Securing Democracy Dispatch

“No one in the political spectrum is happy with where we are from an information standpoint. Everyone looks at our current information system as failing us”, Senior Fellow Bret Schafer told WXXI’s Connections with Evan Dawson in a conversation about US polarization and foreign authoritarian actors’ use of AI.

Russian diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• Nuclear Testing: Russian officials and state media defended the country’s development of nuclear weapons and criticized the United States’ stated intentions to resume nuclear testing. Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Russia does not threaten anyone and, like other nuclear powers, “is developing its strategic nuclear potential”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov anticipated clarifications from the United States because “neither Russia nor China had resumed nuclear tests” and both countries “remain committed to their obligations under the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty”. Russia’s Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov warned that a US return to nuclear testing would undermine global security. Russian television propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called US President Donald Trump’s announcement “concerning”.
• US-Venezuela Crisis: Russian propaganda outlets and government officials promoted Russia’s support for Venezuela amid a US military buildup in the Caribbean, and emphasized the Kremlin’s interest in maintaining peace between Venezuela and the United States. Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova highlighted the importance of international legal norms in deescalating the situation and affirmed Russia’s support for Venezuela’s leadership. Lenta.ru reported that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro asked Putin to help with missiles, radars, and modernized aircraft, as well as financial and logistical support. RT’s Going Underground called Venezuelan dissident and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado a “CIA asset” who advocated for “bombing her own country” and advertised a “fire sale of her country’s natural resources to global mega-corporations” that would lead to a “disaster capitalism profit bonanza”. RT also shared a clip of American political commentator Tucker Carlson, who questioned if the Trump administration’s plan to replace Maduro, who “bans gay marriage, abortion, and sex changes”, with someone who might support those causes, is evidence that the “project is ‘globohomo’”—a slur suggesting a global plot to push a pro-LGBTQ agenda. 

The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) diplomats and state media focused on two main narratives this week:

• Xi in South Korea: Last week, PRC messaging covered Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s trip to South Korea for the 32nd APEC Summit. The PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ (MFA) spokesperson relayed Xi’s speech to the grouping in which he repeated his slogan of “changes unseen in a century”, an implicit reference to the supposed end of Western leadership in global affairs. The MFA spokesperson also covered Xi’s meetings with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts. CGTN highlighted the pageantry surrounding the PRC leader’s arrival in South Korea and Phoenix TV criticized Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s supposedly “intimate behavior” with other Asian heads of state. With the next APEC summit slated to take place in Shenzhen, China, PRC diplomats and state media alike portrayed the city as a shining example of their country’s rags-to-riches story.
• Defending Nigeria: On November 4, the PRC’s MFA commented that they oppose “any country using religion (…) as an excuse to interfere in other countries” after Trump accused Nigeria of allowing the killing of Christians. The PRC Embassy in Abuja and their ambassador to Nigeria, as well as state media outlets China Daily and the Global Times, relayed this message on X. The two diplomatic posts alone generated more than two million views in 24 hours. CGTN, as well as its CGTN Africa, CGTN America, CGTN Espanol, and CGTN Francais affiliates, all relayed the Nigerian authorities’ rebuttals. CGTN Africa reported that Trump was considering military intervention in the African country and highlighted the economic damage caused by that announcement. 

Iranian diplomats and state media focused on one main narrative this week:

• Sudan: Iranian state messengers dedicated significant coverage last week to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan. In an X post, Iran’s Foreign Minister Sayed Abbas Araghchi expressed solidarity with Sudan following the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) recent attacks against civilians in El Fasher, Sudan. He also criticized the West’s “deplorable double standards” for allegedly supporting terrorism in the “pursuit of their interests”. Iranian state media called the RSF’s crimes in Sudan a “silent genocide” that the United Arab Emirates and Israel are “directly responsible” for backing. Other outlets similarly suggested Western countries, in particular the United Kingdom, are also complicit for allegedly supplying weapons to the RSF. A Press TV analyst argued that the West is actively neglecting the crisis in Sudan because the “suffering of Black Africans” does “not fit into [its] media or strategic priorities”. Many state outlets also tried to link the events in Sudan to those in Gaza, including posting side-by-side images of the two crises alongside the caption “same flag colors, the same pain!”

Trump baselessly alleges voter fraud in California’s redistricting election: US President Trump alleged, without evidence, that California’s referendum to change the state’s redistricting procedures on Tuesday was “rigged” due to its use of mail-in-ballots and threatened legal action against the state. Managing Director David Salvo says, “Unfortunately, we’ve reached a level of political discourse in the United States where it is preferable—and more politically expedient—to claim election fraud without evidence than accept defeat. The information ecosystem does little to elevate the level of discourse. Mainstream media channels reinforce preexisting biases, while more Americans get news from social-media platforms that push what were once-fringe ideas into the mainstream. It’s easy to trace this trend back to the 2020 election, ‘Stop the Steal,’ and January 6, but we’ve been dealing with the problem of election legitimacy since 2016, when Russia’s actual interference campaign sparked national debate over that very issue. While there’s no proof that Russia’s interference led to Trump’s first victory, Russia’s operation accelerated and amplified skepticism that American institutions could be trusted. And that was precisely the Kremlin’s objective.”

In case you missed it

• A French court sentenced four Bulgarian nationals for vandalizing a Holocaust memorial in Paris last year. The judges said it is “indisputable” that a foreign power—likely Russia—orchestrated the incident to divide French society, though the men were not charged with acting on behalf of a foreign power.
• Russian MFA Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova linked Italy’s expenditure on aid to Ukraine to the partial collapse of a medieval tower in Rome during restoration efforts—which killed one worker and injured others—prompting Rome to summon Russia’s ambassador.
• Denmark withdrew a controversial proposal that would have granted EU governments greater authority to scan citizens’ communications on personal devices, including messages sent before encryption, for criminal behavior following outcry from member states such as Germany and platforms such as Signal.
• A PRC-linked hacking group has been targeting diplomatic entities and government agencies in Belgium, Hungary, and other European countries with phishing emails.

The views expressed in GMF publications and commentary are the views of the author alone.