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.
Push and Poll: How Search Engines Reflected and Relegated Polish State-Backed Media in the 2023 Election
Since coming to power in 2015, Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) party has eroded media freedom and pluralism, taking over public media and hindering independent outlets. While PiS’s control of the information environment via television, radio, and pri [...]
Peter Benzoni at Politifact’s United Facts of America: How Russian falsehoods spread to U.S. through faux local news
Investigative Data and Research Analyst Peter Benzoni presented ASD's findings about Russian propaganda bypassing content bans and posing as local news sources at Politifact's 2023 United Facts of America. watch here The views expressed in GMF p [...]
An autocratic opening: Russian, Chinese, and Iranian messengers capitalize on the Israel-Hamas War
The intensification of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks has forced liberal democracies to carefully craft a message that balances their support for Israel with growing domestic criticism over civilian casualti [...]
Key Findings from the New Hamilton 2.0 Dashboard
Since 2019, the Alliance for Securing Democracy at GMF has operated the Hamilton 2.0 dashboard, an online tool to track messaging originating from Chinese, Iranian, and Russian state media and government officials. In its time, the dashboard collect [...]
Poland’s Election Represents a Setback to Illiberalism
“Elections have consequences” the saying goes, often to justify a break with a previous administration. Along Europe’s Eastern flank, where illiberalism is on the rise and support for Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression is wavering, the resul [...]
A Strategy for US Public Diplomacy in the Age of Disinformation
Introduction “Would you rather have the bitter truth or more sweet lies?” This is the question posed by an assertive series of videos produced by the State Department in recent months, targeting Russian audiences, that juxtapose statements by Russ [...]
Civil Society in Ukraine’s Restoration: A Guide to CSOs Mobilizing for a Marshall Plan
Executive Summary Ukraine has one of the most vibrant civil societies in the world. In the decade since it launched and led the Revolution of Dignity, Ukrainian civil society has held successive governments’ feet to the fire while at the same time [...]
Kyiv’s Mobilization for Restoration: A Landscape Analysis of Ukrainian Government Authorities Organizing for a Marshall Plan
Executive Summary Ukraine has become a different country over the past decade. Compared to the closed post-Soviet oligarchy that it was before the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine is now an open society governed as a vibrant democracy that resp [...]
How Kremlin narratives about Ukraine spread (or don’t) on U.S. political podcasts
Introduction In recent years, political podcasting has boomed in the United States, with new series emerging across the political spectrum. Due to the medium’s decentralized nature, it is difficult to grasp the total audience for these shows, but [...]
Red Lines Around a Free and Fair Polish Election
Executive Summary The October 15, 2023 Polish parliamentary election will not be fair. The country’s last fair election was in 2015, when the ruling Law and Justice Party (PiS) came to power and promptly set about undermining constitutional govern [...]
State of the European Union 2023: A More Political Speech with an Eye to the Future
In her last State of the European Union (SOTEU) speech for this Commission mandate, Ursula von der Leyen expectedly stayed mum on whether she intends to stand again. But it is difficult to take her address as anything but a carefully calibrated effo [...]
ASD at GMF Launches Dashboard Tracking Russian Military Bloggers on Telegram
New War in Ukraine Dashboard tracks messaging from Russia’s military bloggers on Telegram Washington, D.C. – The Alliance for Securing Democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States today launched the War in Ukraine: Military Bloggers da [...]