Russian disinformation threatens US support for Ukraine

Russia steps up disinformation to weaken US support for Ukraine after Trump victory, aiming to divide crucial allies

As President Joe Biden uses his final days in office to bolster Ukraine’s defenses, Russia is playing a different game: spreading disinformation aimed at undermining U.S. support for Ukraine ahead of Donald Trump’s return to the White House next month.

Since the US elections on November 5, the Kremlin has used state media and its networks of fake news sites and social media accounts to spread divisive narratives about the war and the Republican president-elect of the United States. Analysts say the content, translated into English for the American public, aims to turn public opinion against Ukraine at a crucial time, with the hope of reducing US military aid and ensuring a Russian victory.

Recent examples include fake videos purporting to show Ukrainian soldiers burning effigies of Trump or his supporters. One clip shows soldiers saying that Trump should not take office and that he should “never be president again.” Several researchers denied the video, pointing out clear signs of digital manipulation.

Another video claims to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting at a mannequin wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat and a Trump campaign T-shirt. That video was analyzed and found to be false by private analysts and the Ukrainian Center for Combating Disinformation, a government agency that tracks Kremlin propaganda.

Other versions — equally false — show Ukrainian soldiers burning Trump’s books or calling him a coward. In the weeks after the election, the clips spread far beyond Ukraine and Russia, circulating among Trump supporters and believers in QAnon, the conspiracy theory that claims Trump is waging war against a satanic cabal of powerful world leaders.

It’s part of Russia’s ongoing effort to divide Americans over the nearly 3-year-old war in Ukraine and paint Ukrainians as irresponsible and dishonest allies, according to analysts who have been tracking Russian disinformation and propaganda since the beginning of the conflict. By discouraging American support for Ukraine, the Kremlin hopes to cut off the most vital source of military assistance that has kept Ukrainian hopes alive since the February 2022 Russian invasion.

At the start of the war, Russian propagandists portrayed Ukrainian leaders as corrupt and selfish. Russian state media alleged that Ukraine’s leaders had Nazi sympathies — even though President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish — or were involved in clandestine biological weapons research, which Moscow has tried to link to the COVID-19 pandemic. Every false claim was used to justify the Russian invasion.

“This idea was planted by the Russians that ‘Ukraine is so corrupt it shouldn’t even be a state, and we’re the right people to run this place,’” said Rupert Smith, a retired British general and former deputy supreme commander of Ukraine. NATO, who now leads a consulting firm in Brussels called Solvo Partners. “Now this is being used as an excuse not to support Ukraine.”

The fake video, which claims to show Ukrainian soldiers shooting at Trump’s dummy, spread across platforms including X, Telegram and YouTube, getting an initial boost from pro-Kremlin news sites before migrating to those more popular among Americans, according to with an analysis from researchers at NewsGuard, a company that tracks misinformation.

Some versions of the video were created long before the election, but were presented as if they were more recent. Within days, the video was receiving hundreds of thousands of views and had been translated into several languages ​​besides Russian and English, including German, Chinese and Polish, NewsGuard found.

According to US intelligence, Russia sought to support Trump in the presidential election, believing he would reduce American support for Ukraine and perhaps even the NATO alliance. The president-elect praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, criticized U.S. military aid to Ukraine and NATO, and promised to end the war within 24 hours, comments that suggest he would pressure Ukraine to cede territory currently occupied by Russia.

In response to questions about Russia’s role in spreading disinformation about Ukraine, a spokesperson for the Russian Embassy in Washington referred to past statements rejecting any involvement.

In the time it has left, the Biden administration has been pushing Ukraine to rapidly increase the size of its military by calling up more troops, and has stepped up arms shipments, while forgiving billions in loans provided to Kiev. The White House has so far sent more than $56 billion in security assistance to Ukraine and expects to send billions more before Biden leaves office on January 20, 2025.

It’s easy to understand Russia’s motives in trying to cut off that aid supply, said Joshua Tucker, a New York University professor and Russia expert who studies online disinformation. What’s harder to gauge, he said, is the effectiveness of Russian disinformation, especially on social media platforms already crowded with false, bizarre and debunked claims.

One reason Russia may persist in disinformation targeting Americans is the relative ease and low cost of such operations, compared to diplomatic or military alternatives.

Russia likely sees disinformation as part of a long-term effort to undermine the United States’ global leadership by dividing its people and weakening support for its institutions, Tucker said. Whether the issue is immigration, government, the U.S. economy or the war in Ukraine, he said, the goal remains the same and goes beyond an election cycle or a specific candidate.

“I think what they were really hoping for was a contested result, with a lot of people in the streets, arguing that the election was not legitimate,” Tucker said.

With information from AP*