Feds in Philly disrupt Russian-backed propaganda effort aimed at influencing U.S. presidential vote

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Federal authorities in Philadelphia announced on Wednesday the dismantling of a wide-ranging, Russian-backed misinformation network targeting voters in Pennsylvania and five other swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The network — known colloquially as “Doppelganger” and which prosecutors said was run by a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin — sought to dupe Americans in key demographics into believing Kremlin-produced propaganda it spread online had been produced by legitimate American news outlets.

The campaign also sought to enlist the aid of unwitting influencers in America and other countries to spread disinformation, sow social media discord, and advance the campaign of former President Donald Trump, whom the program’s backers viewed as more supportive of Russian interests.

The takedown of that effort — involving the seizure of more than 30 internet domains by agents from the FBI’s Philadelphia field office — was just one of a sweeping series of steps President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday to fend off attempts by Russia to meddle ahead of November’s vote.

Taken together, they amounted to the most significant public response yet by U.S. authorities to Russia’s alleged efforts to undermine the integrity of the election.

“Protecting our democratic processes from foreign malign influence is paramount to ensure public trust,” U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said in a statement detailing the Doppelganger seizures.

In Washington, the Treasury Department announced new sanctions against a Russian-based nonprofit tied to the Doppelganger network, and Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled an indictment against two Russian employees of state-owned broadcaster RT, who he said had paid a Tennessee company to spread nearly 2,000 English-language videos supportive of Kremlin interests.

Prosecutors said that the defendants — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — used aliases and that the company involved was unaware it was being used by Russian plotters.

Court filings in that case and the Doppelganger seizures were careful not to specifically name the Trump campaign as an intended beneficiary of the misinformation effort, and there was no allegation that anyone in the campaign was aware of or involved in the effort.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts,” Garland said in a statement Wednesday.

“The investigation,” he added, “is ongoing.”

For months, intelligence agencies have warned that Russia remains the primary threat to the integrity of the 2024 election — despite recent headlines about efforts by other foreign governments to shape the outcome of the vote.

Last month, federal authorities accused Iran of hacking Trump’s campaign and attempting to breach the campaigns of Biden and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Officials have also raised alarms about threats from China, which they have accused of maintaining a vast network of social media accounts aimed at targeting U.S. voters.

But ever since the U.S. was caught unprepared in the 2016 presidential election by Russia’s sophisticated social media campaign to influence voters — a push that included organizing fake campaign rallies for Trump in Pennsylvania and other swing states — U.S. intelligence efforts have focused on Russia as a priority.

An FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Philadelphia outlined the Doppelganger scheme, drawing on reams of planning documents and meeting notes by Kremlin officials as they mapped out their 2024 strategy. All references in the Russian documents to specific candidates or U.S. political parties were redacted.

“The conspirators specifically targeted the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s citizens … in order to influence the electorate in this, and other districts,” the affidavit said.

According to the court filing, the effort had been overseen since at least 2022 by Sergei Kiriyenko, a former Russian prime minister and Putin’s first deputy chief of staff. He and several of the entities cited in the court filings have already been subjected to U.S. sanctions for their roles in spreading misinformation.

Their primary goal, agents said, was to pass off inflammatory or fake news stories — supporting Russian interests or backing Trump — as work produced by legitimate American media outlets.

Plotters registered domain names similar to those of well-known media brands — like washingtonpost.pm and foxnews.cx — and posted stories under the names of real journalists who worked for them.

For instance, investigators said, one story featured on the spoofed Washington Post website — run under the headline “White House Miscalculated: Conflict with Ukraine Strengthens Russia” — sought to diminish public sentiment for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

“It’s time for our leaders to recognize that continued support for Ukraine is a mistake,” that story read. “It was a waste of lives and money. … For the sake of everyone involved in the conflict, the Biden administration should just make a peace agreement and move on.”

The Doppelganger network also focused on ensuring those stories went viral, going so far as to create fake social media accounts posing as U.S. citizens to spread them and seeding the comments on other social media posts with links back to the propaganda they had posted.

“The aim of the campaign,” according to one Russian planning document quoted in the FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday, “is securing Russia’s preferred outcome in the election.”

In another planning document, Doppelganger plotters outlined a scheme they dubbed “The Good Old USA Project” aimed at targeting voters from specific demographics in the U.S. with fake news and spoofed social media posts.

They included Hispanics, American Jews, conservatives, and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards such as 4chan (the ‘backbone’ of right-wing trends in the U.S. segment of the internet),” according to Kremlin planning documents included in Wednesday’s filings.

“In order for this work to be effective,” it warned, “you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information. At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”