Russia is ‘Most Active Threat’ During Election, U.S. Intelligence Warns

Russian disinformation is currently the “most active threat” to undermining public trust in the 2024 election, according to the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC).

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a joint statement on Monday warning that the IC has observed “foreign adversaries, particularly Russia, conducting additional influence operations intended to undermine public confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections and stoke divisions among Americans.”

“The IC expects these activities will intensify through election day and in the coming weeks, and that foreign influence narratives will focus on swing states,” the statement continued.

“Russia is the most active threat. Influence actors linked to Russia in particular are manufacturing videos and creating fake articles to undermine the legitimacy of the election, instill fear in voters regarding the election process, and suggest Americans are using violence against each other due to political preferences, judging from information available to the IC.”

Newsweek sent an email to Russia’s Foreign Ministry via email Monday for comment.

The statement, which comes a day before the November 5 election, follows videos circulated online last week that falsely depicted instances of voter fraud. One of the videos in question featured a Haitian migrant saying that he planned to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in two Georgia counties. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger called the clip “obviously fake” and “an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen this election.”

Another video shared online falsely claimed that Harris and her husband, second gentle Doug Emhoff, had accepted a $500,000 bribe from performer Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was recently indicted in connection to a sex trafficking investigation.

The IC released a statement on Friday that the videos were created by “Russian influence actors.”

“This Russian activity is part of Moscow’s broader effort to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the US election and stoke divisions among Americans,” the statement added.

On Monday, the IC said that Iran is also a “significant foreign influence threat to U.S. elections,” noting the previous cyber attack aimed at former President Donald Trump’s campaign.

“Iranian influence actors may also seek to create fake media content intended to suppress voting or stoke violence, as they have done in past election cycles,” the IC said. “We previously reported that Iran also remains determined to seek revenge against select former US officials whom it views as culpable for the death of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) Commander Soleimani in January 2020. It has repeatedly highlighted former President Donald Trump among its priority targets for retribution.”

The Russian embassy in the U.S. released a statement to its Telegram account on Saturday denying the IC’s claims and that any accusations about “our country of disseminating fabricated videos about electoral violations in the United States” are “baseless.”

“The Embassy has not received either any proof for these claims during its communications with U.S. officials, or any inquiries regarding the narrative being promoted by the press,” the embassy said.

“This has become an unfortunate tradition: before every election, American authorities and media descend into hysteria about ‘Russian disinformation and interference’, attempting to attribute any problems to external influence,” the statement continued. “When we ask our counterparts in the State Department and the White House about the presence of evidence in support of the accusations, we are only told something along the lines of ‘you know everything yourself.'”