Disinformation: Russia’s Weapon of Mass Destruction
Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a speech on February 14 at the Munich Security Conference that was nothing short of an attack on American allies. Claiming that free speech was threatened in Europe, Vance was repeating the Elon Musk approved standard line. Vance, effectively ignoring Russia’s immoral and illegal war with Ukraine, went on to claim that “the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values—values shared with the United States of America”1
Vance did acknowledge the existence of disinformation as he said “Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections, but I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage even.”
However, he claimed “disinformation” was used to improperly censor voices that should be heard. Vance intoned “Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly, Soviet-era words like `misinformation’ and `disinformation,’ who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way, or, even worse, win an election.“2
Elon Musk could have been tweeting these words. Musk was being regulated, though he called it censorship, by the Europeans who retained a sense of the importance of responsible speech. Musk was perpetually screeching “free speech” during the 2024 Presidential Campaign and afterwards as a way to knock down resistance as he overturned the American order. To be honest, he was in line with the American Founders who also saw the importance of free speech in launching and maintaining the American Revolution. The difference is that our Founders fought against tyranny, and Musk was working to establish tyranny.
A few days later, Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote
“President Trump’s election has brought about mass layoffs among federal employees and contractors, including some who have sued and others who have protested. But one group — that of America’s would-be censors — is taking its cause worldwide. During the Biden administration, a massive industry took root, seeping up billions in taxpayer funds to research, target and combat those accused of misinformation, disinformation and ‘malinformation’….A speech-regulation industry that was booming under Biden has gone bust under Trump. Over the last four years, massive amounts of money were poured into universities, non-governmental organizations and other groups in an unprecedented alliance of government, academia and corporations. The media lionized many in the industry as `saving democracy’ by controlling, targeting and suppressing others’ political speech. Not only did federal agencies fund these efforts, but they also coordinated censorship of groups and individuals with opposing views, even objecting to jokes on the internet….” 3
The richest man on earth wanted to be able to say what he wanted to achieve his goals.4 One of these goals was to advance Germany’s far right, nationalist party, the AfD5 which has ties to Putin’s Russia and is unfriendly to the EU and NATO. Turley does not like the Digital Services Act that he says Hillary Clinton lobbied to implement in Europe. Turley denounced Clinton’s efforts to “impose a global system of speech control. She has also suggested the arrest of those spreading disinformation.” 6
The position of Musk and Turley placed them against responsible speech and even against self-defense. Asma Mhalla, a radio personality and researcher in digital policy as well as “Big Tech geopolitics at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences” explained the danger, and she also discussed the moral implications of it all, something the Catholic Turley never did. Inter Mirifica, one of the first two decrees from the Vatican II Council, with its requirement that the state insure a “true and just freedom of information” is something that would screen out of society disinformation because of the harm it would cause.7 Mhalla had Musk’s number as she explained how he was working to destroy European society:
“From a strictly legal standpoint, Elon Musk has not committed any crime; he is merely expressing an opinion and offering political support. However, what is legal is not always legitimate.
“From a moral perspective, there are three considerations. First, Musk’s underlying intention appears to be the fragmentation of the EU. The American agenda aims at turning Europe into a vassalized market where tech regulations lose their effectiveness under the threat of commercial coercion. This raises a critical question: Is Musk acting as a proxy for the new U.S. administration? The ambiguity is profound, yet he has never been publicly disavowed by Donald Trump.
“Second, the American definition of `free speech’ does not align with European legal standards…. Finally, the instrumentalization of the concept of free speech has become an ideological time bomb. It has evolved into a totem representing resentment toward the `media’ and the `establishment.’
“Under the guise of absolute freedom, Musk is paving the way for the erosion of our rule of law. The step from post-truth politics to post-law politics is short—and arguably one that we have already taken. In the face of this looming threat, our institutional defenses appear alarmingly weak.”8
The issue is one of European survival, which includes the survival of all the peoples and nations that comprise Europe. The Digital Services act is EU Regulation 2022/2065 and it came into existence to protect Europe and Europeans of all types. It exists for the following reason:9 “The DSA regulates online intermediaries and platforms such as marketplaces, social networks, content-sharing platforms, app stores, and online travel and accommodation platforms. Its main goal is to prevent illegal and harmful activities online and the spread of disinformation. It ensures user safety, protects fundamental rights, and creates a fair and open online platform environment. “10
Disinformation is the hot topic of the day.
Disinformation and Its Origins
According to Michael J. Kelley of the Army War College, the following is disinformation:
“Disinformation is incomplete, incorrect, or out of context information deliberately used to influence audiences. Disinformation creates narratives that can spread quickly and instill an array of emotions and behaviors among groups, ranging from disinterest to violence. Relevant actors employ disinformation to shape public opinion, attract partners, weaken alliances, sow discord among populations, and deceive forces. Disinformation has a malicious intent.”11
Disinformation is a main part of Russian strategic operations and this is not to be taken lightly. Kelley writes “Russia will dominate information warfare if the United States does not treat disinformation as central to Russian strategy. This article examines the vital role disinformation played in post–Cold War Russian strategy, including its strategy in the current Russia-Ukraine War, and in a departure from previous scholarship, this article observes that US defense leaders are aware of Russian disinformation but have failed to assess its impact or sufficiently negate Russian influence. “12
This is a recurring complaint about the American response to Russian disinformation. Anatoliy Golitsyn in his 1984 book New Lies for Old explained the origins, principles, techniques and early successes of the “communist use of strategic disinformation.” While he was using the term “communist,” and while such a concept has caused some to disregard Golitsyn’s work, what must be understood is that the events and techniques that he describes can inure to the benefit others who are not communists – such as Russians for Russian geopolitical goals. Russians can use disinformation to advance Russian geopolitical goals, and that is the position I take in this paper. Golitsyn defined the term “disinformation” as a “systematic effort to disseminate false information and to distort or withhold information so as to misrepresent the real situation in, and policies of, the communist world and thereby to confuse, deceive, and influence the noncommunist world, jeopardize its policies, and to induce Western adversaries to contribute unwittingly to the achievement of communist objectives.”13
In 1958 Aleksander Shelepin, an innovator, proposed to Khrushchev and Brezhnev the “idea of transforming the KGB from the typical secret political police force that it was into a flexible, sophisticated political weapon capable of playing an effective role in support of policy, as the OGPU had done during the NEP.” The OGPU successfully implemented policy of the USSR, whereas the current KGB was deteriorating into simply an apparatus of repression. Khrushchev liked the innovator and by December he was the head of the KGB. The following May, there was a conference of some 2,000 KGB officers at which he announced “new political tasks.”14
In that report, Shelepen stated:
“`The “main enemies” of the Soviet Union were the United States, Britain, France, West Germany, Japan, and all countries of NATO and other Western-supported military alliances….The security and intelligence services of the whole bloc were to be mobilized to influence international relations in directions required by the new long-range policy and, in effect, to destabilize the `main enemies’ and weaken the alliances between them. The efforts of the KGB agents in the Soviet intelligentsia were to be redirected outward against foreigners with a view to enlisting their help in the achievement of policy objectives.
“The newly established disinformation department was to work closely with all other relevant departments in the party and government apparatus throughout the country. To this end, all ministries of the Soviet Union and all first secretaries of republican and provincial party organizations were to be acquainted with the new political tasks of the KGB to enable them to give support and help when needed. Joint political operations were to be undertaken with the security and intelligence services of all communist countries.”15
This plan for the KGB was approved by the Presidium, and the KGB underwent an organizational change in that the counterintelligence directorate was enlarged to handle three main tasks amounting to political warfare and utilizing techniques understood by Western doctrinal warfare practitioners: “to influence, pass disinformation to, and recruit as agents members of the embassies of the capitalist and Third World countries in Moscow, as well as visiting journalists, businessmen, scientists and academics; to carry out prophylactic political operations to neutralize and then use internal political opposition, especially from nationalistic, intellectual and religious groups; and to carryout joint political operations with the security services of the other communist countries.”16
Department D, or the disinformation department, came into existence in January, 1959 and was subordinate to the Central Committee. It was given wide access to the executive branches of the government and to the Central committee. Department D used its own unique “means and special channels” to disseminate information: “secret agents at home and abroad; agents of influence abroad; penetrations of Western embassies and governments; technical and other secret means of provoking appropriate incidents or situations in support of policy – for example, border incidents, protest demonstrations, and so forth.”17
In the Perestroika Deception, Golitsyn’s 1995 work, he remarked how the West did not understand the Soviet program of disinformation. Watergate and other events weakened the CIA and the FBI with the former losing effective counterintelligence and the loss of research and analytical capabilities and file. The FBI was hobbled by KGB controlled plants controlling the view of the Soviets. Further, Americans in Congress did not understand the significance of changes in the Soviet bloc nor did the Western media and scholars. 18
The West, according to Golitsyn, did not understand the meaning of Soviet perestroika or restructuring especially as in the areas of democratization and market economies. Nor did the West understand the long term significance of the changes in Russia during the 1980s and the 1990s.19 Indeed, the “factual evidence of the adoption and execution of the long-range Soviet strategy has been ignored, discarded or dismissed by the West because of the success of Soviet disinformation.”20 However, evidence of the disinformation program exists in the form of numerous records of meetings and conferences according to Golitsyn.21
The Russians used various tactics in employing disinformation. One was to provoke national minorities.22 Another was to employ “agents of influence” to exploit matters in the United States where there “was a huge budget deficit, AIDS, drugs, crime and educational problems.” These agents were especially targeting and affecting national morale especially among the young.23
That was not all. The Soviets, with the advent of Gorbachev, were trying to engage the American elites. This was part of engagement “in close cooperation” to effect “`restructuring’ in the United States. “ In that regard, “selected members of the American elite” were present at the Soviet Embassy during Gorbachev’s visit to Washington, DC. There would then develop a “consistent and persistent campaign by the Soviet Embassy in Washington to widen its contacts with American businessmen, academics, political, religious and cultural figures in order to exploit the political changes and even the disasters in the Soviet Union, for the purpose of promoting the appearance of irreversible change.” These contacts with “agents of influence in the United States” would advance the false narrative of Soviet collapse. Sakharov was portrayed as a reformer and so he enthralled the West’s left, important players in the dismantling of Western democracy.24
All of this accorded with the “paramount global objective of the strategy of perestroika” which is about weakening and neutralizing anti-Communist ideology and the influence of anti-Communists in political life so as to restructure “the entire capitalist world.”25 The model was Lenin’s New Economic Policies of the 1920s which claimed to offer Soviet economic restructuring without the ideology. The West was fooled, the USSR revived its economy, Soviet power was stabilized, and this all served to facilitate the creation of a stronger Soviet Union better able to conduct its “ideological and political assault on the capitalist world.”26
Geopolitical Goals
Russian strategic goals are, among other things, to weaken Western alliances, especially NATO, as alluded to by Golitsyn. Christopher Steel in his 2024 book Unredacted: Russia, Trump and the Fight for Democracy, writes that “Putin hated and feared the European Union and NATO the two bodies that united Europe and largely held together the continent’s disparate, disputatious nations politically and militarily.”27 Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet recently wrote in The Hill that “Putin’s broader geopolitical goal…includes dismantling NATO.”28 Toth and Sweet went on to write: “Putin knows, conventionally-speaking, that his military cannot defeat NATO in Ukraine, much less Europe. But he can create enough division from within its ranks to divide the United States, old NATO and new NATO in order to fracture trust from within the 32-member defensive alliance.”29
NATO and the EU keep Russia from being a “regional superpower” and that hinders Russia’s dream of “messianic multipolarity which is an ideology that seeks to bring about a world with few regional superpowers struggling against each other.” Russia’s narrative is to “dominate Eastern Europe and impose on smaller states a socially conservative `traditional civilization’ as an alternative” to the claimed “`globalist’ and `decaying’ Western one.” The other authoritarian regimes like China, Iran and Venezuela like this idea as they want to “undermine America’s standing in the world and subvert the institutions and concepts that define the postwar order.” Propaganda has hurt American standing in the world as “Iran and Russia have woven a web of lies about American activities abroad and used a network of Russian state-affiliated outlets in Latin America and Africa to amplify their message. The rapid spread of media and information from these outlets in South America and Africa has actively eroded public perceptions of the United States and impacted American diplomatic efforts.” 30
Narratives and Methods
Over time, the Russians adjusted their messaging, and the methods of deploying their messaging, depending on the situation. Rumania is in the front line and recently two pro-Russian anti-NATO/EU presidential candidates, Calin Georgescu and Diana Sosoaca, were disqualified from running for President of Romania.31 Social media and its messaging played a role in these events as the Russians use social media to advance certain themes.
Some of these themes of disinformation are listed by the US Embassy to Rumania, which last time I checked, still listed them on its website. The Embassy stated: “Over many years, Russia has fabricated a set of false narratives that its disinformation and propaganda ecosystem persistently injects into the global information environment. These narratives act like a template, which enables the Kremlin to adjust these narratives, with one consistency – a complete disregard for truth as it shapes the information environment to support its policy goals.”32
This is done several ways. The Embassy explains that “Russian military and intelligence entities are engaging in this activity across Russia’s disinformation and propaganda ecosystem, to include malign social media operations, the use of overt and covert online proxy media outlets, the injection of disinformation into television and radio programming, the hosting of conferences designed to influence attendees into falsely believing that Ukraine, not Russia, is at fault for heightened tensions in the region, and the leveraging of cyber operations to deface media outlets and conduct hack and release operations.”33
Currently, there are five major reoccurring Russian disinformation themes the Kremlin is currently using to support the “false narratives about its actions in Ukraine.” The first is that “Russia is an innocent victim” of the aggressive actions of the West, most notably NATO and Ukraine. Russophobia, according to this narrative, is prompting an unjust attack on Russia which has to defend itself, or so goes this story-line that makes Russia the victim and not the aggressor. The reality is that Russia is just the reverse – Russia is the aggressor, not the victim.34
The second theme is one of historical revisionism which, for example, minimizes the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact while placing blame for the war on others. Historical revisionism is also used when it comes to Ukraine’s statehood and existence, NATO’s conduct after the collapse of the USSR (e.g., the infamous never given promise not to move East), the existence of the GULAGs, and the Holodomor.35
A third theme is that the “Collapse of Western Civilization is Imminent.” The Embassy puts it best:
“Russia pushes the false claim that Western civilization is collapsing and has strayed from `traditional values’ because it works to ensure the safety and equality of LGBTQI+ people and promotes concepts such as female equality and multiculturalism. The demise of Western civilization is one of Russia’s oldest disinformation tropes, with claims of `the decaying west’ documented since the 19th century.
This `values’-based disinformation narrative evokes ill-defined concepts including `tradition,’ `family values,’ and `spirituality.’ Russia argues it is the bastion of so-called `traditional values’ and serves as a moral counterweight to the `decadence’ of the United States and Western countries. For example, President Putin has claimed the West has practically cancelled the concepts of `mother’ and `father,’ and instead has replaced them with `parent 1 and 2,’ while Foreign Minister Lavrov wrote that Western students “learn at school that Jesus Christ was bisexual.”36
A fourth theme is that “popular movements are U.S.-Sponsored `Color Revolutions’.” Denying peoples “agency, dignity, and independent aspirations to advocate for themselves” and thereby rejecting the American, and now international, idea of self-determination of peoples, the Russians claim that the United States is responsible for “either instigating uprisings or plotting `color revolutions’ in Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Ukraine and throughout the Middle East and Africa.” Russia attacks popular, pro-democracy, and pro-reform movements as incited by the United States. Closely associated with these lies are the ones that accuse “local and international civil society organizations, as well as independent media that expose human rights abuses and corruption.”37
Finally, Putin and his gang “create multiple false realities and insert confusions into the information environment when the truth is not in its interests.” These conflicting narratives “generate confusion and discourage response” and can be accomplished with social media and “state-funded disinformation outlets.” An example concerned the attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal and Yulia, his daughter, in March, 2018. The state-sponsored outlets such as RT and Sputnik disseminated 138 separate and contradictory narratives. As with the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 and the ongoing occupation of Georgia, the Russians “distract conversations from their role in the events” and to “confuse and distract others and manipulate the truth to suit Kremlin interests.”38
Additionally, for Russia to achieve its geopolitical goals, it must create and exploit discord within the US. Looking back over the years, that has been happening for some time. There has certainly been a lot of material, and one can easily see that the so-called pro-life movement provided not only grievances to exploit, but also the organization to perpetuate and further weaponize these grievances. Russia creates or amplifies discord by
“exploiting divisive elements of American domestic politics in order to target the United States and subvert its democracy. Russian campaigns have specifically targeted MAGA supporters and fed them conspiracy theories on everything from the Texas border crisis to the July 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump. MAGA supporters are the most susceptible demographic in America for Russian disinformation. This propaganda focuses on divisive issues of gender, political violence, immigration, and race. The end result of this process is the creation of a divided electorate, the weakening of American institutions, and the election of individuals who are willing to destroy the load-bearing concepts and alliances that guide American foreign policy.” 39
In the past, one of the Russian instruments of disinformation was Yevgeny Prigozhin’s “organized troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA)” which operated fake Facebook and X accounts so as to influence people around the world. The IRA was dismantled after the 2016 US election but the “techniques and models of information operations established by the organization continue to be used” by Russia and other opponents of the USA.40
The famous “Mueller Report” issued in March, 2019, and it described Russian interference as well as Trump’s extensive contacts with Russians. Russian interference consisted of a social media campaign and a hacking campaign. As to the social media campaign:
“The Internet Research Agency (IRA) carried out the earliest Russian interference operations identified by the investigation—a social media campaign designed to provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States. The IRA was based in St. Petersburg, Russia, and received funding from Russian oligarch Yevgeniy Prigozhin and companies he controlled. Prigozhin is widely reported to have ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin,
“In mid-2014, the IRA sent employees to the United States on an intelligence-gathering mission with instructions….
“The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed `information warfare.’ The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton. The IRA’s operation also included the purchase of political advertisements on social media in the names of U.S. persons and entities, as well as the staging of political rallies inside the United States. To organize those rallies, IRA employees posed as U.S. grassroots entities and persons and made contact with Trump supporters and Trump Campaign officials in the United States. The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons conspired or coordinated with the IRA. Section II of this report details the Office’s investigation of the Russian social media campaign.”41
Russia exploits domestic unrest in the United States by amplifying “preexisting sentiments among the public” (e.g., anti-abortion, anti-immigrant, anti-Ukraine, anti-LGBTQ). The state-sponsored news agency Russia Today has an informal motto according to one journalist: “Anything that causes chaos is RT’s line.” Telegram is “another popular means of spreading disinformation” with adoption by many “American far-right internet users.” An editor of The Grayzone accepted funding from Iranian state-backed media outlets “while publishing stories critical of the United States and Israel.”42
Another famous Russian disinformation machine is “Storm 1516…a secretive Russian group that puts out `faked primary sources – audio, video, photos, documents’ to serve as evidence of a whistleblower’s claim’s veracity.” A large volume of different products with differing narratives are put forward, usually generated by artificial intelligence with the use of bots, with the hope that one narrative or story gets through according to Clint Watts the general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Centere. These materials are then run through “international news sources and influencers to reach the ultimate target: `a mainstream Western audience.’” In Autumn, 2024, some fifty such videos were released and they overwhelming backed the re-election of Trump “who is pictured as a victim of the deep state and who promised to end the war while at the same time attacking Harris and discouraging support for Ukraine.” One such video supposedly detailed how “the Ukrainian leadership was spending money on yachts and more luxuries.” Other videos supposedly show how Ukrainian officers are brutally conscripting Ukrainians, and these reached JD Vance who repeated these stories43 perhaps most notably at the February 28 meeting with President Zelensky of Ukraine. Darren Linvill, a co-director of the Clemson University Media Forensics Hub said, “It is very purposeful, very systematic, and it’s a process that we see over and over.”44
In particular, disinformation campaigns against Ukraine by the Russians are intense and prevalent. About 551 websites spreading up to 302 false claims have been identified, with artificial intelligence being used in the effort. Newsweek provides a summary of the disinformation the Russians were, and are, putting forward and how it has changed over time:
“In the early months of the war, Russian propaganda often focused on alleged claims about the prevalence of Nazism in Ukraine, along with denials that Russia targeted civilian targets. More recently, Russia has pushed baseless false claims about Ukrainian corruption, Zelensky’s supposedly declining domestic political support, and wasteful spending of Western dollars, with many of these accusations created and spread by [John Mark Dougan, a Russian propagandist and member of Storm 1516] Dougan. According to comments made by Russian television presenter Vladimir Solovyov on Russian state TV, one of these false claims—that Zelensky has only a four percent approval rating—may have come from a phone conversation Russian President Vladimir Putin had with U.S. President Donald Trump. Solovyov said, `Many of the narratives being voiced [by Trump] largely materialized after their [Putin and Trump’s] conversation’….
“A total of 14 of NewsGuard’s corruption-related narratives directly accuse Zelensky and first lady Olena Zelenska of spending $725 million of Western aid on luxury purchases, including mansions, yachts, and sports cars. Collectively, these claims have gained more than 66.4 million views on X, and include $75 million on two luxury yachts, $15 million on Hitler’s Mercedes, and $92 million on a luxury ski resort in the French Alps. Zelensky was also accused of buying musician Sting’s villa in Italy and King Charles’ estate in England. The claim that Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, purchased a Bugatti Tourbillon sports car for $4.6 million, was the most viral, drawing 19.5 million views on X…..
“However, as Western aid has become increasingly crucial to Ukraine, and amid growing opposition to continued Western support for Ukraine in some quarters, the biggest shift in disinformation focus has been in portraying Ukrainian officials as squandering Western aid funds, which are approximately $83 billion, according to German think tank the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Out of 21 corruption-related narratives, NewsGuard debunked two corruption claims in the first year of the war, six in the second year, and 13 in the third year.”45
Russian disinformation is targeted to weaken the US. Democratic institutions are undermined, US policy is influenced, and people’s ability to distinguish fact from fiction is decreased by the things Storm 1516 does. This helps Russian geopolitical goals. The false narratives or disinformation find traction amongst MAGA, as earlier mentioned, but also amongst the alt media or conservative media. Former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said “it is a bigger threat than it ever was” and that “Russia has meddled in our society and tried to sow discord for decades. Really what we’re seeing is just more tools in toolbox.” On behalf of the United States, AG Garland brought in September, 2024 an indictment against Russian actors to include “laundering propaganda through seemingly independent US actors” that included right wing creators or influencers, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, and Tim Pool.46
To better study Russian disinformation, the United States passed into law in December, 2016 the Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act (CFPDA). This created the Global Engagement Center (GEC), centered in the Department of State, and directed to conduct counterpropaganda. It issued a major report in August, 2020 known as “Pillars of Russian Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem.” The Russian disinformation and propaganda ecosystem consists of a “collection of official, proxy and unattributed communication channels and platforms that Russia uses to create and amplify false narratives.” Its five main components or pillars are “official government communications, state-funded global messaging, cultivation of proxy sources, weaponization of social media, and cyber-enabled disinformation…”47
The report defined certain key terms. The first is “information confrontation” which describes the Russian approach to the use of information in strategic and military circles. The second is “active measures” which designates Russian political warfare methods that utilize disinformation and propaganda as “an integrated tactical manifestation of this strategic view” of perpetual conflict. Part of Russian methodology is, as we have seen, to promote messaging that is not uniform and to distribute such on multiple media platforms. The variations in the message actually help amplify certain core ideas. The report noted that Russia “operationalized” the concept of “perpetual adversarial competition in the information environment by encouraging the development of disinformation and propaganda ecosystem.” 48
The Russian ecosystem enhances the effectiveness of Russian messaging. That happens several ways:
“First, it allows for the introduction of numerous variations of the same false narratives. This allows for the different pillars of the ecosystem to fine tune their disinformation narratives to suit different target audiences because there is no need for consistency, as there would be with attributed government communications. Second, it provides plausible deniability for Kremlin officials when proxy sites peddle blatant and dangerous disinformation, allowing them to deflect criticism while still introducing pernicious information. Third, it creates a media multiplier effect among the different pillars of the ecosystem that boost their reach and resonance.”49
The media multiplier effect creates “disinformation storms with potentially dangerous effects” for Russian adversaries. The report concluded that this system was well suited for Russian attacks on democratic institutions and the international cohesion of the United States with its allies.50
Despite all of this, the GEC provided good news. There exists “a thriving counter-disinformation community comprised of governments, civil society, academia, the press, the private sector, and citizens around the world who refuse to tolerate these tactics” in the United States and the Free World. This community pushes back against the Russians.51
Next we will examine more closely the Russian messaging repeated by key US figures and the ideological roots behind such.
1Christina Lu, “The Speech That Stunned Europe Read U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference,” Foreign Policy, February 18, 2025.
2Ibid.
3 Jonathan Turley, “As US censorship industry collapses, the fight for free speech moves to Europe,” February 22, 2025, The Hill.
4 Gian Volpicelli, “Musk escalates fight with EU over free speech, election fairness,” January 8, 2025, Bloomberg.
5 Ibid.
6Turley,
7 “Decree on the Means of Social Communication,” Inter Mirifica, December 4, 1963, para. 12.
8Rym Montaz, “Taking the Pulse, Is Elon Musk meddling in European politics?” January 23, 2025, Carnegie Endowmenthttps://carnegieendowment.org/europe/strategic-europe/2025/01/taking-the-pulse-is-elon-musk-meddling-in-european-politics?lang=en
9 https://www.eu-digital-services-act.com/#:~:text=The%20Digital%20Services%20Act%20(DSA)%20%2D%20Regulation,to%20react%20quickly%2C%20while%20respecting%20fundamental%20rights; The digital Services Act: EU 2022/2065.
10The European commission, “The Digital Services Act,” https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/europe-fit-digital-age/digital-services-act_en
11Michael J Kelley, “Understanding Russian Disinformation and How the Joint Force Can Address It,” May 29, 2024, US Army War College Publications.
12 Ibid.
13 Anatoliy Golitsyn, New Lies for Old, (Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, 1984), 5.
14 Ibid., 47-48.
15 Ibid., 49.
16Ibid., 47, 48, 49, 50
17 Ibid., 50.
18Anatoliy Golitsyn, The Perestroika Deception (Edward Harle, 1995), 408-410.
19 Ibid., 266.
20 Ibid., 263
21 Ibid., 259-261.
22 Also, see Christopher Marsh, “Putin’s Playbook: The Development of Russian Tactics, Operations, and Strategy from
Chechnya to Ukraine,” The Great Power Competition Volume 5 (2023) A. Farhadi et al. (eds), 161-183, 163-164.
23 Golitsyn, The Perestroika Deception, 151-152.
24 Ibid., 76-78.
25 Ibid., 61-63.
26 Ibid., 65-66.
27 Christopher Steele, Unredacted: Russia, Trump and the Fight for Democracy (Mariner Books, New York, 2024), 126.
28 Mark Toth, Jonathan Sweet, “Putin’s Real Goal: Destroy NATO,” March 17, 2025, The Hill.
29 Ibid.
30Alexander Vindman, “Strategic Goals and Overarching Themes,” October 8, 2024, Charles J. Kettering Foundation.
31 AFP in Bucharest, “Romania Bars Second Far Right Hopeful from Presidential Election Rerun,” March 15, 2025, The
Guardian.
32“Russia’s Top five Persistent Disinformation Narratives,” March 11, 2024, U.S. Embassy in Rumania.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
39 Alexander Vindman, “Strategic Goals and Overarching Themes,” October 8, 2024, Charles J. Kettering Foundation. He cautions: “In the midst of a critical election season, citizens should be cautious about emotive social media content that seeks to inflame passions and fan conspiracy theories. Media must be viewed critically and with the understanding that foreign actors are actively seeking to undermine American democracy.”
40 Ibid.
41 Robert S Mueller, III, “Report on the Investigation Into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election,” U.S.
Department of Justice, 3-4. NB: I am copying whole portions of the Mueller Report because people need to know the
contents, and I am simplifying – hopefully – that process for them.
As to the hacking campaign:
“At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The Russian intelligence service known as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Army (GRU) carried out these operations.
“In March 2016, the GRU began hacking the email accounts of Clinton Campaign volunteers and employees, including campaign chairman John Podesta. In April 2016, the GRU hacked into the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The GRU stole hundreds of thousands of documents from the compromised email accounts and networks. Around the time that the DNC announced in mid-June 2016 the Russian government’s role in hacking its network, the GRU began disseminating stolen materials through the fictitious online personas `DC Leaks’ and `Guccifer 2.0.’ The GRU later released additional materials through the organization WikiLeaks.
“The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump (`Trump Campaign’ or `Campaign’) showed interest in WikiLeaks’s releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016, [REDACTED]forecast to senior Campaign officials that WikiLeaks would release information damaging to candidate Clinton. WikiLeaks’s first release came in July 2016. Around the same time, candidate Trump announced that he hoped Russia would recover emails described as missing from a private server used by Clinton when she was Secretary of State (he later said that he was speaking sarcastically).
“WikiLeaks began releasing Podesta’s stolen emails on October 7, 2016, less than one hour after a U.S. media outlet released video considered damaging to candidate Trump. Section III of this Report details the Office’s investigation into the Russian hacking operations, as well as other efforts by Trump Campaign supporters to obtain Clinton-related emails.”?
42 Vindman, “Strategic Goals and Overarching Themes”.
43 The White House, “President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Oval Office, Feb. 28, 2025,” YouTube, time
stamp 42:36; See, Kollen Post, “Ukraine and the Frontlines of the War on Disinformation,” August 1, 2024, Foreign Policy
Research Institute discusses videos of conscription and much more.
44Brandy Zadrozny, “How Russian Disinformation Works,” October 16, 2024, NBC.
45 Newsguard, ““Russia’s War on Ukraine: Three Years, Three Hundred and Two False Claims: AI and invented corruption claims supercharge Russian disinformation about the war,” February 21, 2025, Newsweek; Also see Kathrin Wesolowski, “Ukraine’s Zelenskyy: From lavish shopping sprees to luxury yachts, disinformation swirls around Ukraine’s president. DW’s Fact Check team investigates dubious claims that aim to weaken Western support for the country’s ongoing war,” February 23, 2024, DW, which debunks the following false claims about Zelenskyy: that he bought yachts and his wife went to New York to buy over $ 1.1 million dollars in jewelry. She writes “Roman Osadchuk, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, a US think tank, agrees. `If you taint Zelenskyy’s image, you basically also taint Ukraine’s image,’ he said. The DW Fact Check team examined evidence that the Ukrainian president and his family have been the targets of anti-Ukrainian disinformation. There have been various false claims regarding their allegedly lavish lifestyle in recent months. DW looked at two in particular that went viral.” See also, “DISINFO: NATO will reveal Zelenskyy’s corruption ahead of pseudo-elections in Ukraine,” February 3, 2025 EUvsDisInfo which debunks false claims of corruption by Zelenskyy to include stealing $ 1.5 billion destined for ammunition.
46 Zadrozny, “How Russian Disinformation Works.”
47 Global Engagement Center (GEC), “GEC Special Report: Pillars of Russia’s Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem,”
August, 2020, United States Department of State.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid. A second and more detailed report documenting Kremlin funding issued in January, 2022.