OPINION: Russian Misinfo Pushers and US Useful Idiots

A recently unsealed indictment filed by the Department of Justice in the Southern District of New York has revealed one element of Russia’s ongoing election interference campaign. According to the document, two Russian nationals identified as Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva were part of a misinformation campaign aimed at American voters.

Specifically, these two individuals provided editorial guidance and pushed pro-Russian talking points to a collection of American streamers and social media figures affiliated with Tenet Media in exchange for $10 million dollars’ worth of funding over several months.

These two individuals were employed by Russia Today during this scheme and have been formally charged with Conspiracy to Violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act and Conspiracy to Commit Money Laundering. Tenet Media is owned by Lauren Chen, a millennial Canadian with close ties to Glen Beck’s “TheBlaze” and the conservative student organization “Turning Point USA.”

I’ll be frank - after doing a cursory search of the personalities involved in Tenet Media, I think, these people are morons. I have no idea why people think “Tim Pool” is an authority on anything and I pity anyone that uses these streams as their main source of news. However, it’s impossible to deny the size of Tenet Media’s audience.

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Millions of barrels of Russian fuel and other products are still being imported into the UK and EU members via subsidiary companies in third countries, despite existing sanctions.

The Russian government has clearly elaborated upon its earlier strategy of using bots and fake accounts to manipulate discourse on social media and has begun directly financing alternative media outlets in the United States and Europe.

Considering Tim Pool was willing to say that Ukraine was the enemy of the United States and that America should apologize to Russia, I’m sure the Russian government considered this operation to be a success - especially if no one at Tenet Media was able to conduct basic due diligence and discern why a “Hungarian businessman” wanted to invest $100,000 a week into their production.

While this investigation is ongoing, there are already several major takeaways that we can pull from the indictment. RT was pushing heavily for Tenet Media streamers to frame the terror attack in Moscow on Crocus City Hall as being the fault of the United States or Ukraine.

Not only does this indictment provide insight into the narratives pushed by the Russian government, but it also shows us the literal chain of command used in this operation: Afanasyeva contacted an unnamed “founder” of Tenet Media, wrote “I think we can focus on the Ukraine/U.S. angle .... the mainstream media spread fake news that ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack yet ISIS itself never made such statements. All terrorists are now detained while they were heading to the border with Ukraine which makes it even more suspicious why they would want to go to Ukraine to hide,” and by the next day an unnamed streamer was “happy to cover it.”

Additionally, investigators heavily cite Google searches, “Discord” conversations, and other digital evidence in the charging document. This suggests that Russian misinfo actors remain heavily reliant on commercially available digital services for their operations and for interfacing with their assets abroad.

Additionally, this also means that American law enforcement and counterintelligence task forces have filed numerous warrants and data preservation orders over the course of their investigation. We can expect similar forensic data will be cited in any forthcoming indictments on similar operations.

Misinformation operations in the United States will grow in frequency and intensity as we get closer to the election - and they may not be limited to Russian narratives aimed at MAGA republicans.

Iran is currently undertaking a misinfo campaign aimed at harming the GOP and recently the far-left pro-Hamas publication “The Grayzone” was found to have previously received funding from the Iranian government.

As Americans, we should recognize that the greatest threat to our country isn’t the military of an adversary, but instead the manipulation of our democracy by bad actors that agitate different elements of the political fringe. Our elections are not open season for America’s enemies - we need to secure our voting systems and do everything we can to track and fight misinformation online.

This piece is reprinted with permission from the author’s blog Why it Matters. See the original here.

The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.