Month: November 2018

With just days to go until the U.S. midterm elections, there are growing fears that Russia’s efforts to undermine U.S. democracy extend far beyond the polls on Nov. 6 or the presidential election in 2020.

Defense and security officials worry that as part of Moscow’s plan to sow division and discord, it is trying to conquer the U.S. military — not with bullets or missiles but with tweets and memes.

The tactic is an outgrowth of Russia’s overarching strategy to find seams within U.S. society where distrust or anger exist and widen those divisions with targeted messaging.

In the case of the U.S. military, according to current and former U.S. and Western officials, the Kremlin’s aim is likely to establish what is known as reflexive control. By seeding U.S. troops with the right type of disinformation, they say, Russia can predispose them to make choices or decisions that are favorable for Moscow.

The exact extent to which U.S. military personnel have been targeted or swayed is unclear.

VOA spoke with multiple defense and security officials, all of whom declined to comment on the nature or scope of Russia’s military-oriented influence operations. Still, almost all of the officials admitted Russia’s targeting of U.S. military personnel with influence operations, and the way it is being done, is a concern.

“We know it goes on,” said Ed Wilson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy. “That’s why we’ve amped up and increased the attention that we’re paying.

“We’re taking a renewed look at how we train and educate the broader force,” he said, noting that efforts go beyond just the military to the Defense Department’s partner agencies.

The former commanding general for Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve, Army Lt. Gen. Paul Funk, described the need to educate and shield troops from disinformation campaigns as a matter of “force protection.”

“It doesn’t matter if it’s a physical force or an information force,” Funk said. “Are you concerned about it? Of course. Do you have to have campaigns where you inform your soldiers of those kinds of things that happen? Sure.”

Reflexive control

Officials and experts say Russia’s use of influence operations to target the U.S. armed forces should come as no surprise. Russian President Vladimir Putin has tested the approach, using social media especially, in places like Ukraine, and since then it has become an ever more critical part of Russia’s overarching strategy.

“There’s nothing new with Russia or the Soviet Union wanting to have that degree of influence,” Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in September. “This is really kind of something that is in Putin’s DNA as a former KGB agent.”

U.S. officials have been aware of the effort for some time. At least as far back as March 2017, a Defense Information School presentation to Army public affairs officers identified disinformation on social media as a high-risk problem, capable of eroding “trust and confidence” in the ranks as well as in the Army as a whole.

But much of the military’s focus in dealing with social media, at least from what has been shared publicly, has concentrated on scams targeting military personnel, or on inappropriate or even unlawful behavior.

Some top U.S. officials have tried to downplay the dangers of Russia’s influence operation, saying in some ways the threat posed to U.S. troops is no different from the threat to anyone else.

“Like all Americans, we have to be alert to the people who would try to manipulate an election in the information age, when there’s so many feeds coming in to everybody,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said when asked about the threat in August.

“Certainly, we pay attention to that,” Mattis said. “But it’s part of the larger domain of protecting America.”

Already working?

Experts worry that simply treating the Russian influence operations targeting the military as an American problem and not a military problem has left the U.S. military vulnerable to Russia’s social media onslaught.

“U.S. military personnel and veterans — it is the uncovered stone in the Russian influence effort that no one is really taking enough of an interest in,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI special agent and now a senior fellow at George Washington University’s Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

And Watts, who has testified before Congress on Russian influence operations, thinks the Russians have already made considerable headway.

“At the enlisted ranks in the U.S. military, Russia won over a huge base of support in this country that still continues on today,” he said.

Some of the early Russian success could be traced back to the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, when their push to sway the election in favor of then-candidate Donald Trump, amplifying messages like “America First” and his tough talk on terrorism, may have resonated with rank-and-file members of the military.

A May 2016 unscientific survey by the Military Times found “Donald Trump emerged as active-duty service members’ preference to become the next U.S. president, topping Hillary Clinton by more than a 2-to-1 margin.”

More recent polling by Military Times and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University suggests opinions may be changing. More than 70 percent of troops surveyed said Russia was a significant threat, an increase of 18 percent from the previous year.

Yet experts and former officials say there is evidence to suggest Russian influence operations targeting U.S. military personnel and their families have continued unabated.

“Whether that’s Facebook, Twitter and others, we’re seeing where it [Russia] is focusing on identifying affinity groups,” said Heather Conley, a former deputy assistant secretary of state during the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Now a senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Conley says the military is just one of several such groups in Russia’s sights, such as law enforcement and religious organizations.

“These unwittingly are being used to promote disinformation and malign influence,” she said. “It starts identifying the key voices within these broader groups.”

Phony military ties

At least in part, Russia has been trying to reach out to those voices on platforms like Twitter, using fake accounts purporting to be those of Americans with ties to the military.

In Twitter’s latest release of accounts linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency (on Oct. 17), at least 39 had user descriptions promoting links to the military.

Some gained little to no traction, like one that described the user as “Fighting to Make America Great Again strong #military supporter. Combat #Vet ????#OORAH Ret. #Frogman ???? #Sheepdog #Patriot ???? Follow me,” which did not attract a single follower.

Others did better, getting hundreds of followers. One Russian account, describing the user as a “Proud AMERICAN, wife, mother, conservative, served my country in USMC,” had more than 2,000 followers.

“We certainly are still seeing a lot of the accounts that we’re looking at that continue to have what seemed to be clear military connections,” Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Alliance for Securing Democracy, told VOA.

Schafer, along with his colleagues, have been studying Russia’s outreach on social media to U.S. military personnel and their families. He said the use of terms like “veteran” or “Navy mom” is not unusual.

“You’ll see a lot of banners on Twitter, the account pictures that will be kind of non-identifiable in terms of a specific person, but a member of the military or just some sort of graphic that connotes that person is part of the military or a family member,” he said.

Still, Schafer said it is difficult to determine just how much Russia has managed to penetrate the U.S. military community, whether on Twitter or other social media platforms, like Facebook.

“My guess is a lot of this probably would be happening more in closed Facebook groups in which there are many with the military, and frankly, nobody has any idea what’s really happening for those groups, because of course Facebook doesn’t share those with researchers,” he said.

Isolated community

And there are worries that the U.S. military may be especially vulnerable as officials admit the defense community’s connection to the rest of the country is as weak as it has been in a long time.

“My concern is the broader isolation from the community we serve, and that’s a discussion [in Congress] as well,” Army Secretary Mark Esper said during a breakfast forum in August. “On the Army staff alone, you look at any number of the senior leaders, I think they all have at least one son or daughter, if not more, who are army officers or who are serving.”

“We’ve become more segmented,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. “I’m very concerned about that.”

Reed, like Esper, downplayed concerns that the problem is one the Russians could exploit.

“I can’t think of an institution that’s more committed to America, one America and one that’s governed by the Constitution, than the military,” he said recently.

US allies already targeted by Moscow

But U.S. allies say there is reason to worry as they have seen Russia use disinformation to repeatedly target their forces.

“We have seen attempts to erode trust within the alliance,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu told VOA by email.

NATO’s Strategic Communications Center of Excellence in Latvia, working with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, has seen several large-scale disinformation campaigns and also smaller-scale attacks targeting NATO’s enhanced forward presence in the Baltics.

“Our personnel get guidance and instruction regarding misinformation and information security as part of their pre-deployment training and their arrival process in order to increase their resilience,” according to Maj. Mark Peebles with NATO’s Task Force Latvia Headquarters.

“They are aware that it’s out there and are advised to maintain a critical eye to what they see on social media,” he said.

The British, too, have seen indications that Russia and others may be trying to cause dissent in the ranks.

“Quite a few senior commanders, increasingly, I see now, having had evidence of false Facebook websites coming up routinely in their names,” said Lt. Gen. Nick Pope, British army deputy chief of the general staff, describing efforts to take the fake pages down as “whack a rat.”

“The fact is that our potential adversaries, hostile agencies, are using cybercrime, if you call it that, as a mechanism now to try to unhinge reliable, evidence-based platforms,” he said.
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Britain and Ireland will seek to hold regular summits between leaders and ministers after Brexit to maintain ties strained by Britain’s decision to leave the EU, senior ministers from both governments said on Friday.

Relations between the two have improved markedly since Ireland gained independence from Britain following a bloody struggle almost a century ago.

But ties have been tested over the last two years with Ireland a key player on the opposite side of the Brexit negotiating table to Britain. Arguments over how to manage the the border between EU-member state Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland have threatened the talks.

“What we’ve agreed is that we should aim for a model which is based upon a pattern of top level summits involving heads of government and senior ministers, probably alternating between the United Kingdom and Ireland year-by-year, and backed up by close bilateral work between ministers,” Britain’s Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington told a news conference.

“There is that shared commitment that we are not going to let political turbulence, which is a reality at the moment, deflect us from recognising that we have so much in common and so much both to gain from continued close work together.”

Lidington, Prime Minister Theresa May’s de facto deputy, was speaking after a meeting of a British-Irish cooperative body that was convened for the first time in a decade earlier this year as a result of a political deadlock in Northern Ireland.

Britain and Ireland are co-guarantors of the 1998 peace deal that ended 30 years of sectarian violence in the province and introduced devolved government. However the power-sharing executive has not met for almost two years following a breakdown between Irish nationalist and pro-British unionist politicians.

Lidington said officials would come up with proposals by early next year to replace the current regular meetings at EU meetings that helped improve the “indispensable relationship.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney also sought to play down a number of recent newspaper stories that highlighted a deterioration in relations between the neighbouring countries.

“Some of what you read about the stresses and strains that are sometimes reported between the British and Irish government, on a personal that is certainly not the case,” Coveney said.
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President Vladimir Putin congratulated Russia’s GRU military intelligence on its centenary Friday, hailing the agency that has been accused by the West of election meddling, nerve agent poisonings and hacking attacks against chemical weapons probes and anti-doping sports bodies.

“I’m confident of your professionalism, courage and determination,” the Russian leader said in a speech to GRU officers in Moscow.

Putin said he highly appreciates the intelligence information and the analytics produced by the GRU and also praised the agency for its actions in Syria, saying it strongly contributed to the success of Russia’s campaign there.

The United States and its allies have accused the GRU of involvement in the March nerve agent attack on a Russian ex-spy in Britain, hacking the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and disrupting anti-doping efforts in world sports. Russian authorities have rejected the accusations, calling them part of a Western smear campaign.

Putin made no reference to Western accusations against the GRU, but noted rising global tensions.

“The conflict potential in the world is growing,” Putin said in Friday’s speech. “There are provocations and blatant lies, as well as attempts to upset strategic parity.”

The GRU has recently faced a series of exposures that revealed its inner workings.

In September, British intelligence released surveillance images of GRU agents accused of the March nerve agent attack on former GRU officer and British double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury. The investigative group Bellingcat and the Russian site The Insider quickly exposed the agents’ real names. 

Dutch authorities also have recently identified four alleged GRU agents who tried to hack the world’s chemical weapons watchdog from a hotel parking lot.

While the GRU counts its history from 1918, when it was created in the wake of the Bolshevik revolution, Putin also mentioned its predecessors in imperial Russia. He noted that some imperial army officers helped the Bolsheviks organize military intelligence after the 1917 revolution. 

“They realized that there is no worse shame than to betray the Motherland, betray comrades, and at the time of turmoil and revolutionary upheavals helped preserve the continuity of the service’s traditions,” he said.

Putin added “military intelligence officers showed the same loyalty to their duty in the early 1990s following the breakup of the Soviet Union, helping preserve the GRU potential.”
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A Turkish presidential adviser and friend of slain Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi says his body was cut up and dissolved in acid for easier disposal, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported Friday.

“According to the latest information we have, the reason they dismembered his body is to dissolve it easier” before it was disposed of, Yasin Aktay told the newspaper.

Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist who who had written critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month to get a document he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee.

After initially denying Khashoggi had been murdered, the Saudi government claimed he died in an unplanned “rogue operation.” Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb offered a different explanation last week when he said the killing was premeditated.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says it may be a “handful more weeks” before the U.S. has enough evidence to impose sanctions on those responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.

Pompeo told St. Louis radio station KMOX Thursday the U.S. administration is “continuing to understand the fact pattern” and added it is “reviewing putting sanctions on the individuals” who have so far been identified as being “engaged in that murder.”

Pompeo emphasized that U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed accountability for all involved in the “heinous crime.”

In his first public reaction Friday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the murder “horrendous” and said responsive action must be taken.

“At the same time, I say that it’s very important  …for the region and [for] the world that Saudi Arabia remain stable,” Netanyahu told reporters in the Bulgarian city of Varna. “I think that a way must be found to achieve both goals, because I think the larger problem is Iran.” Iran has denied accusations it is building a nuclear bomb, saying weapons of mass destruction are prohibited under Islam.

Khashoggi’s fiancee wrote in an op-ed piece published Friday in The Washington Post the Trump administration’s response to Khashoggi’s death has been “devoid of moral foundation.”

“Of all nations, the United States should be leading the way in bringing the perpetrators to justice,” Hatice Cengiz wrote.

Instead, Cengiz said, “Some in Washington are hoping this matter will be forgotten with simple delaying tactics. But we will continue to push the Trump administration to help find justice for Jamal. There will be no coverup.”

The New York Times, quoting two people familiar with the matter, reported Friday that White House officials knew from an October 9 phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that he considered Khashoggi a dangerous Islamist, and therefore knew the Saudi prince had a potential motive for the killing. But because of its deep investment in Prince Mohammed as the main linchpin of the administration’s Middle East agenda, the Trump administration concluded it could not feasibly limit his power.

Instead, the White House “has joined governments around the region in weighing what effect the stigma of the Khashoggi killing may have on the crown prince’s ability to rule, and what benefit can be extracted from his potential weakness,” the Times said, quoting people familiar with the administration’s deliberations.

More than 100 members of PEN America, a New York-based non-profit group of journalists and artists devoted to human rights and free expression, have called on the U.N. to launch an independent probe into the killing.

“The violent murder of a prominent journalist and commentator on foreign soil is a grave violation of human rights and a disturbing escalation of the crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, whose government in recent years has jailed numerous writers, journalists, human rights advocates, and lawyers in a sweeping assault on free expression and association,” the group said Friday in an open letter.

Turkish officials said earlier this week chief Istanbul prosecutor Irfan Fidan failed to get answers about the location of Khashoggi’s body and who ordered his killing during three days of a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation in Istanbul.

The U.S. is urging Saudi Arabia to locate Khashoggi’s body and return it to his family as soon as possible.

Khashoggi’s friends and family say they want even just a piece of his body so they can carry out his wish to be buried in the city of Medina, Islam’s second holiest site.

Turkey is trying to have 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia extradited so they can be tried in a Turkish court. Among the suspects are 15 members of an alleged “hit squad” that Turkey claims was sent to Istanbul to kill Khashoggi.

Some of the people suspected of being involved in the killing have close ties to the prince, whose condemnation of Khashoggi’s killing has failed to alleviate suspicions he was involved.

 
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The Italian government has decided it needs to offer incentives to combat the country’s declining birthrate and proposed a new plan it is calling “Land-for-Children.” The agriculture minister says providing free farmland for families who have a third child could create new business ventures for Italian families.

Italy now has the lowest birthrate in Europe, and the populist government of Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is taking measures because it wants to reverse the trend.

In its draft budget it announced a plan to award land to married couples who have a third child. The idea is not only to combat Italy’s dwindling population but also to ease the state’s burden in maintaining unused farmland.

Italy’s agricultural minister, Gian Carlo Centinaio, says families in rural areas still have children and the government wants to support them. For the next three years, from 2019 to 2021, a family that has a third child can take advantage of the government incentive.

In comments Friday on national television, Centinaio explained the plan, saying Italy is the European country with the largest number of young people in agriculture, and at the same time is where the least number of children are born. During these months, he added, the government has launched the sale of 7,700 hectares of unused land and at the same time given the go-ahead for a contribution of $79 million for young people who launch activities in the agricultural sector.

For years, migrants arriving in Italy were believed to be the solution to a low birthrate in Italy, re-populating abandoned villages and taking on jobs Italians no longer wanted to do. But the present government is not interested in a multi-cultural Italy and wants to limit that phenomenon.

It wants to find ways to support Italian families who have more children, return to farming their land, and limit the number of migrants being allowed into the country. In fact, the incentive is available only to migrants who have resided in Italy for at least 10 years.

Reaction to the government’s plan has been widespread. Some Italian farmers say there is no future in agriculture and ask why should they farm land and build a future on land that does not belong to them. The government has said those who take advantage of the initiative would be able to hold on to the land for 20 years.

The opposition also reacted negatively, describing the plan as “medieval” and declaring that the idea is outrageous and a clear example of the cultural and social mindset of the current government.

 
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The leaders of Russia and Cuba have vowed to expand what they called their “strategic” ties and urged the United States to lift its blockade of Cuba.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel pledged Friday to develop political, economic and military cooperation between their nations.

Diaz-Canel, who replaced Raul Castro in April in a historic changing of the guard in Cuba, hailed the “brotherly” ties between Russia and Cuba.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union poured billions of dollars in supplies and subsidies to Cuba, its staunchest Latin American ally. But ties withered after the 1991 Soviet collapse as Russia, hit by an economic meltdown, withdrew its economic aid to Cuba.

Putin, who visited Cuba in 2000 and 2014, has sought to revive ties with the old Caribbean ally.

 
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U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry will visit Ukraine, Poland and other eastern European countries next week as the Trump administration seeks to offer them alternatives to buying coal and gas from Russia.

Perry will also visit Hungary and the Czech Republic on the trip. He will meet with government officials on topics from nuclear energy to cyber security and coal and liquefied natural gas exports, the Department of Energy said in a release on Thursday.

The Trump administration is seeking foreign markets for coal as domestic consumption has dropped to the lowest level since 1983 due to closures of coal-fired power plants that are suffering from abundant, cheap supplies of natural gas.

In July, 2017 Centrenergo PJSC, one of the largest power companies in Ukraine, agreed to buy 700,000 tons of U.S. coal.

Last month, Poland’s top natural gas company, PGNiG, finalized the terms of a deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from U.S. company Venture Global LNG, as part of a move to cut reliance on Russia.

Poland has relied on Russia’s Gazprom for more than half of its gas under a long-term deal that expires in 2022.

The United States is touting its LNG as more reliable than pipelined gas from Russia, but LNG is more expensive because of the costs of shipping and super-cooling the fuel to the point where it becomes a liquid.

 
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The United States is urging Saudi Arabia to locate the body of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi and return it to his family as soon as possible.

Khashoggi was killed when he walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last month, according to a Turkish prosecutor. His body has not been found, although Turkish police last month searched a forest on Istanbul’s outskirts and near Yalova, a city near the Sea of Marmara, for Khashoggi’s remains.

Khashoggi’s friends and family say they want just a piece of his body so they can carry out his wish to be buried in the city of Medina, Islam’s second holiest site.

“We are calling the entire world to put the necessary pressure, international pressure, on the Saudi government to find his remains, to be able to bury him, even before finding those who are responsible, before this issue is covered up,” Faith Oke, executive director of the Turkey-Arab Media Association, said Thursday.

Turkish officials said chief prosecutor Irfan Fidan failed to get answers about the location of Khashoggi’s body and who ordered his killing during three days of a joint Turkish-Saudi investigation in Istanbul.

The Saudis have given a shifting account of what happened to Khashoggi on Oct. 2. After initially denying Khashoggi had been killed, the Saudi government claimed he died in an unplanned “rogue operation.” Saudi public prosecutor Saud al-Mojeb offered a different explanation last week when he said the killing was premeditated.

After talks with Mojeb earlier this week, Fidan also said the killing was premeditated, with Khashoggi being suffocated immediately after entering the consulate and his body dismembered.

Turkey is trying to extradite 18 suspects detained in Saudi Arabia so they can be tried in a Turkish court. Among the suspects are 15 members of an alleged “hit squad” that Turkey claims was sent to Istanbul to kill The Washington Post columnist who had written critically of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Some of the people suspected of being involved in the killing have close ties to the prince, whose condemnation has failed to alleviate suspicions he was involved.

Khashoggi entered the consulate last month to get a document he needed to marry his Turkish fiancee. 
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Armenia’s president on Thursday dissolved parliament and called an early election, a political maneuver intended to unseat the current parliament majority.

President Armen Sarkisian’s move is in sync with acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s efforts to unseat his foes in parliament. Sarkisian set the early election for Dec. 9.

Pashinian took office in May after spearheading weeks of protests that forced the resignation of his predecessor, but his political opponents retained a majority in parliament. Last month, Pashinian announced his resignation, saying that an early vote is needed “to return the power to the people.”

Armenian law says a snap election must be held if lawmakers twice fail to pick a new head of government within 14 days of a prime minister’s resignation. On Thursday, the parliament failed to choose a new prime minister for a second time, allowing the president to dissolve the parliament and call a new vote.

Pashinian, a former journalist, tapped into public anger over the widespread poverty, high unemployment and rampant corruption that flourished under the old government in this landlocked former Soviet republic that borders Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran.

He has stayed in charge as acting prime minister, saying he would serve as a “guarantor of the people’s victory,” and members of his Cabinet also have continued to perform their duties.
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Scientists are putting a robotic Mars rover to the test in Spain’s rocky Tabernas Desert. The European Space Agency and Russia’s Roscosmos space agency plan to land a rover on the Red Planet in 2021, to search for microscopic signs of life. Faith Lapidus reports.
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Of all the countries that fought in the Great War, none was perhaps more affected than Russia. Dissatisfaction at home over Russian losses in World War I led to Tsar Nikolai II’s abdication of the Romanov throne and, several months later, the Bolshevik Revolution, sealed with the execution of the royal family by the new Soviet authorities in the Ural mountain city of Yekaterinburg. But as Charles Maynes reports, Russian attempts to bring closure to the Romanov story remain elusive even today.
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British Prime Minister Theresa May has struck a deal with the European Union that would give UK financial services companies continued access to European markets after Brexit, the Times reported on Thursday.

British and European negotiators have reached tentative agreement on all aspects of a future partnership on services, as well as the exchange of data, the British newspaper reported, citing government sources. 

The British pound jumped as much as 0.5 percent against the dollar following the report.

The services deal would give UK companies access to European markets as long as British financial regulation remained broadly aligned with the EU’s, the Times reported.

May’s principal Europe adviser, Oliver Robbins, is continuing the negotiations in Brussels, according to the report.

With five months to secure a deal before Britain is due to leave the EU, business leaders are demanding certainty over the kind of trade terms the divorce will deliver.

UK’s Financial Conduct Authority wants Britain to stay closely aligned with the EU, but without Britain having to copy all the bloc’s rules, acting director of strategy at the FCA, Richard Monks, has said.

Britain on Wednesday said there was no set date for Brexit talks to finish, backtracking from a letter by Brexit minister Dominic Raab that suggested a deal on the terms of its departure from the European Union could be finalized by Nov. 21.
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