(Washington) Russia is using its network of spies, its state media and social networks to undermine the credibility of elections around the world, according to an American intelligence report published Friday and shared with around a hundred countries.
“Russia is carrying out operations aimed at reducing public confidence in the integrity of the elections,” underlines this report, reiterating that Russian actors attempted to undermine the credibility of the 2020 American presidential election won by the Democrat Joe Biden against his Republican rival Donald Trump.
“This is a global phenomenon. Our information indicates that senior officials in the Russian government, including the Kremlin, give merit to this type of influence operation and consider them effective,” the report continued.
This document, transmitted by diplomatic cable to the embassies of around a hundred countries, in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, comes at a time when tensions are already high between Moscow and Washington against a backdrop of invasion. of Ukraine by Russia.
According to US intelligence, Russia led “concerted efforts” between 2020 and 2022 to undermine public confidence in at least eleven elections in nine democratic countries, including the United States.
Some 17 other democracies were targeted through “less pronounced” methods involving Russian activity on social media or email, adds the US report, which does not name the targeted countries.
These operations are carried out via “secret or public” mechanisms, notes the report which mentions for example the case of clandestine interference by the FSB, the Russian intelligence services, aimed at intimidating electoral staff during a campaign in a country. European not specified in 2020.
Russian state media amplified “false allegations of electoral fraud” in numerous elections in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America in 2020 and 2021, this report continues.
Moscow also exploited various social media platforms and “proxy websites” to create doubt during elections in a South American country last year, the report added without naming the country.
“For Russia, the benefits of these operations are twofold: spreading instability in democratic societies and presenting democratic elections as dysfunctional to the point of giving rise to illegitimate governments,” explains American intelligence, which recognizes the “vulnerabilities” of United States in the face of these “threats”.
In a discussion with the press in Washington, a US State Department official argued that Moscow had given a boost to these influence operations after concluding that its “disinformation” operations had succeeded during the presidential election. America of 2020 and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Russia is capitalizing on what it sees as a cheap success in 2020 in the United States and has since tried to repeat the experience on a global scale […]. We really see the American election as a catalyst,” added this senior official on condition of anonymity.
The Russian government had not reacted late Friday evening to this American intelligence report.