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
Josh Rudolph Discusses the Role of Cryptocurrency in Election Interference on a Panel at CNAS
ASD Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph joined Levi Gundert and Jesse Spiro in a panel discussion on the role of cryptocurrency in election interference at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). [...]
Laura Rosenberger Discusses Russian Interference on Deep State Radio
Russia has been trying to weaken the United States since the first days of the Cold War. But in that entire span of three-quarters of a century, even with the success of its spies and counter-espionage measures, it has never had a series of successe [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 10-16, 2020
The New York Post’s publication of salacious and unverified personal materials from a laptop allegedly owned by Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was covered extensively by Russian state media, which focused both on the “explosive” contents of the story, as [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses Dark Money and Democracy on a Panel at RUSI
ASD Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph joined Gemma Rogers of Fintrail and Edward Lucas of CEPA to discuss how covert foreign money has undermined the democratic process in North America and Europe in a panel at the Royal United Services Institu [...]
Leaks, Lies, and Altered Tape: Russia’s Maturing Information Manipulation Playbook
Russia’s disinformation tactics, techniques, and procedures are evolving. Stakeholders of all types—journalists, regulators, and researchers—must see the full picture of Russian activity as it is changing to anticipate what might be to come. Intro [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 3-9, 2020
Last week, Russian and Iranian diplomatic and state media accounts and outlets primarily focused on regional issues, while Chinese accounts and outlets concentrated on U.S.-China disputes as well as President Trump’s coronavirus recovery. Russian st [...]
Debating the Debates: How Russian, Chinese, and Iranian State-Backed Media Covered the U.S. First Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates
Overview On September 29, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden sparred in the first of three (now two) presidential debates. The event, which was labelled a “debacle” and a “total disaster” by the U.S. news media, unsurprisingl [...]
Hamilton Toplines: September 26-October 2, 2020
President Trump’s positive coronavirus diagnosis was covered extensively by the Russian, Iranian, and Chinese networks monitored on Hamilton 2.0, with most of the content covering factual updates or well-wishes from diplomats and world leaders. Russ [...]
Hamilton Toplines: September 12-18, 2020
Last week, Russian state media and diplomats continued to emphasize the safety of and demand for the Russian Sputnik V vaccine, as well as developments around a competing Russian vaccine created by the Vektor State Research Center of Virology and Bi [...]
Josh Rudolph on the Rise of Foreign Funds that Distort Western Politics in the Financial Times
Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph discusses how the rise of foreign funding distorts politics in the West, drawing on our recently released paper Covert Foreign Money: Financial Loopholes Exploited by Authoritarians to Fund Political Interferen [...]
Virtual Event Invitation: Follow the Money: Understanding the Threat Covert Foreign Financing Poses to Democracies
Thursday, October 1, 2020 | 10:00am-11:00am EDT / 4:00pm-5:00pm CEST / 5:00pm-6:00pm EEST Register here. Please join the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the European Centre of Excellence on Hybrid Threats in Helsinki for a virtual, interactive [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses Malign Finance in Politics on the Europe Desk Podcast
Josh Rudolph appeared on the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University's The Europe Desk podcast to discuss malign finance in politics. [...]