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.
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 [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 23–29, 2022
Russia Kremlin-linked accounts continued to argue that Western sanctions weren’t impacting Russia’s economy but were driving inflation in the West and prompting a global food shortage. President Vladimir Putin said that the Russian economy was “resi [...]
Hamilton Toplines: May 16–22, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state media last week posted more than 800 tweets about Finland and Sweden’s applications for NATO membership, making “NATO” the most frequently used keyword by Kremlin-linked accounts. On May 16, President Vladimir Puti [...]
5 Takeaways from the 2022 French Presidential Election
On April 24, French voters re-elected Emmanuel Macron for a second term as president of France. With the presidential election firmly in the rear-view mirror and with the French parliamentary elections still several weeks away, this piece assesses t [...]
Laura Thornton Discusses How to Strengthen Democracy on Inside Sources with Boyd Matheson
Last year, people around the world were souring on the idea of democracy. But new polling shows surging support for this institution of government. Laura Thornton from the Alliance for Securing Democracy discusses the reasons behind the change in [...]