Influence Operations
If there has been a constant since before Soviet times, Russia has always sought to influence politics inside Western countries. The Justice Department unsealed an indictment and an affidavit. In isolation, they are in Washington another day. In combination, they are proof that the Russians have updated their game from the era of Operation Infektion when they used an Indian paper to insert disinformation about AIDS.
During that operation, they inserted fake stories into global media. One of my favorites is that the United States developed AIDS to target African Americans. Given the history of things like the Tuskegee experiment, it used that distrust as a wedge. And if you are old enough, you know it was partially successful, even in the United States. But it was wildly successful in Africa.
It’s still in the water in Africa, by the way. It resurfaces every so often as to why governments distrust us.
I will use screencaps from both the indictment and the affidavit for this piece. Both reveal a lot about how Russia is using those old ways. I am also going to say it. The charges on this indictment are violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) and money laundering. Both could lead to prison if you don’t want to bother with the whole thing. Mind you, it’s only 34 pages long. Here is a link to it. Since some people are now cooperating, I expect a…