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: Dec 6–12, 2021
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week continued to focus much of their attention on developments around the conflict in Ukraine. On December 7, U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a virtual meeting to disc [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 29–December 5, 2021
Russia Kremlin-backed accounts last week continued to focus heavily on the tension between Russia and the West caused by Russia’s military buildup along the Ukrainian border. RT warned that “the risk of an all-out armed conflict in south-eastern Ukr [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 22–28, 2021
Russia Last week, Kremlin-affiliated messengers pushed combative messaging around the conflict in Ukraine. Russian officials and state media continued to blame the “'collective West’ under the leadership of the USA” for tensions along the Ukrainian [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 15–21, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded outlets continued their media push around the Belarusian-manufactured migrant crisis playing out on the Polish border, resulting in both “border” and “migrant” appearing among the top five most fr [...]
Divide and Discredit: Russian State-Backed Messaging on Belarusian Migrant Crisis
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has used state resources to traffic migrants from the Middle East and North Africa to the Polish border—manufacturing a humanitarian crisis on the European Union’s eastern edge. It’s a move designed to retali [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 8–14, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state media put forward a massive amount of commentary on the migrant crisis taking place on the Belarusian-Polish border. Six of the top ten most frequently used phrases by Russian accounts tracked on Hamilto [...]
Interest Alignment: The Appeal of RT Deutsch with Supporters of the Alternative for Deutschland
The alignment of interests between the German right-wing party, Alternative for Deutschland (AfD), and Russia’s flagship German-language media outlet, RT Deutsch, is both well-documented and unsurprising, given the Kremlin’s penchant for supporting [...]
Hamilton Toplines: November 1–November 7, 2021
Russia Russian officials and state media continued their messaging push around the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference, making the meeting’s abbreviation, COP26, the most used hashtag last week by Moscow-linked accounts monitored on Hamilton 2 [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 25–31, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media provided updates on the Group of 20 (G20) summit in Rome. Russian President Vladimir Putin did not attend the meeting but delivered a video address that criticized unnamed G20 members for al [...]
Kristine Berzina for Carnegie Europe: Is Europe’s Energy Crisis Self-Inflicted?
Europe is facing soaring gas prices. To avoid further crises, the EU should speed up its transition to renewables, reduce dependence on Russia, and formulate a coherent energy policy. Europe learned from the 2006 and 2009 gas cut-offs and put in pl [...]
David Levine Discusses Countering Russian Interference in European Elections with IFES
The government of the Russian Federation uses different approaches to destabilize democratic governments across Europe and encourage the rise of populist, anti-democratic regimes. In the face of this challenge, what can be done to assist countries i [...]
Hamilton Toplines: October 18–24, 2021
Russia Last week, Russian diplomats and state-funded media disparaged NATO to justify the Kremlin’s move to suspend its permanent mission to the alliance. Moscow’s decision followed NATO’s expulsion of eight members of the Russian mission for allege [...]