Sure they are. Remember when Reddit found all those "russian bots" and it turned out to be like 6 accounts with a combined 200 karma?

It's always funny to see a propaganda mouthpiece accuse everyone else of being a propaganda mouthpiece.

Newly declassified US Intel

Did this come from the same file where Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? I find it interesting how often US Intel is declassified randomly when it's super duper helpful to struggling Western interests, and then later once it's all blown over it turns out the Intel was wrong. Funny how that works. I'm sure this is definitely different this time

my favorite CNN article of all time is still the one where they try to make you think China banned the letter N

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/01/asia/china-letter-ban-trnd/index.html

so this is proof that the whole "anyone opposing NATO is a Russian bot" thing is a intelligence agency psyop, right?

Ok. Just it's just Russia that does this though, right? The US doesn't have a psyops wing that dwarfs the next twenty countries combined? I just want to make sure.

"Noooooo we're not willing participants in US imperialism you're a Russian bot"

I get an extra hundred rubles every time a lib gives up on arguing with me.

It me, I'm that

US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is attempting to influence public policy and public opinion in the West by directing Russian civilians to build relationships with influential US and Western individuals and then disseminate narratives that support Kremlin objectives, obscuring the FSB’s role through layers of ostensibly independent actors.

This is like when Yankees fans wouldn't shut up about the Astros stealing signs after the Yankees lost to the Astros in the 2017 ALCS, only for it come out that the Yankees had also been stealing signs.

full text so you don't have to go to cnn

Russian intelligence is operating a systematic program to launder pro-Kremlin propaganda through private relationships between Russian operatives and unwitting US and western targets, according to newly declassified US intelligence.

US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is attempting to influence public policy and public opinion in the West by directing Russian civilians to build relationships with influential US and Western individuals and then disseminate narratives that support Kremlin objectives, obscuring the FSB’s role through layers of ostensibly independent actors.

“These influence operations are designed to be deliberately small scale, the overall goal being US [and] Western persons presenting these ideas, seemingly organic,” a US official authorized to discuss the material told CNN. “The co-optee influence operations are built primarily on personal relationships … they build trust with them and then they can leverage that to covertly push the FSB’s agenda.”

The campaigns have sometimes been effective at planting Russian narratives in the Western press, according to the intelligence. Maxim Grigoriev, who heads a Russian NGO, made multiple speeches to the UN presenting a false study that claimed the humanitarian group the White Helmets – which operates in Syria – was running a black market for human organs and had faked chemical attacks by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with whom Russia is allied. Those claims eventually found their way into a television report on the far-right OANN in the United States, according to open-source materials provided by the official.

CNN has reached out to Grigoriev and OANN. But the official stressed that the Western voices that eventually became mouthpieces for Russian propaganda were almost certainly unaware of the role they were playing.

“At the end of the day, this unwitting target is disseminating Russian influence operation, Russian propaganda to their target public,” the US official said. “Ultimately, a lot of these are unwitting people — they remain unaware who is essentially seeding these narratives.”

The intelligence provides several examples of Russian civilian “co-optees” doing the bidding of the FSB. One man, Andrey Stepanenko, founded a media project in 2014 that sponsored journalists from the US and the West to visit eastern Ukraine and learn “the alleged truth” about what was happening in the region. In fact, the FSB directed his efforts and “almost certainly financed the project,” according to the declassified intelligence. CNN was not able to locate Stepanenko to ask for comment.

The US official also cited Natalia Burlinova, the founder of a Russian NGO who routinely coordinated FSB-funded public diplomacy efforts aimed at influencing Western views. In 2018, she visited, had meetings and hosted events at multiple US think tanks and universities in New York, Boston and Washington – work that was funded by the FSB, according to the intelligence. Her conduct was already public: She was indicted earlier this year on charges of conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia inside the United States, although she remains at liberty in Russia.

CNN has reached out to Burlinova. The official declined to offer specifics to back up the intelligence community’s assertions that the FSB is funding this kind of operation but noted that once officials were able establish FSB backing, it is easy to trace the narratives they are pushing in open-source materials. “Once you’re aware of who these people are and their association with the FSB, by nature of what they’re doing, they have very, very public personas,” the official said. “And so I would just say it’s not really difficult to kind of follow the strings.” The US official declined to say whether Russia has used these same tactics to try to influence US elections.

The FSB does use similar tactics to influence political opinion within Russia, according to the intelligence. In one instance, a Russian media figure named Anton Tsvetkov organized protests outside of embassies in Moscow — including the US Embassy — at the FSB’s behest. The protests pushed Russia’s narrative of the war in Ukraine, “promoting the ‘Ukrainian Nazi’ narrative and blaming the U.S. and its allies for the deaths of children in the Donbass,” while hiding the Russian government’s role, according to the declassified intelligence.

“The purpose of those protests really was … designed to sell it to the Russian people,” the US official said.

Spiderman pointing at spiderman .jpeg

Not all of us are doing it unwittingly, tyvm

Newly declassified? More like the same shit that has been pushed since 2016 being repackaged.

unwitting Westerners

Just by disagreeing with western liberals, you are now a Russian bot! Yesterday's argument with that federated weeb checks out!

It's true, I saw Putin putting propaganda in my washing machine and he looked at me when he did it which proves it happened.

This works so damn well. Like, the CIA member who thought this one up should get a raise or get to order his own drone strike or whatever reward they usually get.

It is the perfect "I don't have to listen to you" defense for libs. They can dismiss anything they don't like as being "Putin propaganda" because us tankies are just so mindless that we don't even know we're working for the Kremlin. It's the perfect storm of getting to ignore uncomfortable truths combined with getting to smugly dismiss opponents as being not as intelligent as the lib, plus it even throws in a bit of lib condescending "Those poor innocents are too naive to know what they are even doing" that they fucking love.

CIA uncovers secret Russian plot to sit back, watch as #NAFO twerps humiliate themselves.

In other words, people do not believe Western bullshit anymore so they are Russian brainwashed zombies! It’s the only possible way you could doubt the US state department and CNN, if Yuri was using a mind control device on them

It's weird that only Western supporters of Russia(which they will lump critics of NATO into) must have been brainwashed. I am from a non-Western NATO member country but according to the CIA, no FSB agents were involved in that one.

What they talk about is also obviously the same as what all countries do, release propaganda so more people see them in a positive light. This article about another country's propaganda is also propaganda. I hope libs aren't gonna fall for this(they will).

private relationships really? that's wildly implausible