Russia’s Disinformation Campaign in North America Becomes Smarter and More Flexible

Executive Summary:

• Russian state-run media outlets, such as RT, have transformed their disinformation campaigns in the West to adapt to local situations, exerting subtle influence on domestic media to conduct a more covert operation.
• Moscow is increasingly utilizing embedded propaganda by funding foreign media voices, such as US outlet Tenet Media. These campaigns focus on US domestic issues, taking advantage of increased political polarization to further complicate disinformation detection.
• The controversial documentary “Russians at War,” by Russian-Canadian film director Anastasia Trofimova, exemplifies Russia’s use of media and film as soft power to shape narratives about the war in Ukraine, sparking backlash and censorship efforts in North America.

On September 13, the United States introduced sanctions against three entities and two individuals for their connection to the Russian state-funded RT (formerly “Russia Today”) disinformation outlet for its interference in Moldova’s sovereign affairs before the country’s October 20 elections (RBC, September 13). Prior to this, on September 4, the United States introduced sanctions against the aforementioned RT, as well as Russian news outlets MIA Rossiya Segodnya, RIA Novosti, Sputnik, and Germany-based Ruptly agency. Also sanctioned were individuals including, among others, Russian propagandist and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan and her deputies Elizaveta Brodksya and Anton Anisimov (RBC, September 4). The United States has effectively taken charge of the international coalition of allies and like-minded nations, such as the United Kingdom and Canada, in countering Russia’s disinformation efforts (RIA Novosti, September 13). This struggle, however, will be difficult. Having practiced (and perfected) its skills, Russia has become one of the world’s top sources of first-class disinformation, which, based on the most recent examples, is becoming smarter, more elaborate, and adapting to local needs (see EDM, May 13).

In its new disinformation efforts directed at the North American audience, Russia has seemingly taken a new approach. It is using so-called “embedded” propaganda, increasingly utilizing local voices to sound more plausible and credible. Two associates of RT and other Russian disinformation outlets, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Yelena Afanasyeva, have been accused of giving $10 million to Nashville-based Tenet Media. According to available information, Tenet Media, which was established in 2023, has generated over 2,000 videos that have garnered around 16 million views. Bloggers and the founders of the company—including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, David Rubin, Matt Christiansen, and Lauren Southern (a Canadian citizen)—primarily concentrate their reporting on the United States and its domestic socioeconomic problems, such as immigration and inflation. They claim that these challenges are made worse by current US foreign policy, especially its support for Ukraine, which they argue has caused politicians to disregard domestic issues (Voice of America, September 6). Notably, embedded propaganda and disinformation dispersed by Tenet Media have attracted attention and found support among representatives of the American financial and business elite. For example, multi-billionaire Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), re-posted tweets from the outlet on at least 60 occasions (X.com/@elonmusk, July 29, August 26).

It has been discovered that Tenet Media was (at least in part) paid by RT for content via Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva. This provides evidence for the theory that RT engages in the sponsorship of “clandestine” disinformation projects abroad to influence the opinions of foreign citizens. As revealed by Simonyan herself, “Through such projects [as Tenet Media], RT, which has been evicted from Western countries, continues to influence Western public opinion” (Korrespondent.net, September 20).

Another example of Russian soft power in media is a film by Russian-Canadian documentary director Anastasia Trofimova, who has occasionally collaborated with the RT. Her notorious documentary “Russians at War” has caused significant controversy in Western media. The movie—which attempts to present Russian soldiers as “deceived victims” of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as a “brotherly conflict”—was first shown during the 81st annual Venice International Film Festival between August 28 and September 7. While it was screened in Europe, its reception in North America was very different. In Canada, under pressure from the local Ukrainian diaspora (the Ukrainian Canadian Congress), the Canadian policymaking community, Ukrainian officials, and organizers of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) collectively decided not to screen the movie (TIFF, September 12). Later, when it was revealed that the movie was partially financed by the Canada Media Fund (CMF)—said to have allocated 340,000 Canadian dollars to the film—the scandal was further magnified (Voice of America, September 11).

Despite Trofimova’s claim that she had not collaborated with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) nor the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) when filming the movie, both security experts and notable filmmakers do not believe her claims. She and her crew spent seven months on the frontline in the territories of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People’s Republics and later traveled to Russia to film the graves of soldiers killed in Ukraine. It seems unbelievable that a foreign citizen (from a so-called “unfriendly country”) could spend seven months at the frontline of a war and later film burials in Russia without the explicit permission of the Russian MoD. As stated in an interview by Ukrainian film director Alexander Rodnyansky, 

The absolute majority of those who are being filmed are [Russian] contract soldiers [kontraktniki] who do not even conceal the fact that they came [to Ukraine] to fight for money. Having put her camera among them, … she has solidarized with them. … A journalist who is dressing up like a soldier is becoming a combatant. It is virtually impossible to imagine that she managed to move from [Krasnyi] Lyman to Bakhmut into the high-intensity combat zone without prior approval from the MoD. She denies this. However, I do not believe her. 

Rodnyansky argued that after having watched this movie, it appears to be an “element of soft power” that could have been commissioned by the MoD (Vot-tak.tv, September 9).

Trofimova’s other statements do little to support her claims of not being attached to Russian entities. For instance, Trofimova argued in an interview that Russian soldiers were “normal guys with a sense of humor” and that she “had not seen any war crimes” committed by the Russian side in Ukraine (Meduza, September 10). She also stated that she “does not support either party” in the war. Public figures who follow this approach in the majority of cases support Russia but do not want to reveal their position publicly because supporting “either party” means being “pro-war” (Baikal-journal.ru, September 5). Additionally, Trofimova, when explaining why she was wearing a Russian military uniform, stated that “a commander of a [Russian] brigade made her wear the uniform so that one of ‘ours’ [svoi, the Russian possessive pronoun referencing the subject of the sentence] would not accidentally shoot her” (BBC Russian Service, September 13).

The post-Covid era was marked by an economic slowdown and growing domestic polarization in both the United States and Western Europe over various socioeconomic and political issues. Russia aims to exploit these differences through covert influence operations in Western media. To sound more credible, in the future Russia will likely use more “local voices” to promote its narrative. These might include native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States or Canada, whose commentary would cast a lesser doubt on the credibility of information supplied to the North American target audience.