The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is spreading a statement about the alleged US preparations for holding elections in Ukraine with the aim of removing Volodymyr Zelenskyi, which is part of a large-scale information campaign against the Ukrainian government. This message, launched back in November 2023, has been reinforced since the spring of 2024 by fakes about the West's plans to remove Zelenskyi from power. This is reported by the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

Such disinformation messages are part of the operation Maidan-3, aimed at destabilizing the political situation in Ukraine, in particular by discrediting the initiatives of the President of Ukraine, such as the Peace Formula and the Victory Plan. In light of these manipulations, the Ukrainian authorities have also repeatedly explained the legal impossibility of holding elections during martial law, refuting speculations about a change of power through foreign influence. The goal of this approach is to create the illusion of an alleged loss of support for Ukraine from Western partners, focusing on false claims about the “unrealistic” nature of Ukrainian peace initiatives.

The purpose of spreading this fake is to try to undermine Ukrainians' trust in President Zelenskyi and discredit him in the eyes of the international community. It also aims to sow doubts among Ukrainians about the stability of their government and relations with international partners.

During the US elections, propagandists distributed a video on social networks that spoke of fraud at polling stations. The video shows a voter trying to vote for Republican Donald Trump, but the device records the choice in favor of Democrat Kamala Harris. However, this is manipulation.

This is reported by MythDetector. Its experts refer to Leadstories and Reuters, which claim that the incident occurred due to a technical error and was quickly fixed. The voter was able to vote for the desired candidate via video after replacing the device. This incident occurred in Laurel County, Kentucky, and received attention from local authorities, who said that the problem arose due to pressing on the intermediate area of the screen. In a statement, Tony Brown, Laurel County Clerk, noted that the voter was allowed to vote again. The election process assumes that each voter has the opportunity to receive a new ballot if he changes his choice after preliminary confirmation.

The authors of the material say that this is a manipulative attempt to discredit the electoral process in the United States.

In the run-up to the second round of the presidential elections in Moldova, local pro-Russian Telegram channels distributed a video by Oleksii Arestovych, in which he says that if Moldovan citizens do not vote for Maia Sandu, “the Ukrainian army will come to Moldova with war”. Local propaganda Telegram channels interpreted this video in such a way that Kyiv is allegedly threatening Moldovan citizens and, accordingly, interfering in the elections.

In fact, the words of Oleksii Arestovych do not reflect the official position of the Ukrainian government, because today he is not its representative . On January 17, 2023, he was dismissed from the post of adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine. This was preceded by a statement by MP Tetiana Tsyba with an appeal to the head of the OPU Andrii Yermak with a request to dismiss Arestovych after his statements that the tragedy of January 14, 2023 in Dnipro allegedly occurred due to the shooting down of a Russian missile by the air defense systems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In addition, at the same time, the MPs collectively appealed to the SBU, accusing Arestovych of treason.

After all, Ukraine respects international law and the territorial integrity of Moldova, and both countries have the status of candidates for membership in the European Union, so Arestovych’s statement about the Ukrainian army’s invasion of this neighboring country is also unfounded.

In the run-up to the US presidential election, Russian resources were spreading information that the Pennsylvania state government was forcing voters from the state's Ukrainian community to vote for Kamala Harris, not Donald Trump. If they did not, the Pennsylvania government would allegedly stop funding the Tryzub (Trident) church and other Ukrainian projects. In reporting this, the propagandists referred to a video allegedly from the American publication PennLive, in which the leader of the Ukrainian community allegedly made a corresponding statement.

In fact, this information is fake. This is written in the VoxCheck project. PennLive did not publish such a video on its official website, nor on its pages on Facebook, Ixi or Instagram.

It is worth noting that Pennsylvania does indeed have one of the largest Ukrainian diasporas — at least 112,000 people — as well as a network of Ukrainian churches. However, a search of open sources, in particular, in American media and Google Maps, showed that there is no church called Tryzub (Trident) in Pennsylvania.

With this fake, the Russians are trying to claim that Ukrainians in Pennsylvania were allegedly blackmailed and essentially left with no choice of who to vote for. At the same time, it is already known that Trump won in Pennsylvania, thus receiving 19 electoral votes.

We previously wrote about a fake video story that showed the US elections as the main target of a “Ukrainian disinformation campaign”.

Reacting to the results of the second round of the presidential elections in Moldova on November 3, 2024, which were won by Maia Sandu, pro-Russian media and politicians called her the “president of the diaspora”. They justify this formulation by the fact that without the votes of the Moldovan diaspora, the incumbent president would have lost the elections.

According to the Central Electoral Commission, within Moldova, the candidate of the pro-Russian Socialist Party, Alexandru Stoianoglo, who received 51.19% of the votes, actually beat Sandu (48.81%) by 32 thousand votes. However, taking into account the votes of the diaspora, it was Maia Sandu who won a convincing victory in the second round of the presidential elections with a lag of almost 11% (55.35% versus 44.65%).

Such reproaches towards Maia Sandu are part of Russian information influence and a kind of protest, since obviously the victory of a pro-European and pro-Western presidential candidate was not part of the Kremlin’s plans.

The day before, Russia interfered in the elections in Moldova, trying to influence their results. In particular, in Moldova, television showed an investigation by journalists from the Ziarul de Gardă portal about how the Shor pro-Russian party bribed citizens with money from Moscow. As for Russian information influence in Moldova, the Center for Counteracting Disinformation wrote that throughout the election campaign, Russia carried out information attacks on the Moldovan authorities and provocations.

The use of the term “president of the diaspora” by pro-Russian actors is to discredit the victory of Moldovan President Maia Sandu. To affirm that she is now an “illegitimate president”.

Read on Censor.NET: propaganda about elections in Moldova

John Mark Dugan, a former Palm Beach County deputy sheriff, became an active propagandist after fleeing to Moscow. He is financed by a Moscow institute created by the ideologist of the Russian world Oleksandr Dugin. This was discovered by specialists from the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

Currently, Dugan is focused on discrediting US Vice President Kamala Harris, creating fakes and disinformation to weaken the Democratic Party ahead of the US elections. His contact at the Center for Geopolitical Expertise, Valerii Korovin, has been personally noted by Putin, and investigations have shown that Moscow is using fake news and artificial intelligence to influence US voters, created with the active participation of Dugan.

Such disinformation is intended to undermine trust in American leaders, sow discord among citizens, and increase the chances of candidates loyal to Russian interests coming to power. It is part of a broader campaign to spread Russian influence and weaken U.S. democratic institutions.

Russian propaganda, including internet trolls and Kremlin-controlled media, have been spreading deepfakes on American social media aimed at discrediting US presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The materials were created using artificial intelligence.

This was reported by Bloomberg, citing a Microsoft study. DEV.ua journalists claim that the report states that Russian propaganda tactics included fake posts and fabricated images that allegedly came from verified sources, but the goal was to spread negative information about Harris. One of these fakes was audio in which she allegedly discussed her opponent Donald Trump.

However, the attempts to discredit him had limited success. Only one video, published by an RT correspondent on the X platform in late September, became very popular.

Microsoft warns that artificial intelligence will be just one part of a larger digital manipulation effort aimed at influencing elections.

On October 9-10, 2024, a conference dedicated to combating disinformation, the EU DisinfoLab annual conference, was held in Riga, the capital of Latvia. In response to this event, a Polish pro-Russian Telegram channel spread information that the conference reported that Ukrainian disinformation had become a problem before the US elections. Kyiv's main goal is allegedly to strengthen Kamala Harris' position as the main supporter of continuing the war and supplying weapons to Ukraine. And over the past 4 months, the amount of disinformation from “Ukrainian agents of influence” has allegedly increased by 55-60%. In reporting this, the propagandists refer to a video allegedly released by the American magazine WIRED.

In fact, this information is not true - the video is fabricated. It is not found on the official WIRED website or on the magazine's social media pages. It is likely that the propagandists simply put the WIRED logo on the video and faked the story itself.

In addition, the video mentions a report called Disinfo 2024: Ukrainian November, but no such report has been published online. Most likely, information about its existence was invented.

Finally, the website and social media of the EU DisinfoLab organization, which held the conference, also contain no information about a “Ukrainian disinformation campaign” ahead of the US presidential elections.

With this disinformation, propagandists are trying to deflect accusations against Russia regarding interference in the US elections. Earlier, we wrote about a BBC study that showed that the Kremlin is trying to interfere in the US elections with the help of AI and fake websites.

Propagandists are spreading a conspiracy theory that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris allegedly wore earphone earrings during the September 10 debates, according to the rules of their conduct. They say that is why the other candidate, Donald Trump, looked losing against her background. However, this theory is unfounded. It was refuted by journalists from The Washington Post.

Rumors that Kamala Harris' earrings are hidden headphones may have arisen from misinterpretations of photographs or videos. Conspiracy theorists note that Harris' earrings allegedly resemble headphones available for sale. However, upon closer inspection, journalists found that the earrings are not headphones and were found for sale.

The spread of this conspiracy theory has occurred primarily through social media and “alternative” media, which specialize in spreading unverified information. Conspiracy theories are often used to discredit political opponents or create distrust in the political process. This theory against Kamala Harris is actively used by the Russians and is part of their larger strategy to undermine her credibility and credibility as a politician, especially given that the candidate expressed support for Ukraine during this debate. Such conspiracy theories fuel polarization in American society and distract attention from important issues.