Russian propaganda videos try to stoke tensions: NPR

In a video posted on Thursday, he appears to be sitting in a van next to another alleged Haitian immigrant and says they arrived in the U.S. six months ago and have already become American citizens.

State and federal officials say the video was likely created by Russian propagandists trying to undermine confidence in the election.

“This is obviously a fake and part of a disinformation effort. “It’s probably a product of Russian troll farms,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Thursday. On Friday, federal officials spoke out and said they also believed the video was “fake” by Russian influencers.

“This Russian activity is part of Moscow's broader efforts to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans,” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said in a statement joint statement statement.

The video is the latest hoax that researchers say is consistent with the results of a Russian operation called Storm-1516, which they say is circulating a steady stream of fake material in the final days of the vote. The operation is known for producing staged videos that it launders through online influencers and fake news outlets. Clemson University links it to the infamous Russian “troll factory” that targeted the 2016 presidential election.

Just in the last two weeks, researchers at Clemson and Microsoft linked Storm-1516 to a fake video purporting to show the destruction of ballots for former President Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and unfounded accusations against Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz. Federal officials have also attributed these videos to Russia.

“I was immediately suspicious [Georgia] video, just as I realized the style and production value,” said Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub, which first identified the Storm 1516 operation last year.

The issue also fits with Russia's tactic of reinforcing existing divisive narratives toward American voters, he said.

“This connects to existing stories being told about the Haitian community and immigrants being used to vote,” Linvill said. “The Russians understand these divisions and they use these divisions to spread their messages.”

The account that identified Linvill as first sharing the video on X has since deleted it. In a direct message exchange with NPR, the person managing the account wrote, “I removed it because I wasn't sure it was 100% accurate and I don't want to be liable for misinformation.”

It's not exactly clear how the fake Georgia video ended up on this X account. The account told NPR that it saw the video on Telegram but did not respond to further questions.

The video continued to spread widely on social media, particularly on

“X has determined that these posts violate our civic integrity policy and we are taking action against the posts,” said a spokesperson for X. Another X account that posted the Georgia video and also posted other content in the Posted in connection with Storm-1516 has been blocked.

Facebook is labeling the video to inform users that U.S. intelligence officials have claimed it was made by Russian influencers.

Signs stand outside a polling station on the last day of early voting for the 2024 election on Friday in Clarkston, Georgia.

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The successor to the IRA

In 2016, Russian employees at the Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg posed as Americans and posed as news sources on social media to spread false and misleading stories to U.S. voters.

The IRA was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian oligarch and former confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who died in 2023. In a recent report, Clemson identified ties between Storm-1516 and another group founded by Prigozhin in 2021 called the Russian Foundation to Fight Injustice.

“We believe this is IRA 2.0. It’s the same people, it’s the same network, it’s the same old owners,” Linvill said.

Today, according to Linvill, Storm-1516 has refined some of the IRA's methods. His videos sometimes appear on websites disguised as news outlets, such as a site posing as a nonexistent San Francisco television station that shared a staged video accusing Harris of injuring someone in a 2011 hit-and-run have. (There is no evidence that the incident occurred.)

Some websites sharing the operation's content are part of a network of websites posing as local U.S. news outlets run by the misinformation tracking firm NewsGuard and the New York Times It is reportedly led by John Mark Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff who now lives in Moscow. Dougan denies working for the Russian government. However, a European intelligence agency obtained documents showing that it was working directly with Russian military intelligence, a report by the Washington Post.

According to Linvill, Storm-1516 now relies on real people instead of bots or fake accounts to distribute its news and videos.

He said it reflected both a change in Russian tactics and an environment in which many Americans are more receptive to allegations of wrongdoing amid Trump's ongoing attacks on election integrity.

“They put in the effort to build the network. They went out of their way to make these connections with real people,” Linvill said. “But it is also true that people are now prepared for it [that]. You can't separate these things. The Russians have changed their tactics to adapt to the changes in our reality.”

As Election Day approaches, administration officials are warning Americans to be wary of further attempts by Russia to destroy confidence in the election.

“We are very concerned about how our foreign adversaries will target after Election Day, at a time when election officials across the country are taking on the incredibly important work of certifying the official results,” a senior CISA official said in an interview with reporters said on condition of anonymity on Friday.

Linvill says he's prepared for a new fraudulent video any day. “I’m sure they queued them up,” he said.

NPR's Miles Parks contributed reporting.