Modern elections are no longer contested only through political rallies, televised debates and traditional campaign advertising. They are also fought across social networks, search engines, messaging platforms and seemingly independent news websites. In this digital arena, Russia has developed a sophisticated system designed not necessarily to replace ballots, but to influence the environment in which citizens make their choices.
During the 2024 US presidential election campaign, American intelligence and security agencies attributed several fabricated election-related videos to Russian influence actors. These included false stories about illegal voting and alleged ballot destruction. According to the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the purpose of such material was to undermine confidence in the electoral process and intensify divisions within American society.
The methods used in these campaigns extend far beyond conventional propaganda. In September 2024, the US Department of Justice announced the seizure of 32 internet domains allegedly employed in the Russian government-directed “Doppelganger” operation. The network used websites impersonating established media organisations, fabricated social-media profiles, influencers, paid advertising and AI-generated content to distribute narratives favourable to Moscow while concealing their true origin.
Artificial intelligence has made this model faster, cheaper and considerably more scalable. Convincing articles, images, recordings and videos can now be produced in multiple languages and adapted to particular audiences within hours. Fake accounts then repeat and amplify this material, creating the impression that an artificial narrative represents a genuine public consensus. US intelligence has warned that Russia is adapting its influence activities to exploit generative AI and disguise its involvement more effectively.
Generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) is artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, videos, or other data using generative models, often in response to prompts, significantly lowering the barrier for creating synthetic media.
The United States is not the only target. Russian-linked information networks have also operated within European political debates, particularly on questions involving Ukraine, migration, national identity, economic insecurity and public trust in government. In Germany, such campaigns have reportedly circulated fabricated stories, attacked mainstream political forces and promoted narratives advantageous to the far-right Alternative for Germany. However, the existence of foreign amplification does not mean that every supporter, favourable comment or increase in a party’s popularity was manufactured abroad. Domestic dissatisfaction, economic pressures, political mistakes and social-media algorithms remain powerful forces in their own right.
This is the essential distinction between electoral influence and electoral control. Russia can attempt to shape perceptions, promote preferred candidates, weaken support for Ukraine and encourage suspicion towards democratic institutions. Yet this does not automatically prove that Moscow altered official vote totals or independently determined an election’s final result. In fact, a declassified US intelligence assessment stated that foreign actors would probably avoid trying to change vote counts because doing so successfully, without detection, would be extremely difficult and could provoke serious retaliation.
The strategic objective may therefore be broader than securing victory for one particular politician. A successful influence operation can deepen hostility between social groups, convince citizens that elections are inherently dishonest and leave the losing side unwilling to accept the result. From this perspective, confusion and distrust may be as valuable as an electoral victory. The 2025 US intelligence assessment observed that Moscow considers such operations beneficial even when they do not change an election’s outcome, because weakening confidence in democracy is itself a strategic achievement.
Data centres, digital platforms and communications infrastructure consequently form part of this new political battlefield. Disrupting servers connected to a hostile influence network may temporarily reduce its reach, but no single strike can eliminate the entire system. Modern disinformation operations are distributed across commercial cloud services, proxy servers, contractors, compromised devices, fake media platforms and accounts located in numerous jurisdictions. Their resilience comes from decentralisation and their ability to migrate rapidly from one platform to another.
Democratic governments must therefore respond with more than technical countermeasures. They need transparent political communication, independent journalism, stronger digital literacy, rapid public exposure of fabricated content and closer cooperation between governments, technology companies and researchers. At the same time, defensive action must preserve freedom of expression and avoid treating legitimate political disagreement as foreign interference.
Russia’s influence machinery does not need to enter the polling station to damage an election. It succeeds whenever citizens can no longer distinguish authentic debate from artificial amplification, journalism from imitation, or political conviction from manufactured outrage.
The greatest danger is not that a foreign power secretly casts the ballot—it is that it gradually shapes the reality in which the ballot is cast.
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