Russia has long been waging operations against democracies using all of the asymmetric tools ASD tracks—information manipulation, cyberattacks, malign finance, civil society subversion, and state economic coercion. The Kremlin’s geographic scope in conducting operations to undermine democracy continues to expand and its tactics continue to evolve. Find ASD’s work on Russia’s attempts to interfere in democracies on this page.
Interference Matters
Catch Me If EU Can: How RT and Sputnik Evade EU Content Bans
Hamilton Toplines: June 27 – July 3
Russia Russian state media and diplomats last week tweeted 17,313 times, generating 196,139 retweets and 614,738 likes. Russian propagandists last week posted more than 1,000 tweets mentioning NATO, bringing in more than 19,000 retweets and 56,000 l [...]
Pro-Chaos: Russian and Chinese Messaging on the Overturning of Roe v. Wade
Overview On June 24, the US Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion, sparking an outpouring of protests and national media coverage. Russian and Chinese propagandists also weighed in, though their messaging strategies on th [...]
Hamilton Toplines: June 20 – 26, 2022
Russia Monitored Russian accounts tweeted 17,875 times last week, pulling in 200,445 retweets and 613,214 likes. Russian propagandists reacted to Ukraine and Moldova earning EU candidate status by arguing that the bloc was building a war-like coalit [...]
Brussels Forum Day 2 // Rebuilding Trust in Elections
It takes more than superb election officials and secure processes to build trust in elections – it is truly a whole of society effort. Democracies need engaged leadership from government, the private sector, the media, and civil society to push back [...]
Laura Thornton in The Catalyst: How Democracies Should Respond in a Post-Fact World
Russia’s war in Ukraine is a horrific enactment of the struggle between autocracy and democracy. As President Volodymyr Zelenskyy poignantly stated, “Russia fears our democracy more than we are proud of it.” Putin understands well that democracy spr [...]
Hamilton Toplines: June 13–19, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state media last week targeted the European Union as the bloc moved forward with plans to grant Ukraine candidate status. RIA Novosti paraphrased a Russian lawmaker saying that “Ukraine will not live to see EU membership [...]
Hamilton Monthly Report: May 2022
This report highlights and analyzes key trends and takeaways from data collected by the Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard during the previous month. Unlike ASD’s weekly Hamilton reports, which analyze the main topics and themes promoted by monitored Russian an [...]
Yandex Dashboard Analysis: It’s the Economy, Stupid
Top Headlines in Russia This week, we examined the headlines on Yandex that feature Russia as the primary country mentioned. Four of the top six key phrases in these articles relate to the economy, dwarfing coverage of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine [...]
Hamilton Toplines: June 6–12, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state-funded media last week continued their efforts to shift blame for a global food shortage caused by Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine. Russian propagandists argued that the crisis was sparked by Western sanctions [...]
Bryce Barros Analyzes the State of U.S.-Taiwan Relations on Radio Taiwan International
Under the Russian-Ukrainian war and the U.S. proposal of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), what challenges does the U.S. face from China in the Indo-Pacific region? In addition, Taiwan and the United States have launched the 21st Century T [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 30–June 5, 2022
Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday threatened that Russia would hit targets in Ukraine “that we have not yet attacked” if Kyiv receives long-range missiles from the United States. The warning capped a week of propaganda meant to deter [...]
How Russia’s Leading Search Engine Spreads Kremlin Propaganda on Ukraine: Introducing ASD’s Yandex Dashboard
Russia’s information environment has become increasingly constricted. Legislation banning the characterization of Russia’s war in Ukraine as anything but a “special military operation” is just one indication of the censorship and cherry-picking that [...]