The US Justice Department announced the ongoing seizure of at least 32 domains used for this malign influence operation. Meanwhile, the US Department of Treasury is now taking action against Russian individuals enabling such clandestine influence operations, including the notorious pro-Kremlin propagandists and the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita Simonyan.
The Ukraine angle
Pondering the US presidential candidates position on supporting Ukraine was a particilalry popular avenue of disinformation attacks for the pro-Kremlin outlets covering the presidential race. Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, in her address to the Democratic National Convention in August, signalled that she would continue the Biden Administration’s policy of supporting Ukraine.
Meanwhile, former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump has been cagey about support for Ukraine. Previously he has claimed that, if elected, he could end the war quickly, although he has not said how. He reportedly reviewed a plan to halt US military aid to Ukraine unless Kyiv negotiated with Moscow. The same plan would increase support for Ukraine if Moscow did not sit down to negotiate. Notably, Trump’s pick for vice president, JD Vance, is firmly on the record as opposing future Ukraine aid.
Many Kremlin propagandists say they are wary of a second Trump term. However, the volume and targets of pro-Kremlin disinformation tell a far different story. If we follow the narratives, we see that pro-Kremlin outlets and commentators may have a soft spot for the Republican.
Moscow considers elections to be battlefields, and we track Russian disinformation about various elections. As part of that series, we offer below a tour of disinformation narratives about the US presidential campaign that we’re seeing two months ahead of election day.
Pro-Kremlin commentators: not the biggest Harris fans
So far, the most prominent disinformation narrative has focussed on Harris. Pro-Kremlin propagandists treat her with their usual subtlety. In their more official moments, they dismiss her as incompetent and extreme. When let to vent more freely, they called her a lying, corrupt, Marxist, child-organ-trafficking and Soros-supporting global puppet whose ancestors owned slaves. As we said, subtle.
These vilifying narratives are nearly omnipresent. Some articles demonized Harris as the ‘Soros candidate’, the ‘Deep State’ candidate, and the militaristic and neoconservative candidate, among other things. Other outlets specialised in conspiracy theories, with one commentator claiming that Deep State support and millions of illegal migrant votes could guarantee her victory.
Some allegations blew past the conspiratorial and into the absurd. One commentator referred to Harris as an ‘enemy of black people’. Another piece called her a ‘smiling Pol Pot’ and a radical Marxist. Yet another portrayed her as the ‘hallmark of evil’.
As often occurs, when pro-Kremlin disinformation reaches a moral bottom, it just keeps digging further. Sure enough, a few disinformation spreaders claimed that Harris and her running mate for the vice presidency, Tim Walz, have somehow been involved in the trafficking and sexual exploitation of Ukrainian children.
Even these examples may underestimate the amount of just how decidedly anti-Harris the Kremlin’s coverage is. Russian state-controlled and other pro-Kremlin outlets consistently criticisms of Harris, but without giving similar time to criticising Trump. This imbalance in coverage was, in itself, a form of disinformation.
For example, Kremlin propagandist Vladimir Solovyev regularly featured statements from the Trump campaign on his Telegram channel. In particular, Solovyev showcased Trump praising Putin as a ‘good negotiator’ while alleging that Biden made a ‘stupid mistake’ by allowing for Ukraine’s possible entry into NATO. Safe to say, Soloyvev was not so generous to Harris.
Determinedly indifferent to Trump, sort of
More than a few commentators argued that Trump would not necessarily be better for Russia than a Harris presidency. One Russian State Duma deputy was quoted as saying that Trump ‘was not loyal to Russia’ in his first term. Another asserted that the belief that Trump’s victory would be good for Russia was ‘a dangerous illusion’.
Even so, pro-Trump bias in pro-Kremlin commentary was irrepressible. In particular, outlets obsessed over Trump’s promise to quickly end the war in Ukraine by forcing Kyiv to make territory concessions, even if Russian officials were officially sceptical of it. One telling example, aired by a pro-Kremlin outlet illegally operating in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, claimed to describe a schoolgirl in Luhansk saying that while Trump wasn’t really Russia’s friend, he was the only candidate who could stop the West from starting a third world war.
The thinly disguised hankering for Trump, however, was muted when compared to the savagery directed at Harris, or to the volcano of conspiracies that erupted in the wake of Trump’s attempted assassination. Resulting stories showed pro-Kremlin commentators doing what they do best: attacking imaginary enemies. At one time or another, they alleged that globalists, former President Barack Obama, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Deep State, and transnational corporations including the Rothschild financial group and the BlackRock investment fund were all part of the plot to kill Trump.
It’s all bogus anyway
Despite their evidently deep interest in the US elections, pro-Kremlin outlets were determined to feign their indifference. They also cast the election itself as bogus.
For example, the English-language edition of Sputnik asserted that Harris’s selection as Biden’s successor demonstrated that ‘the American electoral process has degraded into a shambling [sic] shell of its former self’. Another piece referred to Harris’s selection – earned after she gathered sufficient support from elected Democratic delegates – as a ‘coup’. It’s all a bit much, coming from autocratic Russia.
In the same vein, pro-Kremlin outlets tried to portray the US as a dangerous and unstable country. Several articles portrayed the Democratic Party as chaotic and divided. Another alleged that the Democrats will cheat in order to win. Yet another described a US civil war as likely.
From there, things only got stranger. One pro-Kremlin commentator accused Ukraine of trying to interfere in the US elections, the biggest case we’ve ever heard of the proverbial political pot calling the kettle an election meddler. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova waded into US domestic politics, repeating right-wing talking point that the Biden Administration lied about job creation. A few articles claimed that current President Biden is not only incompetent and senile, but also dead.
Some commentators even ventured into far right-wing denialist territory, floating bogus allegations that Harris is not even eligible to be president. The idea comes from a fake birth certificate passed around on social media.
In sum, Russian state-controlled and other pro-Kremlin disinformation was more geared towards denigrating the Democrats than supporting the Republicans. And that trend sums up Moscow’s attitude towards the upcoming US presidential election so far. Kremlin insiders are not sure whom they like, if anyone. But they are certain whom they hate.
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