US intelligence verifies that the Russian propaganda strategy for the 2022 midterms was to target attack messaging against the Democratic Party in a way that undermined support for Ukraine. Accordingly, US support for Ukraine, which was previously bi-partisan, is now strictly divided along party lines - with House Republicans who achieved a slim majority two years ago unilaterally blocking aid to Ukraine.
Russian military commanders, in cooperation with the Kremlin propaganda campaign, delayed withdrawal from Kherson to prevent giving Democrats a positive takeaway on Ukraine prior to the 2022 midterms, according to intelligence reported by the CIA, FBI, NSA, Homeland Security and the State Department between June and December of 2022.
Russian forces, surrounded on three sides with the Dnipro River at their back, were allowed to take heavy casualties for months after the bridges by which they were supplied were destroyed by HIMARS missles.
Russia publicly announced its withdrawal from Kherson on November 9 - the day after the November 8 election. The casualties were sustained solely for the purposes of influencing public opinion in the US, targeting Republicans to reduce support for Ukraine. The Russian narrative was enthusiastically picked up by political and media supporters of Donald Trump.
Fox News repeated a string of Kremlin talking points intended to undermine US support for the defense of Ukraine from the continued Russian invasion, going so far as to cast Ukraine as the aggressor.
US Aid Package Has Lifted Ukrainians’ Spirits and Poland’s Stance Has Also Helped
Among Republican politicians, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has led the way in normalizing extremist pro-Russian propaganda, making a public appearance at a pro-Putin rally and calling the defense of Ukraine a corrupt scheme. She citied a Russian propaganda outlet that was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department over alleged interference in the 2020 presidential elections as her source.
On the US Senate side, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blames Democrats, claiming Democrats “created” the war in Ukraine - exactly parroting the Kremlin influence operation, and has gone so far as to green-light a Russian takeover of Ukraine, opining against all contrary evidence that he sees no risk of further Russian aggression once Ukraine is subdued.
Donald Trump, who campaigned by praising Putin for invading Crimea and took up the call to end sanctions against Russia as a primary foreign policy goal, personally fed pro-Kremlin narratives, including unsupported, self-serving conspiracy theories that have their origin with Russian intelligence. One element of the first impeachment was Trump’s attempt to pressure President Zelensky into announcing an investigation into whether it was Ukraine, not Russia, that hacked the DNC and disseminated emails embarrassing to the Clinton campaign prior to the 2016 election.
According to the National Intelligence Council, Russian intelligence specifically targeted the MAGA audience, catering to the same audience carefully conditioned to be receptive to the message. The report cites the focus before the 2022 election on asking why the US should help Ukraine instead of solving social and domestic problems?
Evidence shows, and the NIC report confirms, that Russian influence operations which began against US elections in 2016 never stopped. In 2023, Russian agents and American collaborators were indicted in the US for election interference in Florida and Georgia during the 2022 midterms. The purposes for which Russian security services fomented disinformation “included the appearance of US support for Russian annexation of Crimea from Ukraine,” according to the indictment in United States v. Ionov, et al.
US support for Ukraine, which was nearly unquestioned at the time of the invasion and revelation of brutal war crimes, held together until recently because some Republicans were unwilling to go along with the Fox-Trump-Putin narrative.
Polls now reflect the intended consequences of the combined Kremlin-GOP influence operation. Unity in support for Ukraine has eroded and by the end of summer 2023, polls showed a majority of Americans opposing aid to Ukraine, with a huge supermajority of Republicans defecting. Of course, this is the target audience with the most exposure to Fox News and other right wing media programming that parrots the Kremlin narratives.
This drop in support has been achieved even though Trump no longer controls the levers of US government, and can no longer appoint officials who actually tried to distort the facts to create a narrative in line with the agendas of Trump and Putin during his administration.
Slim GOP control of the House achieved in 2022, coinciding with drop in public support, resulted in interruption of US aid to Ukraine in 2023—another clear win for Russian intelligence, abetted by the Republican Party that formerly stood for national security and viewed Moscow as the principal threat to that security.
As in every election year since 2016, Ukraine will sit square in the bullseye of the Russian disinformation campaigns—in the hope that Putin can win at the US ballot box what he could not accomplish on the battlefield - in the US elections of 2024.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
Comments (10)
"but in past two years illegal immigration invasion of U. S. is the highest crisis to protect American lives. Illegal immigrants are murdering police!"
" (I advocated to U.S. Generals to give Ukraine military aircraft 2 years ago.) "
That is not the procedure on how and who is afforded weapons from the us...american veteran chris...you should know that,
american veteran chris same full of SNOT as when he was just american chris. Your typed English is horrible.
The us border issue has been an issue in the us for some sixty to seventy years in the us...and the republicans / maga types were afforded an opportunity by the democrats this week to address this "highest crisis" and the republicans / magas...WALKED AWAY AND SAID NO!
To compare your nation's border issue to my nation's war is blatant mental illness on behalf of you and people like you. When the mexican military starts occupying parts of your nation's south west and mass murdering your civilians, and shelling, bombing, missiling your cities to the ground...let me know titushky.
So, to speak in maga language...this border issue that is the "highest crisis" is...FAKE, FAKE NEWS FAKE CRISIS FAKE american / veteran chris.
This is the way of the white anglo saxon protestant. They profess from the highest mountain tops in the world about their noble wasp concepts of "truth, justice, integrity, ethics, and morality" YET fail every chance they get to practice these concepts.
The wasp has a friend in communist russians...both a culture of criminality. Their histories are littered with examples of breaking laws / international laws, treaties, agreements, and taking the land / resources of others by force and normalizing it.
Let this be a lesson to all...NEVER do business with the wasp OR communist russia.
@American Veteran Chris, Ironically if Republicans want an improved border situation, they must first help Ukraine take out Putin. For decades Putins' instigated civil wars, coups and genocide in weaker countries to create a refugee stream to destabilize democratic countries.
Ask the Turkish, Italians, Estonians, Polish and Finnish people the real source of their democratic border problems. He's done this in South and Central America knowing it will drive millions of refugees to the Texas border. Why would American's think their border crisis is also not part of putins' hybrid war against his arch enemy the USA?
It must bother you a lot that MRGA / MAGA GOP minions in the House and Senate were recently told by trump to not improve any package they had formerly asked the Biden government for that would have alleviated the southern border crisis. Rump did this purely to delay any remedy in hopes it would be he that could later take credit for any improvement ....should the Americans be stupid enough to elect him again.
Like putler, rump does not care about the impacts of his decisions on anyone else's lives. You must be really mad at rump if you are that concerned about securing USA borders. He's thwarting attempts to take out the source of the problem (putler) and he's needlessly even now stalling more funding and policy changes the GOP said they needed to improve it.
The GOP are looking like some real self serving short sighted clowns right now.
@Jack Griffin, Don't MRGA / MAGA trolls monitor credible news sources?
Legally elected president Biden's intent to send Ukraine more aid and 'address the southern border crisis', AS PER EARLIER GOP Blackmail requests, has now been thwarted by that orange potato and his willing MAGA minions. They are plotting the demise of the USA. They consistently claim they will not support anything until they get their way on some issue and then once they get it, they refuse to keep their word and typically attempt additional blackmail.
In this latest debacle though the traitorous MRGA / MAGA GOP members now refuse to let Biden even attempt to fix any border issue during his term. What does that tell sane American's about the intent of rumps' GOP minions?
By pushing rump for president, you are pushing a dead skunk jack, and thats just a smelly and unhygienic thing to do.
The USA is on the verge of being a failed state. Republicans are now the Putin Party seeking to install a corrupt leader just like in Russia. Republicans are happy to embrace Putinism within the USA. Crazy these Americans... Like the 1930's the US may elect a person who works to create a dictatorial state...
Americans need to stop talking about corruption in Ukraine when corruption in the USA is so obvious. Where leaders of government positions can be bought by the American oligarch clan...
@Gregc,
This Republican is voting for Nikki Haley in the primaries, and I am willing to vote for the Democrat candidate against Trump. Slava Ukraini!
Thankyou Stephen Humphreys for this highly informative article. What the brainwashed USA Fox / tRump / Pootin supporters are up to is truly horrendous – and totally insane.
Marjorie 'Traitor' Greene and her fellow swamp-dwellers have somehow convinced themselves that they are fighting for something good in this world, but they have it %100 backwards: they are, in fact, driven by evil, and along with Donald Stinky and Paranoid Pootin, acting as 'satan's little helpers'.
Like all of us, Ukraine isn't perfect, but compared with Pootin's Russia right now, it's a shining beacon of light – one which we (at the lighter end of the spectrum!) – must do all we can to support, in the face of the current belligerence of Russia's lunacy.
For the good of mankind, we have to ensure that these bellicose marauders are defeated, and that the Forces of Love and Peace win the day...
~~ Let it be!
@American Veteran Chris, Ironically if Republicans want an improved border situation, they must first help Ukraine take out Putin. For decades Putins' instigated civil wars, coups and genocide in weaker countries to create a refugee stream to destabilize democratic countries. Ask the Turkish, Italians, Estonians, Polish and Finnish people the real source of their democratic border problems.
He's done this in South and Central America knowing it will drive millions of refugees to the Texas border. Why would American's think their border crisis is also not part of putins' hybrid war against his arch enemy the USA?
It must bother you a lot that MRGA / MAGA GOP minions in the House and Senate were recently told by trump to not improve any package they had formerly asked the Biden government for that would have alleviated the southern border crisis. Rump did this purely to delay any remedy in hopes it would be he that could later take credit for any improvement ....should the Americans be stupid enough to elect him again.
Like putler, rump does not care about the impacts of his decisions on anyone else's lives. You must be really mad at rump if you are that concerned about securing USA borders.
The GOP are looking like some real self serving short sighted clowns right now.
JOHN 2/1/24 Guest • 1 second ago
@American Veteran Chris, Ironically if Republicans want an improved border situation, they must first help Ukraine take out Putin. For decades Putins' instigated civil wars, coups and genocide in weaker countries to create a refugee stream to destabilize democratic countries. Ask the Turkish, Italians, Estonians, Polish and Finnish people the real source of their democratic border problems.
He's done this in South and Central America knowing it will drive millions of refugees to the Texas border. Why would American's think their border crisis is also not part of putins' hybrid war against his arch enemy the USA?
It must bother you a lot that MRGA / MAGA GOP minions in the House and Senate were recently told by trump to not improve any package they had formerly asked the Biden government for that would have alleviated the southern border crisis. Rump did this purely to delay any remedy in hopes it would be he that could later take credit for any improvement ....should the Americans be stupid enough to elect him again.
Like putler, rump does not care about the impacts of his decisions on anyone else's lives.
The GOP are looking like some self serving short sighted clowns right now.
Reading all of the previous comments which all seem to be based on disinformation like about US border, I was there all this week, all I can say is everyone I know supports the Ukrainian army. That has never changed from the morning my windows rattled at 4:30 in the morning 23 months ago.
I have no doubt Russians spewing propaganda in U. S. However, among my military Veteran friends they do want harsher attacks on Russia (I advocated to U.S. Generals to give Ukraine military aircraft 2 years ago.) but in past two years illegal immigration invasion of U. S. is the highest crisis to protect American lives. Illegal immigrants are murdering police!
@American Veteran Chris, Ironically if Republicans want an improved border situation, they must first help Ukraine take out Putin. For decades Putins' instigated civil wars, coups and genocide in weaker countries to create a refugee stream to destabilize democratic countries. Ask the Turkish, Italians, Estonians, Polish and Finnish people the real source of their democratic border problems. He's done this in South and Central America knowing it will drive millions of refugees to the Texas border. Why would American's think their border crisis is also not part of putins' hybrid war against his arch enemy the USA?
It must bother you a lot that MRGA / MAGA GOP minions in the House and Senate were recently told by trump to not improve any package they had formerly asked the Biden government for that would have alleviated the southern border crisis. Rump did this purely to delay any remedy in hopes it would be he that could later take credit for any improvement ....should the Americans be stupid enough to elect him again. Like putler, rump does not care about the impacts of his decisions on anyone else's lives.
You must be really mad at rump if you are that concerned about securing USA borders. He's thwarting attempts to take out the source of the problem (putler) and he's needlessly even now stalling more funding and policy changes the GOP said they needed to improve it. The GOP are looking like some real self serving short sighted clowns right now.