Ahead of the 2022 US midterm elections, Russia launched a series of information manipulation campaigns to attack President Joe Biden and other Democrats, to foment discontent among conservative voters, and to criticize US support for Ukraine. These campaigns have been linked to the same Russian agency, the Internet Research Agency, that is associated with interference in the 2016 US presidential election and in the 2020 elections. As in previous instances, these information operations involved using social media accounts to pose as enraged American voters, though this time they also sought to spread disinformation about the Russo-Ukrainian War and to undermine US support for Ukraine. Social media research companies, such as Recorded Future, Graphika, Mandiant, and the Stanford Internet Observatory, uncovered Russian information campaigns conducted on Gab, Parler, Getter, Truth Social, and other fringe social media platforms that typically attract right-wing users. In one instance, a troll created a fake Kid Rock fan account that was reposted by Donald Trump Jr., who shared it with over 6 million Instagram followers.
Russia targets US 2022 midterm elections with information operations