The Russian state and government interfered in the 2024 United States elections through disinformation and propaganda campaigns aimed at damaging Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and other Democrats while boosting the candidacy of Donald Trump and other candidates who support isolationism and undercutting support for Ukraine aid and NATO. Russia's efforts represented the most active threat of foreign interference in the 2024 United States elections and follows Russia's previous pattern of spreading disinformation through fake social-media accounts and right-wing YouTube channels in order to divide American society and foster anti-Americanism. On September 4, 2024, the US Department of Justice indicted members of Tenet Media for having received $9.7 million as part of a covert Russian influence operation to co-opt American right-wing influencers to espouse pro-Russian content and conspiracy theories. Many of the followers of the related influencers were encouraged to steal ballots, intimidate voters, and remove or destroy ballot drop-offs in the weeks leading up to the election.
Background Russia interfered in the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 United States elections.
The Russian government's goals in 2016 were to sabotage the presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton, boost the presidential campaign of Donald Trump, and increase political and social discord in the United States. According to the US intelligence community, the operation—code-named Project Lakhta—was ordered directly by Russian president Vladimir Putin. The "hacking and disinformation campaign" to damage Clinton and help Trump became the "core of the scandal known as Russiagate". The 448-page Mueller report, made public in April 2019, examined over 200 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officialshttps://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl?lctg=6796bccb7b375dec1909a709 but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring specific "conspiracy" or "coordination" charges against Trump or his associates.
The United States Intelligence Community concluded in early 2018 that the Russian government was continuing the interference it started during the 2016 elections and was attempting to influence the 2018 mid-term elections by generating discord through social media. Primaries for candidates of parties began in some states in March and would continue through September. The leaders of intelligence agencies noted that Russia is spreading disinformation through fake social media accounts in order to divide American society and foster anti-Americanism. In 2022, it was reported that a Federal Election Commission investigation had found that American Ethane Company, which had received investments from Russian oligarchs, had contributed Russian money to US political candidates in the 2018 midterm elections, largely in Louisiana. FEC commissioners Ellen Weintraub and Shana M. Broussard criticized the Republicans in the FEC for a "slap on the wrist" civil penalty.
Russian interference in the 2020 United States elections was a matter of concern at the highest level of national security within the United States government, in addition to the computer and social media industries. In February and August 2020, United States Intelligence Community (USIC) experts warned members of Congress that Russia was interfering in the 2020 presidential election in then-President Donald Trump's favor. USIC analysis released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) in March 2021 found that proxies of Russian intelligence promoted and laundered misleading or unsubstantiated narratives about Joe Biden "to US media organizations, US officials, and prominent US individuals, including some close to former President Trump and his administration." The New York Times reported in May 2021 that federal investigators in Brooklyn began a criminal investigation late in the Trump administration into possible efforts by several current and former Ukrainian officials to spread unsubstantiated allegations about corruption by Joe Biden, including whether they had used Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani as a channel.
In September 2023, a declassified intelligence report identified a top aide to Putin hiring three contractors to conduct an online disinformation campaign to reduce western support for Ukraine. One proposal, called the "Good Old U.S.A. Project" aimed to influence the 2024 presidential election. It sought to use hundreds of fake online accounts and eighteen seemingly apolitical "sleeper groups" across six swing states that would wait until the right moment to distribute bogus news stories. The proposal's author alleged that an isolationist view of the Ukraine war had become "central" to the presidential race, and that Russia must "put a maximum effort to ensure that the Republican point of view (first and foremost the opinion of Trump's supporters) wins over the US public opinion".
A declassified intelligence report in December 2023 assessed with "high confidence" that Russian interfered during the 2022 midterms in efforts that grew from its prior attempts during the 2018 midterms. Efforts were described as seeking "to denigrate the Democratic Party before the midterm elections and undermine confidence in the election, most likely to undermine US support for Ukraine". It highlighted efforts to delay a withdrawal from the Ukrainian city of Kherson until after the midterms to avoid giving a named political party a political win, targeting constituencies more sympathetic to Russia's "traditional values", and weakening confidence in Western democratic institutions by casting "aspersions on the integrity of the midterm elections, including by claiming that voting software was vulnerable, Americans expected cheating to undermine the midterm elections, and Democrats were stealing the elections".
Analysis Senior officials with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence describe Russia's 2024 efforts as "more sophisticated than in prior election cycles". Rather than simply relying on fake accounts, Russian tactics involve co-opting real American right-wing influencers to spread pro-Kremlin propaganda narratives to Americans. Officials from the ODNI and FBI have outlined Russia's use of generative artificial intelligence to denigrate Harris with doctored and fake text, images, video, and audio content and outlined efforts to promote divisive content to spread anti-Americanism. Officials have assessed that Russia is attempting to fool unwitting Americans into spreading its messages and is imitating websites of established media and using human commentators to increase traffic towards those sites, which have content generated by artificial intelligence.
Efforts to interfere with the 2024 United States elections According to disinformation experts and intelligence agencies, Russia spread disinformation ahead of the 2024 election to damage Joe Biden and Democrats, boost candidates supporting isolationism, and undercut support for Ukraine aid and NATO. American intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia prefers Trump to win the election, viewing him as more skeptical of US support for Ukraine. Following the withdrawal of Biden from the presidential race, Microsoft reported that Russian intelligence "struggled to pivot" to attacking Harris, but by late August and early September videos attacking Harris and her supporters started to appear. In late October 2024, it was reported that Russia was using Reddit and far-right forums to target potential Trump supporters in swing states, focusing on Hispanic voters and the gaming community.
In August 2024, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the homes of former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter and political advisor Dimitri Simes for their connections to Russian state media. Indictments against Dimitri Simes and his wife Anastasia Simes were announced in early September. The two were charged with laundering funds and violating sanctions in order to benefit the state-controlled broadcaster Channel One Russia, as well as violating sanctions to benefit a Russian oligarch.
On September 4, 2024, the United States publicly accused Russia of interfering in the 2024 election and announced several steps to combat Russian influence including sanctions, indictments, and seizing of Doppelganger-linked web domains used to spread propaganda and disinformation. Two employees of the Russian state-owned propaganda network RT (Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afansayeva) were indicted for conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act for operating a money laundering operation that had sent at least $9.7 million to support the creation and distribution of propaganda videos on American social media. The indictment revealed a key Russian tactic to interfere with the 2024 United States presidential election is to recruit right-wing influencers. Right-wing podcasters and influencers paid for the creation of pro-Russia content included Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, and Benny Johnson, among others. The indictment does not name the influencers, who claim not to have known about any Russian ties. This prompted YouTube to remove several channels, and Tenet Media, a company implicated in the affair, abruptly shut down.
On September 13, the United States, Canada, and Britain announced new sanctions to cut off financing for disinformation operations and accused Russian state-owned broadcast company RT as acting as a covert arm of Russian intelligence and taking orders from the Kremlin. The announcement highlighted RT's cooperation with the FSB, the Social Design Agency and Structura, and highlighted its efforts in other countries across the globe to subvert democratic processes and shift opinion towards pro-Russian viewpoints. In response to the indictment, Meta and YouTube banned RT channels and other Russian media outlets.
On September 17, Microsoft reported that Russian operatives had intensified attacks against Kamala Harris by creating videos highlighting "outlandish conspiracy theories" aimed at stoking racial and political divisions. Mentioned videos that had been viewed millions of times included a fake video of a Harris supporter attacking an attendee at a Trump rally and another staged video that falsely claimed Harris had paralyzed a young girl in a hit-and-run accident in 2011. The video was promoted through a fake website masquerading as a local San Francisco media outlet.
On September 23, Reuters cited a US Intelligence official saying that of the foreign adversaries, Russia was creating the most AI content to influence the 2024 election and improve Donald Trump's chances of winning. The anonymous official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence reported artificial intelligence was officially being used to create negative media, often posted under the guise of fake US news publications. Though officials continue to monitor the use of AI in election interference, they currently assess these efforts as "a malign influence accelerant, not yet a revolutionary influence tool."
By October, state-run media campaigns by Russia had spread false conspiracy theories about the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season that The Associated Press described as using "social media and state news stories to criticize responses to past US natural disasters" and sow division among Americans, including the spread of AI-generated images of flooding damage at Cinderella Castle at Walt Disney World, among other images.