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Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show (www.washingtonpost.com)

submitted 7 months ago by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/13024669

In an ongoing campaign that seeks to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions, according to a trove of internal Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service and reviewed by The Washington Post.

One of the political strategists, for instance, instructed a troll farm employee working for his firm to write a comment of “no more than 200 characters in the name of a resident of a suburb of a major city.” The strategist suggested that this fictitious American “doesn’t support the military aid that the U.S. is giving Ukraine and considers that the money should be spent defending America’s borders and not Ukraine’s. He sees that Biden’s policies are leading the U.S. toward collapse.”

The documents — numbering more than 100 and dating between May 2022 and August 2023 — were provided to The Post to expose Kremlin propaganda operations aimed at undermining support for Ukraine in the United States, as well as their scale and methods. The files are part of a series of leaks that have allowed a rare glimpse into Moscow’s parallel efforts to weaken support for Ukraine in France and Germany, as well as destabilize Ukraine itself.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

The American government has the ability to address both.

And yet, they don't.

That's the point. Russians don't have to lie about the neglect of the American people, and pretending that Russia's the problem here is a little silly to me when the vast majority of Americans are impoverished and definitely being robbed of their labor.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Russian lie is that the support of Ukraine and existing American social issues are meaningfully related, that if the former wouldn't exist, the latter could be solved. You're dangerously close to repeating this lie.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

It's not a lie, though.

We do neglect our people's needs so we can be involved in like nine wars at once, including Ukraine. Most countries provide for the basic needs of their people and can only maintain a sustained war for months at most.

It's your right to support that. It's my right to point out how remarkably shitty it is that we do this to our people.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It's not a lie, though.

It is. The two things aren't related as a couple of users already said.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 1 points 7 months ago

Thank you for your response.

[–] tardigrada@beehaw.org 7 points 7 months ago

@Flash Mob #5678

The Kremlin lies by relating U.S. social policy to Ukraine aid, although these things have nothing to do with each other. One major objective of these trolls is to undermine the trust in Western values, democracy, and human rights.

It is true that Russian (and other totalitarian states') disinformation exploits social problems in other countries to sew mistrust in their Western pllitical systems, blacken Western politicians' reputations, and breed conspiracy theories. (This was already a major goal in the USSR propaganda during the cold war in the 20th century, btw.)

Political polarization and growing social inequality are creating a fruitful ground for this propaganda and the spread of conspiracy theories, especially if and when Western politicians trade democratic values for short-term political gains (which is what some U.S. and European politicians appear to do right now, especially from the far right).

But, again, the U.S. can do both as it has been said, increasing social welfare and helping Ukraine. If Ukraine doesn't win this war, Russia will attack more countries, and I guess China is watching closley how the West reacts given Beijing's intentions and activities in Taiwan and the South China Sea. If Ukraine doesn't win this war, it gets worse for all of us, in the U.S., in Europe and the much bigger rest of the world.