitt, T. (2015). “My life as a pro-Putin propagandist in Russia’s secret ‘troll factory’”. The Telegraph. https://​www.​telegraph.​co.​uk/​news/​worldnews/​europe/​russia/​11656043/​My-life-as-a-pro-Putin-propagandist-in-Russias-secret-troll-factory.​html.

Interestingly, when on March 17, 2014, President Obama banned Surkov from entering the United States in retaliation to the Russia annexation of Crimea, he responded by saying: “The only things that interest me in the US are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock. I don’t need a visa to access their work”.

BBC News. (2014). “Russia TV stations air ‘impostor’ protester in two guises”. BBC. https://​www.​bbc.​com/​news/​blogs-news-from-elsewhere-26986657.

Nemtsova, A. (2014). “There’s no evidence the Ukrainian army crucified a child in Slovyansk”. The Daily Beast. https://​www.​thedailybeast.​com/​theres-no-evidence-the-ukrainian-army-crucified-a-child-in-slovyansk.

Walker, S. (2018). “MH17 downed by Russian military missile system, say investigators”. The Guardian. https://​www.​theguardian.​com/​world/​2018/​may/​24/​mh17-downed-by-russian-military-missile-system-say-investigators.

Among the increasingly ludicrous hypotheses, the most notorious claimed that data from radars showed Ukrainian jets flying near the MH17 plane, suggesting that the plane was shot down by the Ukrainian army aiming at Mr. Putin’s presidential jet, and that corpses unrelated to the event had been moved by the CIA to the plane crashing site to increase the death toll.

While the Kremlin has always denied his involvement in the military conflict in the Donbass region, a hacking of Surkov’s email outed him as the de facto commander of pro-Russia separatists. See Embury-Dennis, T. (2016). “Russia’s involvement in Ukraine conflict ‘revealed after hackers’ leak emails linked to Vladimir Putin’s top aide”. The Independent. https://​www.​independent.​co.​uk/​news/​world/​europe/​russia-ukraine-involvement-emails-hack-vladimir-putin-top-aide-crimea-war-a7397446.​html.

Storey, P. (2015). “Vladislav Surkov: The (gray) cardinal of the Kremlin”. Cicero Magazine. http://​ciceromagazine.​com/​features/​the-gray-cardinal-of-the-kremlin/​.

Pomerantsev, P. (2014b). “Russia’s ideology: There is no truth”. The New York Times. https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2014/​12/​12/​opinion/​russias-ideology-there-is-no-truth.​html.

See http://​www.​bewilderingstori​es.​com/​issue582/​without_​sky.​html.

Pomerantsev, P. (2014c). “How Putin is reinventing warfare”. Foreign Policy. https://​foreignpolicy.​com/​2014/​05/​05/​how-putin-is-reinventing-warfare/​.

Sawka (2011).

USA vs IRA et al. (2018). See https://​www.​justice.​gov/​file/​1035477/​download.

According to a former IRA employee, IRA trolls were required to watch the well-known tv series House of Cards to learn about American politics. See Yahoo! News. (2017). “Russian trolls were schooled on ‘House of Cards’”. Yahoo! https://​www.​yahoo.​com/​news/​russian-trolls-schooled-house-cards-185648522.​html.

Abeshouse, B. (2018). “Facebook, Russian trolls and the new era of information warfare”. Al Jazeera. https://​www.​aljazeera.​com/​blogs/​americas/​2018/​01/​facebook-russian-trolls-era-information-warfare-180131135425603.​html.

USA vs IRA et al. (2018, 12).

Ibid., 14.

O’Sullivan, D. (2018). “Russian trolls created Facebook events seen by more than 300,000 users”. CNN Money. https://​money.​cnn.​com/​2018/​01/​26/​media/​russia-trolls-facebook-events/​index.​html.

The IRA operations were not always successful, and real activists could not always be unwillingly coopted. What made some American citizens suspicious were the frequent grammatical mistakes in the communications by Russians and some imprecisions in organizing the events.

In one of these events, an American citizen was paid to impersonate Hillary Clinton dressed in a prison uniform standing in a cage built on a flatbed truck.

Adams, R., & Brown, H. (2017). “These Americans were tricked into working for Russia. They say they had no idea”. Buzzfeed News. https://​www.​buzzfeednews.​com/​article/​rosalindadams/​these-americans-were-tricked-into-working-for-russia-they#.​rgyD61X0Q.

“The most prolific IRA efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted Black American communities and appear to have been focused on developing Black audiences and recruiting Black Americans as assets. The IRA created an expansive cross-platform media mirage targeting the Black community, which shared and cross-promoted authentic Black media to create an immersive influence ecosystem” (DiResta et al. 2018, 8).

Organic reach is the audience reached via social media without paying or promoting content. For full definition, see https://​www.​facebook.​com/​help/​285625061456389?​helpref=​uf_​permalink.

According to the New Knowledge report: “The IRA had a roster of themes, primarily social issues, that they repeatedly emphasized and reinforced across their Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube content.” Such themes included: “Black culture, community, Black Lives Matter; Blue Lives Matter, pro-police; Anti-refugee, pro-immigration reform; Texas culture, community, and pride; Southern culture (Confederate history); Separatist movements and secession; Muslim culture, community, and pride; Christian culture, community, and pride; LGBT culture, community, and pride; Native American culture, community, and pride; Meme and ‘red pill’ culture; Patriotism and Tea Party culture; Liberal and feminist culture; Veteran’s Issues; Gun rights, pro-2nd Amendment; Political Pro-Trump, anti-Clinton content; Pro-Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein content; Syria and ISIS, pro-Assad, anti-U.S.; Trust in media”.

Weiss, B. (2018). “A Russian troll factory had a $1.25 million monthly budget to interfere in the 2016 US election”. Business Insider. https://​www.​businessinsider.​com/​russian-troll-farm-spent-millions-on-election-interference-2018-2.

Pomerantsev (2014b).

For an overview of Soviet-era active measures, see Times Video. “Operation Infektion”. The New York Times. https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​video/​what-is-disinformation-fake-news-playlist. It is worth pointing out that to this day, 40% of African-Americans believe that AIDS was created by the US government.

As suggested by the already mentioned New Knowledge report, it is also possible that Instagram was chosen also because it lends itself better to the circulation of viral political content in the form of visual memes.

“The indictments revealed one successful example of a Twitter account managed by the IRA under the handle @TEN_GOP, pretending to speak on behalf of the Tennessee Republican Party, which attracted more than 100,000 followers and which was retweeted several times by Donald Trump Jr. The account also actively pushed claims of voter fraud, which would become a mantra for Donald Trump”. See Graham, D. (2018). “What Mueller’s indictment reveals”. The Atlantic. https://​www.​theatlantic.​com/​politics/​archive/​2018/​02/​mueller-roadmap/​553604/​.

Glenza, J. (2018). “Russian trolls ‘spreading discord’ over vaccine safety online”. The Guardian. https://​www.​theguardian.​com/​society/​2018/​aug/​23/​russian-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-on-twitter.

Taub, A. (2017). “Why Americans vote ‘against their interest’: Partisanship”. The New York Times. https://​www.​nytimes.​com/​2017/​04/​12/​upshot/​why-americans-vote-against-their-interest-partisanship.​html.

Zenko, M. (2018). “The problem isn’t fake news from Russia. It’s us”. Foreign Policy. https://​foreignpolicy.​com/​2018/​10/​03/​the-problem-isnt-fake-news-from-russia-its-us/​.

Pomerantsev (2014c).