Since the protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles began last weekend, false and misleading information about the ongoing demonstrations and the Trump administration’s crackdown have proliferated online. While many of the falsehoods have been driven by partisan actors, foreign adversaries have also seized on the unrest to promote conspiracies and narratives aimed at further sowing chaos and denigrating the United States.
Russia
Russian influence actors exploited the escalation of events in Los Angeles to exacerbate partisan divides, pushing narratives and conspiracies intended to slander protesters and Democrats. Russian state media and pro-Kremlin propagandists leaned on narratives that sought to portray Los Angeles as a “war zone”, characterizing the anti-ICE protestors as “rebels” and likening the demonstrations to color revolutions. These narratives were echoed across the Pravda network—a conglomeration of more than 200 pro-Kremlin news portals targeting over 80 countries and regions throughout the world to launder Russian propaganda. For example, the English-language site Pravda Trump repurposed a Telegram interview of Sergei Markov, a former close advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which he claimed the United States was in the midst of a “civil war” between the coastal regions and interior states.
These narratives were buttressed by content aimed at painting protestors as violent. Russian messengers mocked Democratic leaders, including Kamala Harris, for saying the protests were mostly “peaceful” and amplified videos depicting demonstrators looting and vandalizing stores, burning vehicles, and attacking law enforcement with incendiaries and stones. In one case, Sputnik even suggested that “pallets of bricks” were being dropped off at protest sites, amplifying a claim that has been thoroughly debunked. The image used shows a neighborhood that bears no resemblance to downtown Los Angeles and is identical to one shared by actor and conservative commentator James Woods, which fact-checkers geolocated to a construction site in New Jersey.
Russian messengers further exploited the events in Los Angeles to attack Democratic leaders and “woke” policy. Russian state media were quick to repeat criticism by members of the Trump administration—including those by Trump himself and Vice President JD Vance—accusing Democrats of creating an “an atmosphere of lawlessness and chaos” and defending “foreign flag-waving insurrectionists”. Specifically, RT blamed the unrest on Biden’s open border policy and derided California Governor Gavin Newsom for suing the Trump administration over its deployment of the National Guard, posing the question: “How bad would it be WITHOUT troops?”. Other state-affiliated accounts tried to paint the administration’s crackdown positively, boosting Trump’s claims that he “saved” Los Angeles in the face of its “incompetent mayor and governor”.
Russian linked influence actors also leveraged conspiracy theories that have gained traction among partisan American audiences to further stoke division. RT and Sputnik echoed claims that protesters were “paid”, feeding conspiracies that philanthropist George Soros was responsible for financing them. Other influence channels took it further. The Pravda network published an interview on an English-language version of its site targeting Trump supporters featuring convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout in which he claimed the developments in Los Angeles were “planned in advance” to initiate an American Maidan—shorthand for the 2014 protests that led to the Revolution of Dignity in Ukraine.
Figure 1: Sputnik feeds into the conspiracy that “pallets of bricks” were being dropped off at protest sites.
Figure 2: An opinion piece published on RT, blaming Biden specifically and liberals in general for the protests
Figure 3: A Pravda Network article claiming protests were “planned in advance” to create an American Maidan
China
Chinese state-affiliated outlets similarly leveraged the unrest in Los Angeles to portray the United States as in turmoil. PRC state media amplified images showing “chaos and violence” and spotlighted blunders by law enforcement, including a video of an Australian journalist being struck by rubber bullets while she was reporting. Several outlets quoted Governor Newsom denouncing Trump’s move to deploy the National Guard as “unconstitutional” and “an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism”.
Notably, Chinese influence actors also took advantage of the Trump administration’s protest crackdown to allege US hypocrisy, particularly around the US government’s response to the 2019 Hong Kong protests. CGTN affiliate T-House asked whether the protests were a “beautiful sight”, a mocking reference to Nancy Pelosi’s comments about the Hong Kong protests. Pro-Beijing commentator Li Jingjing denounced the United States for interfering in other countries and the Global Times announced that Hong Kong authorities have warned their citizens traveling to the United States to be careful “in view of the recently ongoing (…) riots.”
Conclusion
The narratives that Russian and Chinese state-affiliated accounts have promoted during the Los Angeles protests shed light on Moscow and Beijing’s different messaging strategies and goals. Russian state-affiliated accounts largely aligned themselves with the Trump administration, pushing narratives aimed at depicting the protesters as violent and denigrating California’s Democratic leaders to further sow division, in some cases promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories to stoke outrage. Chinese messengers, on the other hand, were less interested in partisan politics and more interested in leveraging the events to undermine the United States’ image on the global stage. This continues a pattern very much in evidence during the 2020 George Floyd protests when US adversaries used the unrest as fodder to advance their own strategic objectives.
