The homepage of Global Research, a Canadian website considered an independent research and media organization, is universally bleak in terms of the prospect of covid-19 vaccines being developed in the West.

"Covid-19 vaccines lead to new infections and mortality: Evidence is compelling," read a May headline. "Alarming mortality rates from mRNA vaccines require immediate action," said another.

According to the US State Department, the Montreal-based non-profit organization is anything but independent. Instead, the report said last year, the organization was "deeply involved in Russia's wider ecosystem of disinformation and propaganda." Global Research was a partner of another website, the Foundation for Strategic Culture (FSK), which is directed by Russia's External Intelligence Service (SIA), the report said. The Canada-based group has also released content from the SouthFront organization, which the US Department of Justice declared in April - along with the FSK and two other organizations - as a "disinformation firm" of Russian intelligence. , in this case the FSB.

Divide, then rule?

Efforts by various Russian-linked groups to express negative views on the Covid-19 vaccine are part of what the United States sees as an intensified Moscow-produced disinformation campaign.

In the past, the United States has tried to use summits with Russia to resolve disputes over the number of nuclear warheads or to criticize Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. In Geneva, the Biden administration is focusing on what it considers to be Russia's "harmful activities" in cyberspace.

According to the United States, Russian disinformation operations follow a series of cyber-attacks and hacking incidents that appear to have some degree of Russian involvement. U.S. officials and experts say they are pursuing an accelerated policy of sowing discontent and mistrust among the American public, aimed at undermining institutions and belief in democracy, at a time when fierce political polarization in the United States is exposing those cracks.

"They are constantly exploring, seeking, peeking, encouraging - not just through the system, but in the American public - looking for ways to sow doubt, to divide us along racial lines, along political lines, into any social divisions we already have." says Matthew Masterson, a former senior cybersecurity adviser in the Department of Homeland Security, now hired by the Stanford Internet Observatory. "It's a hybrid war of the 21st century."

U.S. officials and various watchdog groups say Moscow's efforts to disrupt and undermine democracy in the United States have quickly adapted to the arrival of a new administration in Washington. Vaccine misinformation is only part of that effort, they say.

"Clearly there is a more direct campaign against the Biden administration than there was against the Trump administration," said Brett Schaefer, a propaganda expert with the Alliance for Democracy, part of the German Marshall Fund for Research, which was set up to monitor disinformation. Schaefer himself has developed a tracking system that collects data from 350 Twitter addresses, 27 websites and two YouTube channels linked to the Russian government or state-funded Russian media. "I could not single out a single positive story in the past six months," he said.

Geneva Summit

Biden is trying to use the Geneva summit to help stabilize relations and resolve what he said before the meeting were "activities that we consider to be inconsistent with international norms." The US president also agreed with Putin's proposal that could allow the US and Russia to exchange cybercriminals wanted by each other's governments.

But few US experts on Russia believe that Moscow will withdraw in any significant way in its cyber activities. "The Russians have long since declared war on information technology," said Fiona Hill, a former senior director for Russia at the National Security Council during the Trump administration. "They were trying to prove that they are a great cyber power - they want to create a military scenario so that they can sit down and agree on a truce with us."

 "Evil information" versus "misinformation"

The notion of disinformation wars, though long in existence, came to full swing after the 2016 US presidential election, which brought Trump to power. U.S.A. investigators have found a coordinated effort by the Russian "troll farm," its Internet Research Agency (AIA), to influence public opinion polls in the United States.

Evgeny Prigogine, the alleged caterer transformed into a military commander known as "Putin the Cook", who US officials say finances a Russian troll farm, has denied its existence and Moscow says it is not behind the effort. But the United States has accused 13 AI agents of meddling in the US presidential campaign, and since then Russia has continued to be one of the most active nations in conducting covert operations, according to Facebook.

U.S. officials and researchers believe that some of the recent disruptions in the information space have been more subtle, relying on real sources rather than coming up with negative narratives. One example is the number of stories in recent weeks that point to concerns about Biden's health. In this case, the impetus was a May letter signed by 124 retired US generals questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and the "commander-in-chief's mental and physical condition," which was widely covered by the mainstream US media.

For experts, this is part of Russia's attempt to distance itself from fake bots and fake addresses amid action by social platforms against inauthentic network activity. Instead, they say, Russian productions now cite facts published by Western sources and reinforce their influence.

"When it comes to domestic narratives in the United States, [Russians] almost always 'load up' on something that has been published," Schaefer said. "From official sources, we seldom see anything that would be categorized as fabrication." Instead, Russia is now focused on creating "excessive distortion" of the context rather than fabricating non-existent facts: Schaefer says he prefers the term "misinformation" versus complete misinformation in these cases.

 The goal is general mistrust

The goal, experts say, is to attack domestic divisions in the United States, such as those of interracial relations and allegations of electoral fraud, in order to fuel cultural wars on both the right and left sides of the political spectrum. Covid-19 proved to be a particularly fertile area.

"It's very clear that Russia is playing with old tricks," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in March. "And spreading misinformation about vaccines potentially puts people at risk, because we know that vaccines save lives on a daily basis." platforms, which were targeted by Moscow's intelligence services and which spread misinformation about vaccines used in the United States.

"We have seen Russia become a super-spreader of anti-vaccine misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19," said Nina Jankovich, a Russian disinformation expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "Russia itself does not create these things, but builds on existing narratives, increasing social distrust."

Russia sometimes targets "prominent figures in the United States" to negatively influence domestic American audiences, according to a March report by U.S. intelligence. It says Putin approved such operational influences on public opinion polls in 2020, instead of reiterating his persistent efforts to hack election infrastructure in 2016.

US members of Congress have also been accused of spreading Russian propaganda. Last month, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz was criticized for sharing a video on social media that compared the advertising of US military recruits to Russian.

"Whenever there is something useful in the information ecosystem that tarnishes America's face, then they will take advantage of it," said Graham Brookie, a former Obama administration official who is now director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Laboratory. which monitors foreign disinformation from open sources. "It's a smart strategy to show our division."

 Sophisticated hacking

In April, the Biden administration blamed Moscow for a month-long hacking that targeted nine federal agencies and more than 100 private companies. The operatives - believed to be part of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SIA) - hacked software from SolarWinds to disrupt government and corporate e-mail systems. The intrusion was first detected in December, but Moscow continued its campaign. In May, Microsoft said it had evidence that the same group had "taken over" an e-mail system to present itself as a USAID development agency and to conduct a phishing campaign to illegally enter more than 150 government agencies, groups for human rights and NGOs around the world.

The May blackmail attacks the United States blamed on Russian cybercriminals led to the temporary closure of an important commercial pipeline and a meat-packing company. The United States has not directly blamed the Kremlin, but the US Treasury Department earlier this year accused Russia's secret service FSB of "cultivating and co-opting" a cyber-blackmail group known as the "Corporation of Evil". On that occasion, the White House told Moscow that "responsible states are not a criminal haven for software blackmailers."

Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former senior US intelligence official, says Putin could have prevented such attacks if he had wanted to. "But they are getting bolder, in pursuit of bigger goals."

 The incident in Havana

The Biden administration is also investigating a number of suspiciously "targeted" radio frequency attacks on US officials, known as "Havana Syndrome", since US officials stationed in Cuba first complained in 2016. Similar symptoms have been reported in China and elsewhere since 2018.

Although US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said last week that "we still simply do not know" the cause of the incidents, suspicion fell on Moscow. Two people briefed US intelligence that Russia was the most likely culprit if the attacks were confirmed. One source estimated that it was possible that it was a wrong technical prototype with which the Russians were trying to steal data from computers and phones by "pulsating" energy, which eventually affected the people nearby.

"One of the theories is that they tried the device in Havana, modified it, and then tried it again in China," the source said.

Fiona Hill says the Havana attacks, if proven to have been carried out by Moscow, would be a Russian breach of collateral damage in intelligence gathering. "The Russians are very proud of their new intelligence-gathering techniques. "In many ways it's a continuation of the Cold War," said Hill, who suspects Russians previously filtered data from her phones and hacked into her laptop while writing a book about Putin in 2015, and regularly tracked her down. "They do not really care about the damage they can cause."

She added that when the use of polonium in Russia, the radioactive poison, and the "rookie" nerve agent against Putin's opponents came to light, those revelations were not entirely undesirable in Moscow because they signaled to the Russians themselves the dangers of espionage or opposition. . "This softens the enemies, makes them feel defeated."

To talk or not?

Trying to stop Russian intelligence operations and cyber-hackers is a difficult task. "It's like moth hunting," said James Lewis, a cybersecurity expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think that's why the Russians enjoy all this so much; "It is difficult for us to take action from a constitutional point of view."

Russia has been trying for years to establish some sort of global peace deal on cyberspace, but the United States is wary of entering into any form of talks that assume the two sides are equal or bear equal responsibility for past cybercrime. The Biden administration is signaling that it is actively seeking to discuss cyber-attacks, to impose restrictions and to signal strong reactions if the rules are violated.

"It is good that they have stopped this stupid policy of refusing to talk to us about cyber issues," a senior Russian government official told the Financial Times. "Now it's on the agenda [in Geneva], we can at least talk about it, but we are far from cooperating."

As a first step, the Biden administration wants to disclose Russian intelligence operations, but without resorting to militarized cyber-war language. Biden's approach indicates that he seeks NATO support, strengthens resilience to critical US infrastructure, and takes steps to defend democracy at home and abroad. His national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has vowed that the United States will respond in "seen and unseen" ways, suggesting that the United States could take more and more covert cyber-activities.

It will get worse before it gets better

In the field of propaganda, Todd Helmus, a misinformation expert at the American think tank Rand Corporation, argues that while fact-checking is useful to a certain audience, it will not solve the problem. "There is no single policy on this issue; "It's very complex," he said.

Others warn that the impact of Russian intelligence operations is difficult to assess. "We still do not really understand the effects of what Russia is doing," Kendall-Taylor said.

But even if the Geneva summit provides some clarity, the direction of the trip seems clear.

"This invisible war is becoming more and more real and is becoming one of the main tools in the hybrid war, in the confrontation between the United States and Russia," said Dmitry Trenin, director of the Carnegie Center in Moscow. "I do not see any real indulgence in such a confrontation. "I think the intensity will increase before we find a new 'normal'."

The article was published in the weekend edition of Free Press. (June 18-20, 2021) in the article SP. weekly. The text is taken from Financial Times (LONDON) with prior permission from the publisher.

Biden politely threatened Putin

Summit is not a tennis match. The result is rarely "game, set and match". Joe Biden's last four predecessors held unfortunate summits with Vladimir Putin, but Biden entered this one with low expectations. There were no illusions of a "meeting of the mind" with the Russian leader, let alone of souls. Biden's modesty of purpose - to stabilize relations with America's main military adversary - conveyed a realism lacking in previous presidents.

After more than two decades in power, the Russian bear is unlikely to change its habits. Biden's goal is to force Putin into a moderately less dangerous position. Achieving that goal is harder than it sounds. At home, Biden faces ridicule from Republicans and some foreign policy experts even for scheduling a meeting with Putin. Sharing a public scene with the US president is considered an unearned reward for an opponent who regularly sponsors cyber attacks on the US, not to mention the information war against Western democracy.

Biden must also manage the politics of intolerance in the age of social media. If his approach to "constantly watering the garden" in diplomacy works, it may take years to bear fruit. There will be little success when it comes to making US-Russia relations less toxic.

And time is running out for Biden's ability to persuade America's European allies to stick to the scenario. Biden's partners agreed on tough communiqués at the G7 and NATO summits last week. But their willingness to support Western unity with Russia is burdened by fears that Biden could be president for just one term. The time of continuity in US foreign policy is over. Will Biden be in office three and a half years from now? Putin will almost certainly be.

However, the biggest challenge lies in Putin's behavior itself, which is fundamentally unpredictable. Biden's most important goal in foreign policy is to oppose an increasingly active China. A key element of Biden's strategy is to place global stakes between the United States and China (and Russia, as a Chinese autocratic "lieutenant") in terms of democracy versus autocracy. All this is very good. But America's friends are following the direction of American politics with real trepidation. Biden is far from suppressing Trappism, and his presidential victory has only accelerated their full takeover of the Republican Party. For European observers, the global battle between democracy versus autocracy can, in fact, take place within the United States itself.

So how do we measure whether Biden is making progress with Putin? Most of the things that will not happen, such as the continued Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine, support for international piracy, including last month's diversion of Ryanair flight to Minsk, and the longevity of Alexei Navalny, whose name Putin still finds difficult pronounced. The absence of major cyber-attacks on the United States, such as the SolarWinds crackdown earlier this year, will be another benchmark.

It would be more ambitious to expect weakening of Russia-China ties. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former US national security adviser, described the relationship as a "union of victims". Less contradictory US relations with Russia could loosen the Moscow-Beijing embrace, although that would be a long-term forecast. For now, Biden has to deal with modest contrasts. Compared to Putin's 2018 press conference with Trump, when the Russian leader could not hide his smile, Putin's solo press event in Geneva seemed significantly muted.

Edward Luce