Newly declassified US intel claims Russia is laundering propaganda through unwitting Westerners [View all]
It's not just trolls. A lot of times it's useful idiots.
US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is attempting to influence public policy and public opinion in the West by directing Russian civilians to build relationships with influential US and Western individuals and then disseminate narratives that support Kremlin objectives, obscuring the FSB’s role through layers of ostensibly independent actors.
“These influence operations are designed to be deliberately small scale, the overall goal being US [and] Western persons presenting these ideas, seemingly organic,” a US official authorized to discuss the material told CNN. “The co-optee influence operations are built primarily on personal relationships … they build trust with them and then they can leverage that to covertly push the FSB’s agenda.”
The campaigns have sometimes been effective at planting Russian narratives in the Western press, according to the intelligence.
https://news.yahoo.com/newly-declassified-us-intel-claims-142734560.html
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