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.
Hamilton Toplines: January 17–23, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state media last week framed the West as being solely responsible for increasing the chance of war in Ukraine. RT, Sputnik, and others closely followed shipments of Western military aid to the country. Foreign Ministry s [...]
Kristine Berzina, ASD Senior Fellow, Talks to BBC About Increasing Russia-Ukraine Tensions
Kristine Berzina, senior fellow and head of geopolitics at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, joined BBC News to discuss increasing Russia-Ukraine tensions on Saturday, January 22. [...]
The Development Response to Kleptocracy and Strategic Corruption
Introduction and Summary Kleptocracies do not stop at their own borders. The same actors, networks, tactics, and resources that they wield to prevent democracy and rule of law from sprouting at home are also repurposed for foreign aggression. Whil [...]
Hamilton Toplines: January 10–16, 2022
Russia Russian officials and state media last week focused on three rounds of high-level diplomatic meetings between Russia and the West. Kremlin-linked accounts gave live updates of U.S.-Russia talks in Geneva on January 10. State media complained [...]
ASD Hamilton Data Covered Exclusively in Foreign Policy: Russian Propagandists Zero In on Kazakh Crisis
Intense interest by diplomats and state media underscores the significance of Russia’s intervention. Russian propaganda accounts on Twitter went into overdrive this month as troops from a Russian-led regional security organization were dispatched t [...]
Are Russia and China Teaming Up Against America in a Global Information War? Yes and No.
The Kremlin and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as constant critics of the United States, naturally converge in the information space. The themes and narratives they disseminate about the United States and Western democracies show remarkable cons [...]
Kristine Berzina on U.S. Discussions Over Sanctioning Nord Stream 2 on CNBC
ASD Senior Fellow Kristine Berzina says the Biden administration doesn’t want to be pushed into sanctioning Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline as leverage against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. [...]
Hamilton Toplines: January 3–9, 2022
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media launched a high-volume propaganda campaign around protests in Kazakhstan, which were started by anger over fuel prices and suppressed with the help of Russian troops. Kremlin-backed messengers refe [...]
Over a Barrel: Energy Exports as a Political Weapon
Introduction States have wielded energy access as a strategic tool since at least the industrial revolution, when the adoption of coal power made energy a resource to be extracted and exported (or not), just like other strategic resources, including [...]
Josh Rudolph in Foreign Policy: Call Out the Traitors
Foreign Policy brought together 10 prominent thinkers to share their most important fixes to reform the workings of democracy, defend it against its enemies at home and abroad, and ensure it survives and thrives by better serving the people it gover [...]
Hamilton Toplines: December 20, 2021–January 2, 2022
Russia For the past two weeks, Russian diplomats and state media continued to focus most of their attention on the conflict in Ukraine. On December 30, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin exchanged warnings over the Ukraini [...]
Hamilton Toplines: December 13–19, 2021
Russia Last week, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published two draft treaties—one for NATO and the other for the United States—that listed a series of demands that would limit the alliance’s presence in Eastern Europe. The recommended agreemen [...]