1y ago

US intelligence report alleging Russia election interference shared with 100 countries

www.reuters.com US intelligence report alleging Russia election interference shared with 100 countries

The United States on Friday released a U.S. intelligence assessment sent to more than 100 countries that found Moscow is using spies, social media and Russian state-run media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.

"This is a global phenomenon," said the assessment. "Our information indicates that senior Russian government officials, including the Kremlin, see value in this type of influence operation and perceive it to be effective."

A senior State Department official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, said that Russia was encouraged to intensify its election influence operations by its success in amplifying disinformation about the 2020 U.S. election and the COVID-19 pandemic.

politics @lemmy.world

US intelligence report alleging Russia election interference shared with 100 countries

www.reuters.com /world/us/us-intelligence-report-alleging-russia-election-interference-shared-with-100-2023-10-20/

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When are the countries doing something about this meddling of Russia
- Why would they? They welcome it with open arms.
- Whenever the US loses enough power to make it possible to prosecute this stuff globally.
- Probably when they also do something about US meddling... which is never.
  
  This isn’t the place for whataboutism.
  The US has done countless shitty things over the years, and more than its fair share during the Cold War, but it is not (currently) an authoritarian country that is making a broad and global propaganda and covert services push towards populist authoritarians and away from democratic norms in as many countries as possible. Russia is doing that now, and has been doing that since they got their feet back under themselves a bit in the late 90s.

Imagine they would put the same effort into making their own country a decent place to live
- It is a decent place to live for the rich oligarchs, and they intend to keep it that way.
  
  It is a decent place to live for the rich oligarch
  Dude, are we still talking about Russia or we switched to America?
- With the natural resources they have, they could have been a major member of the EU providing their people a lifestyle similar to Norway. But no, after the fall of the USSR they decided to go full speed towards a dictatorship. Such a shame.
- Or you could make the rest of the world a worse place to live
- America is a wonderful place to live. It is not free to live here, but we do have freedom.
  I wouldn't trade my life in the USA to move anywhere else, unless it was an offer that came with a substantial financial incentive that would pay for me to live comfortably without needing a job.
  
  Have you actually been anywhere else??? Lol
  
  The famous American freedom!

Well this thread sure is depressing. It's full of either tankies or people from Russian troll farms. Only one person actually trying to discuss the article, everyone else seems to be "whatabout America"-ing?
- It's horribly ironic that the people accusing everyone of falling for Western propaganda and pointing out the US' dark past, are completely falling for Russian propaganda and excusing their current behavior.
- It is depressing. People taking this "report", which cannot even be found in this article, at face value and spamming downvotes on anyone with a hint of critical thinking skills seeing these issues, and upvotes on people parroting the RUSSIA BAD line. It's not "whatabout" when the post is literally about "US intelligence" i.e. American propaganda arm. Apparently pointing out these flagrant issues with the post is just "tankies" and "Russian troll farms". This reminds me of when failed Russian agricultural practices would be blamed on "American pests". Where supposedly the US introduced pests just to destroy crops in Russia. Keep blaming all your problems on a foreign country while your empire languishes.

Does anyone have a link to the report? I want to be informed about this matter. A link to the report should be in the article, but it isn't. Did they refuse to share the report with the United Kingdom?
- Here you go everyone, here you are, Finland, here you go, Germany, one for you Suriname, and Djibouti, and Micronesia of course, NO NOT YOU UK, Mongolia, Chad...
- Ask the Canadians, they'll probably give you a copy
  
  Copying is a grey area still in our country. As long as you don't upload it, you can download a copy from us

This is the best summary I could come up with:
The assessment was sent in a State Department cable dated Wednesday to more than 100 U.S. embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to their host governments, he said.
The report represents Washington's latest move to combat what it says are Moscow's efforts "to sow instability" in democratic countries by portraying elections as "dysfunctional, and resulting governments as illegitimate."
Washington "recognizes its own vulnerability to this threat," said the report, noting that U.S. intelligence agencies found that "Russian actors spread and amplified information to undermine public confidence in the U.S. 2020 election."
U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2020 beat his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who refuses to accept the results, falsely claiming that he lost due to fraud.
Concerted Russian operations between 2020 and 2022 sought to "undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the United States," the report said, adding 17 others were targeted by "less pronounced" efforts.
Russia "utilizes both overt and covert mechanisms, including influence networks and proxies managed" by Russian spy services, the report said.
The original article contains 531 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Would anyone be shocked to find out every country tries to interfere with the elections of every country? Specially of countries that affect them a lot?
Or do you guys not think the US interferes with say, Japanese elections? Or the Australians don’t interfere with New Zealand elections?
People think all countries are just nice and honest good friends? Only the “evil” ones do shit like this?
C’mon…
- Yes, I would be. If, say, Germany tried to mess with French elections or the other way around the EU would implode. Commenting on things? No problem, journalists can do that why shouldn't politicians be allowed to. But not actual interference much less state-orchestrated or by covert means.

Yeah, only we can do that! Like we did, since the 20th century:
Nicaragua
Haiti
Dominican Republic
Russia during the Civil War
South Korea (Which we held the election and made it so only tax payers or city elders could vote)
Greece
Costa Rica
Albania
Syria
China Giving them drugs to make them unwilling to fight
Egypt
Guatemala
Iran To which we don't know the extent as the CIA burned thousands of internal documents to prevent the public knowing about it
Guatemala, again
Syria, again
Indonesia
Iraq
Vietnam Including the kidnapping and assassination of South Vietnam's president
Cuba with a failed invasion with a total of 634 known assassination attempts on Casto.
Cambodia
The Congo
Laos
Dominican Republic, again
Iraq, again To which we don't know the extent as the CIA burned thousands of internal documents to prevent the public knowing about it
Brazil
Indonesia, again
Cambodia, again
Chile
Bolivia
Ethiopia
Angola
East Timor
Argentina
Afghanistan
Poland
Chad
Nicaragua, again
Grenada
Panama
Iraq, a third time
Haiti, again
Iraq, a forth time
Haiti, a third time
Zaire
Yugoslavia
Afghanistan, again and ongoing for 20 years
Iraq, for the fifth time
Kyrgyzstan
Palestinian
Syria, a third time
Libya
Syria, a forth time
Not to mention:
That time we meddled with Ukraine's elections The general plan to stop democratic elections in Latin America
The Banana Republics Where we got so off scot free, there's a chain of stores named after it. It's like if Iraq had a chain of stores called 9/11 Appeal. The Consistent and non-stop murdering of Filipinos who wanted freedom from Spain and America
And this isn't even getting into pre-1990's with Hawaii and the mass genocide of Native Americans, or the internal fucking with elections like COINTELPRO murdering Black Panthers and MLK, and the CIA secretly using network stations and the internet to spread propaganda.
But it's good when we do it, so that makes it okay. Please don't ask use to apologize or forgive debts. We can't even keep a promise with any native american tribes, let alone foreign nations.
- Still just whataboutism. Both things can be bad.
  
  Whataboutism is the oldest trick in the troll's handbook. It's so obvious.
  
  Correct, both are bad. It's just the pot calling the kettle black.
- Any more recent or even current examples?
  
  No, we do not have information on what the CIA is currently doing, aside from "bad shit". For some reason, they aren't telling us in advance.
  
  I don't know about you, but I think the Afghan invasion we pulled out of in 2021 is a current example.
  How about the time our government tried to coup Bolivia in 2020? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/18/silence-us-backed-coup-evo-morales-bolivia-american-states
  And let's not forget our current backing of Israel bombing civilians of the Gaza strip and Palestine, no matter who's in charge of the oval office.
- I only clicked one link but I strongly support shit like this so idk what your problem is
  With President Truman's approval and support from Thailand's Prime Minister Plaek Phibunsongkhram, the CIA put together a secret air supply network that shipped weapons and supplies to General Li Mi's forces in Mong Hsat from Thailand. The first shipments started in early 1951, when unmarked C-46 and C-47 aircraft were making at least five parachute drops a week. By late 1951, the KMT repaired the old airstrip at Mong Hsat constructed by the Allied forces during World War II. The enlarged airstrip could handle large four-engine aircraft and allowed the KMT troops to obtain newly manufactured American weapons from Taiwan. CIA advisers also accompanied the KMT army in the Yunnan invasion in May 1951, and some of them were killed during the offensive.[8]
  Providing aid to those fighting communism is always a good thing
  
  Yeah and that's same idea as Russia invading Eastern Europe to stomp on anything they don't want. "Invading to aid in my ideology is good and legal, invading for anything else is bad and a war crime."
  America invading to stop communism is bad, the soviets invading to stop capitalism is bad.
- This is the most thorough comment I’ve seen in quite sometime. Even broke out the East Timor. Saved.

That's bold since most European countries intelligence confirmed USA interfered in all their elections during and after the Cold war.
- Thanks for your whataboutism. Now go troll somewhere offline.

erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide.
And I thought it was corrupt and criminal politicians running a farcical democracy that did it... When in doubt, blame russia I guess.
- More than one thing can be true at once.

Oh, you mean like the US has done for a century?

They spam this report like how they spam articles about it to pretend like what Russia is doing is any different from what the US does.
Remember when Russia invented election interference in 2016? Well the US was doing it before it was cool: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/nov/26/ukraine.usa
That is but one example of many dating back throughout the decades. In fact, Russia is the way it is in large part thanks to US interference. Make sure to scream "whataboutism" like a good little parrot and smash that downvote button to show how immune you are to propaganda.
- Wrong, dezinformacija is an integral part of communism, Russia is using it since early ‘900. There are many interesting books about it
  
  dEzInFoRmAcIjA You could've just written it as "disinformation" but I suppose writing it in a different language helps with the fearmongering for idiots. Take your cold war era bullshit and stuff it.
- Says the person falling completely for Russian propaganda.
  Do you think propaganda is one sided? That only one viewpoint has a government backing it? It is not enough to recognize propaganda and then support the opposite. You have to critically evaluate what's going on.
  With Ukraine, it's pretty fucking clear that Ukrainians wanted closer relations to the West, not to Russia. Was it a "color revolution" then, funded by the West to overthrow Russian order? Or was it an uprising of the people to take back their government and make it represent their wishes, and the US provided support to them? Was the Ukrainian president's sudden reversal on enacting a pro Western referendum after meeting with Putin a totally organic, sensible realization by him? Or, did Putin threaten him?
  Given how the country has voted and responded to Putin's invasion, I'm inclined to think that reality is closer to an actual uprising of the people, versus a Western funded color revolution to put a Western friendly figure in power. I think the evidence strongly suggests this, in fact.
  So have I fallen for Western propaganda in my analysis of Ukraine? Or have you fallen for Russian propaganda in your analysis? More importantly, if you do recognize that the reality of an "American coup to install a pro Western leader" doesn't match up at all with the war in Ukraine, will you admit that you have been duped?
  If so, I genuinely applaud you. A wise person will freely admit they've been tricked and endeavor to not let that happen again.
  
  No, I don't think propaganda is one sided, which is why I'm bringing up the US. Duh. Talking about "what the people want" is tricky because it can appear strongly one way or another depending on how it's portrayed. I'm sure quite a few thought that Jan 6th was "an uprising of the people" too. With enough media power, foreign countries could've been told a tale of the US government crushing "what the people want". In the link I posted, it shows an active effort by the US to fund and support groups pushing for policies that are favorable to the US and the west in general. Does this count as election interference or is it only election interference when Russia does it?

152 comments