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Russian general who criticized equipment shortages in Ukraine is arrested on bribery charges
Today
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Russian general who was relieved of duty last year after complaining about problems faced by his troops in Ukraine has been arrested on charges of widescale bribery, Russian news reports said Tuesday.
The arrest of Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, who had commanded the 58th Guards Combined Arms Army, follows the arrest last month of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, a close associate of then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, also on bribery charges.
President Vladimir Putin dismissed Shoigu as defense minister on May 12, appointing him head of the national security council. Shoigu had been widely blamed for Russia's failure to capture Kyiv early in the Ukraine fighting and was accused of incompetence and corruption by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who launched a mutiny in June 2023 to demand the dismissal of Shoigu and military chief of staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.
Less than a month after Prigozhin's failed uprising, Popov was dismissed. He said he had spoken to Shoigu about insufficient equipment in the Ukraine war that had led to excessive Russian deaths, and that his dismissal was a "“treacherous” stab in the back to Russian forces in Ukraine.
Popov's forces were fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region, one of the most hotly contested areas in the Ukraine war. His dismissal came one day after the 58th Army's command post in the city of Berdyansk was hit in a Ukrainian strike, killing a high-ranking general.
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Baltic Sea nations react warily to a reported Russian proposal to revise its maritime border
By JAN M. OLSEN
Yesterday
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Leaders around the Baltic Sea reacted warily Wednesday to reports that Russia could revise the borders of its territorial waters in the region, with Lithuania's foreign minister calling it an "obvious escalation” that must be met with an "appropriately firm response.”
In a draft proposal reported by some Russian media, Russia's Defense Ministry suggests updating the coordinates used to measure the strip of territorial waters off its mainland coast and that of its islands in the Baltic Sea. The existing coordinates were approved in 1985, the ministry says; adding they were “based on small-scale nautical navigation maps” and don't correspond to the “modern geographical situation.”
It wasn’t immediately clear from the draft whether the proposed changes would shift the border or merely clarify it.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Russia had signed a United Nations convention that regulates how to make such changes. “Both we and Finland assume that Russia — which is a signatory party to that convention — lives up to that responsibility,” he said, according to Swedish news agency TT.
If Russians were to challenge borders, “then Russia violates a U.N. convention, then Russia has the whole world against it,” Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said, according to Finnish broadcaster YLE.
She said, however, it likely was a routine act by Russia and not a provocation.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb wrote on X that Russia had not been in contact with Finland on the matter. “Finland acts as always: calmly and based on facts,” he wrote.
Also on X, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis asserted that Russia was “attempting to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about their intentions in the Baltic Sea.” There has been great concern in Lithuania about Russian troops’ latest gains in northeastern Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who was on a visit to Lithuania on Wednesday, echoed Landbergis remarks saying that “whatever this was or actually is, it appears to be another example of the thoroughly perfidious kind of hybrid warfare that Putin is practicing," German news agency dpa reported.
The Baltic News Service said Lithuania summoned the Russian representative for a detailed explanation.
However, Russia’s Interfax news agency later Wednesday cited an unnamed military diplomatic source as saying Moscow does not intend to revise the border or the width of its territorial waters.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters there was “nothing political” in the Defense Ministry’s proposal.
“You see how tensions and the level of confrontation are escalating, especially in the Baltic region. This requires appropriate steps from our relevant bodies to ensure our security,” Peskov said.
The proposal was published on an official government website for draft legislation but appeared deleted Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear why.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO. The Baltic Sea — Russia’s maritime point of access to the city of St. Petersburg and its Kaliningrad enclave — is now almost surrounded by members of the military alliance.
Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Lithuania to the north and east and Poland to the south. It is home to the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet.
__ Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
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Putin warns that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets
By JAMES JORDAN and HARRIET MORRIS
1 minute ago
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets in response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.
Putin also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.
The recent actions by the West will further undermine international security and could lead to “very serious problems,” he said, taking questions from international journalists — something that has become extremely rare since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
“That would mark their direct involvement in the war against the Russian Federation, and we reserve the right to act the same way,” Putin added.
The United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kyiv.
On Wednesday, a Western official and a U.S. senator said Ukraine has used U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia under newly approved guidance from President Joe Biden that allows American arms to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The official was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Putin claimed that using some Western-supplied weapons involves military personnel of those countries controlling the missiles and selecting targets, and therefore he said Moscow could take “asymmetrical” steps elsewhere in the world. The U.S. military said it does not control the missiles it provides to Ukraine or the targets.
“If they consider it possible to deliver such weapons to the combat zone to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to some regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive facilities of the countries that do it to Russia?" he said.
"We will think about it,” he told the journalists on the sidelines of the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Asked whether Russia could resort to using nuclear arms, Putin said the conditions for utilizing that arsenal are clearly spelled out in Moscow's security doctrine.
“For some reason, they believe in the West that Russia will never use it,” he said.
“Look at what is written there,” he said of Russia’s nuclear doctrine. “If somebody’s actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we consider it possible to use all means at our disposal.”
Even Russia's battlefield nuclear weapons are much more powerful than what the U.S. used against Japan in World War II, Putin said.
Speaking to senior news leaders of international news agencies, including The Associated Press, for more than three hours, Putin also said nothing will change in terms of Russia-U.S. relations regardless of whether Biden or Donald Trump wins the American presidential election in November.
“We will work with any president the American people elect,” Putin said.
“I say absolutely sincerely, I wouldn’t say that we believe that after the election something will change on the Russian track in the American politics,” he added. “We don’t think so. We think nothing that serious will happen.”
Putin also said Trump’s felony conviction at his hush money trial last week was the result of "the use of the court system as part of the internal political struggle.”
The Russian leader faced questions on various topics, although the more than two years of fighting in Ukraine dominated the session.
Putin claimed the West had opportunities to end the fighting in Ukraine but did not act on them, citing a letter he once supposedly wrote to Biden that said hostilities could end in two or three months if Washington stopped supplying Kyiv with weapons.
Asked about Russian military losses, Putin said that no country would reveal that information during hostilities but claimed without providing details that Ukraine's casualties are five times greater than Russia’s.
He also said Ukraine has more than 1,300 Russian troops in captivity, while more than 6,400 Ukrainian soldiers are being held in Russia.
The claims could not be independently verified and some Western estimates put Russia’s losses much higher than Ukraine’s.
Asked by AP about the case of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Putin said the U.S. is “taking energetic steps” to secure his release. Gershkovich was jailed over a year ago while on a reporting trip and charged with espionage. The journalist, his employer and the U.S. have denied the allegations, and Washington has declared him to be wrongfully detained.
Putin said that any such releases “aren’t decided via mass media” but through a “discreet, calm and professional approach.”
“And they certainly should be decided only on the basis of reciprocity,” he added, an allusion to a potential prisoner swap.
Putin has used the St. Petersburg forum as a showcase for touting Russia’s development and seeking investors. The meeting with journalists took place in Gazprom's new global headquarters, a needle-shaped 81-story skyscraper overlooking the Gulf of Finland.
While meetings with journalists were part of previous sessions, he has not taken questions from Western journalists at the St. Petersburg event since sending troops to Ukraine.
Last year, journalists from countries that Russia regards as unfriendly — including the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union — were not invited, and Western officials and investors also steered clear of the session after wide-ranging sanctions were imposed on Moscow over Ukraine.
—-
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.
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Updated on: June 10, 2024 / 1:58 PM EDT
/ CBS News
Three Russian ships and a nuclear-powered submarine are expected to arrive in Cuba this week ahead of military exercises
in the Caribbean, officials said. While the exercises aren't considered
a threat to the U.S., American ships have been deployed to shadow the
Russians, U.S. officials told CBS News.
The Russian warships are expected to arrive in Havana on Wednesday and stay until next Monday, Cuba's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
A U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David
Martin the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that the submarine
in the group is nuclear powered but it isn't carrying nuclear weapons.
"We have no indication and no expectation that nuclear weapons will
be at play here in these exercises or embarked on those vessels," White
House national security spokesman John Kirby told CBS News senior White
House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe last week.
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Russia-paid influencers, trolls step up efforts to influence U.S. election
Federal actions to stymie foreign influence campaigns haven’t cowed Moscow, researchers say.
Russia’s attempts to influence the 2024 election in favor of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are accelerating, federal officials and researchers say, adding to a sea of misinformation about immigration and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, despite U.S. efforts to blunt the onslaught with indictments, seizures and public warnings.
After a group of prominent far-right influencers was exposed last month for taking money provided by Russian state media figures, they continued to promote falsehoods to their large followings, including debunked claims about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets.
Those tales originated with locals gossiping and were amplified online by figures on the American right, and eventually by Trump. But researchers say Russian actors have piled on with even more exaggerated claims intended to scare more citizens about immigration and race, even after two Russian nationals were chargedin early September with laundering money to covertly influence public opinion.
The U.S. government’s seizure of 32 web domains hosting fake Fox News and Washington Post stories similarly did not put an end to that separate Russian caper, researchers say. The automated accounts that spread links to those stories are now sharing links to new “doppelganger” articles on faked versions of established outlets, including some asserting the Secret Service’s “criminal connivance” in the latest apparent attempt to kill Trump.
Other researchers said last week they have discovered another Russian network touting a parade of lies about Harris, including that she is showing signs of Alzheimer’s and that her family has secret ties to “Big Pharma” and so would push puberty-blocking drugs.
Clint Watts, who heads Microsoft’s efforts against government disinformation, said that Russian trolls have moved to new websites to host bogus news stories, and that such influence efforts might work better now than before, simply because the presidential contest is heating up. “The audience is much more vulnerable the closer we get to Election Day,” he said in an interview.
Comments
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TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Russian general who was relieved of duty last year after complaining about problems faced by his troops in Ukraine has been arrested on charges of widescale bribery, Russian news reports said Tuesday.
The arrest of Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, who had commanded the 58th Guards Combined Arms Army, follows the arrest last month of Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov, a close associate of then-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, also on bribery charges.
President Vladimir Putin dismissed Shoigu as defense minister on May 12, appointing him head of the national security council. Shoigu had been widely blamed for Russia's failure to capture Kyiv early in the Ukraine fighting and was accused of incompetence and corruption by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who launched a mutiny in June 2023 to demand the dismissal of Shoigu and military chief of staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.
Less than a month after Prigozhin's failed uprising, Popov was dismissed. He said he had spoken to Shoigu about insufficient equipment in the Ukraine war that had led to excessive Russian deaths, and that his dismissal was a "“treacherous” stab in the back to Russian forces in Ukraine.
Popov's forces were fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region, one of the most hotly contested areas in the Ukraine war. His dismissal came one day after the 58th Army's command post in the city of Berdyansk was hit in a Ukrainian strike, killing a high-ranking general.
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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Leaders around the Baltic Sea reacted warily Wednesday to reports that Russia could revise the borders of its territorial waters in the region, with Lithuania's foreign minister calling it an "obvious escalation” that must be met with an "appropriately firm response.”
In a draft proposal reported by some Russian media, Russia's Defense Ministry suggests updating the coordinates used to measure the strip of territorial waters off its mainland coast and that of its islands in the Baltic Sea. The existing coordinates were approved in 1985, the ministry says; adding they were “based on small-scale nautical navigation maps” and don't correspond to the “modern geographical situation.”
It wasn’t immediately clear from the draft whether the proposed changes would shift the border or merely clarify it.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said Russia had signed a United Nations convention that regulates how to make such changes. “Both we and Finland assume that Russia — which is a signatory party to that convention — lives up to that responsibility,” he said, according to Swedish news agency TT.
POLITICS
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If Russians were to challenge borders, “then Russia violates a U.N. convention, then Russia has the whole world against it,” Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said, according to Finnish broadcaster YLE.
She said, however, it likely was a routine act by Russia and not a provocation.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb wrote on X that Russia had not been in contact with Finland on the matter. “Finland acts as always: calmly and based on facts,” he wrote.
Also on X, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis asserted that Russia was “attempting to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt about their intentions in the Baltic Sea.” There has been great concern in Lithuania about Russian troops’ latest gains in northeastern Ukraine.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who was on a visit to Lithuania on Wednesday, echoed Landbergis remarks saying that “whatever this was or actually is, it appears to be another example of the thoroughly perfidious kind of hybrid warfare that Putin is practicing," German news agency dpa reported.
The Baltic News Service said Lithuania summoned the Russian representative for a detailed explanation.
However, Russia’s Interfax news agency later Wednesday cited an unnamed military diplomatic source as saying Moscow does not intend to revise the border or the width of its territorial waters.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters there was “nothing political” in the Defense Ministry’s proposal.
“You see how tensions and the level of confrontation are escalating, especially in the Baltic region. This requires appropriate steps from our relevant bodies to ensure our security,” Peskov said.
The proposal was published on an official government website for draft legislation but appeared deleted Wednesday. It wasn’t immediately clear why.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Finland and Sweden have joined NATO. The Baltic Sea — Russia’s maritime point of access to the city of St. Petersburg and its Kaliningrad enclave — is now almost surrounded by members of the military alliance.
Kaliningrad is sandwiched between Lithuania to the north and east and Poland to the south. It is home to the Russian Navy's Baltic Fleet.
__ Associated Press writer Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — President Vladimir Putin warned Wednesday that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets in response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory.
Putin also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.
The recent actions by the West will further undermine international security and could lead to “very serious problems,” he said, taking questions from international journalists — something that has become extremely rare since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
“That would mark their direct involvement in the war against the Russian Federation, and we reserve the right to act the same way,” Putin added.
The United States and Germany recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with the long-range weapons they are supplying to Kyiv.
VLADIMIR PUTIN
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On Wednesday, a Western official and a U.S. senator said Ukraine has used U.S. weapons to strike inside Russia under newly approved guidance from President Joe Biden that allows American arms to be used for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. The official was not authorized to comment publicly on the sensitive matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Putin claimed that using some Western-supplied weapons involves military personnel of those countries controlling the missiles and selecting targets, and therefore he said Moscow could take “asymmetrical” steps elsewhere in the world. The U.S. military said it does not control the missiles it provides to Ukraine or the targets.
“If they consider it possible to deliver such weapons to the combat zone to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to some regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive facilities of the countries that do it to Russia?" he said.
"We will think about it,” he told the journalists on the sidelines of the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
Asked whether Russia could resort to using nuclear arms, Putin said the conditions for utilizing that arsenal are clearly spelled out in Moscow's security doctrine.
“For some reason, they believe in the West that Russia will never use it,” he said.
“Look at what is written there,” he said of Russia’s nuclear doctrine. “If somebody’s actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we consider it possible to use all means at our disposal.”
Even Russia's battlefield nuclear weapons are much more powerful than what the U.S. used against Japan in World War II, Putin said.
Speaking to senior news leaders of international news agencies, including The Associated Press, for more than three hours, Putin also said nothing will change in terms of Russia-U.S. relations regardless of whether Biden or Donald Trump wins the American presidential election in November.
“We will work with any president the American people elect,” Putin said.
“I say absolutely sincerely, I wouldn’t say that we believe that after the election something will change on the Russian track in the American politics,” he added. “We don’t think so. We think nothing that serious will happen.”
Putin also said Trump’s felony conviction at his hush money trial last week was the result of "the use of the court system as part of the internal political struggle.”
The Russian leader faced questions on various topics, although the more than two years of fighting in Ukraine dominated the session.
Putin claimed the West had opportunities to end the fighting in Ukraine but did not act on them, citing a letter he once supposedly wrote to Biden that said hostilities could end in two or three months if Washington stopped supplying Kyiv with weapons.
Asked about Russian military losses, Putin said that no country would reveal that information during hostilities but claimed without providing details that Ukraine's casualties are five times greater than Russia’s.
He also said Ukraine has more than 1,300 Russian troops in captivity, while more than 6,400 Ukrainian soldiers are being held in Russia.
The claims could not be independently verified and some Western estimates put Russia’s losses much higher than Ukraine’s.
Asked by AP about the case of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, Putin said the U.S. is “taking energetic steps” to secure his release. Gershkovich was jailed over a year ago while on a reporting trip and charged with espionage. The journalist, his employer and the U.S. have denied the allegations, and Washington has declared him to be wrongfully detained.
Putin said that any such releases “aren’t decided via mass media” but through a “discreet, calm and professional approach.”
“And they certainly should be decided only on the basis of reciprocity,” he added, an allusion to a potential prisoner swap.
Putin has used the St. Petersburg forum as a showcase for touting Russia’s development and seeking investors. The meeting with journalists took place in Gazprom's new global headquarters, a needle-shaped 81-story skyscraper overlooking the Gulf of Finland.
While meetings with journalists were part of previous sessions, he has not taken questions from Western journalists at the St. Petersburg event since sending troops to Ukraine.
Last year, journalists from countries that Russia regards as unfriendly — including the U.S., the U.K. and the European Union — were not invited, and Western officials and investors also steered clear of the session after wide-ranging sanctions were imposed on Moscow over Ukraine.
—-
Associated Press writer Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.
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Russian military exercises in the Caribbean: Here's what to expect
By Alex Sundby
Updated on: June 10, 2024 / 1:58 PM EDT / CBS News
Three Russian ships and a nuclear-powered submarine are expected to arrive in Cuba this week ahead of military exercises in the Caribbean, officials said. While the exercises aren't considered a threat to the U.S., American ships have been deployed to shadow the Russians, U.S. officials told CBS News.
The Russian warships are expected to arrive in Havana on Wednesday and stay until next Monday, Cuba's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. A U.S. official told CBS News national security correspondent David Martin the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that the submarine in the group is nuclear powered but it isn't carrying nuclear weapons.
"We have no indication and no expectation that nuclear weapons will be at play here in these exercises or embarked on those vessels," White House national security spokesman John Kirby told CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O'Keefe last week.
continues....
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another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Russia-paid influencers, trolls step up efforts to influence U.S. election
Federal actions to stymie foreign influence campaigns haven’t cowed Moscow, researchers say.
Russia’s attempts to influence the 2024 election in favor of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump are accelerating, federal officials and researchers say, adding to a sea of misinformation about immigration and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, despite U.S. efforts to blunt the onslaught with indictments, seizures and public warnings.
After a group of prominent far-right influencers was exposed last month for taking money provided by Russian state media figures, they continued to promote falsehoods to their large followings, including debunked claims about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets.
Those tales originated with locals gossiping and were amplified online by figures on the American right, and eventually by Trump. But researchers say Russian actors have piled on with even more exaggerated claims intended to scare more citizens about immigration and race, even after two Russian nationals were chargedin early September with laundering money to covertly influence public opinion.
The U.S. government’s seizure of 32 web domains hosting fake Fox News and Washington Post stories similarly did not put an end to that separate Russian caper, researchers say. The automated accounts that spread links to those stories are now sharing links to new “doppelganger” articles on faked versions of established outlets, including some asserting the Secret Service’s “criminal connivance” in the latest apparent attempt to kill Trump.
Other researchers said last week they have discovered another Russian network touting a parade of lies about Harris, including that she is showing signs of Alzheimer’s and that her family has secret ties to “Big Pharma” and so would push puberty-blocking drugs.
Clint Watts, who heads Microsoft’s efforts against government disinformation, said that Russian trolls have moved to new websites to host bogus news stories, and that such influence efforts might work better now than before, simply because the presidential contest is heating up. “The audience is much more vulnerable the closer we get to Election Day,” he said in an interview.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/10/01/russia-influencers-presidential-election-2024/
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