The Russia watchRussian bots push fake pro-gun tweets; Trump: MIA on Russian hacking; Trojan Horse of Russian gas, and more

Pro-gun Russian bots flood Twitter after Parkland shooting (Erin Griffith, Wired)
Each new breaking news situation is an opportunity for trolls to grab attention, provoke emotions, and spread propaganda. The Russian government knows this. In the wake of Wednesday’s Parkland, Florida school shooting, which resulted in 17 deaths, troll and bot-tracking sites reported an immediate uptick in related tweets from political propaganda bots and Russia-linked Twitter accounts.

On election integrity, Russian hacking, Trump remains MIA (Baltimore Sun)
One by one, top U.S. intelligence officials testified to a Senate committee about their concerns that Russia was once again going to interfere with a U.S. election, spreading disinformation, sowing dissent and perhaps this time even penetrating electronic voting devices. There was no ambivalence. They didn’t hedge. They’ve already seen efforts to interfere with European elections with disinformation campaigns on social media. And there’s something else they all had in common: As of the Tuesday hearing, not one has been told by President Donald Trump to make protecting the mid-term election from foreign hacking a priority. On this issue, nobody is home over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Nothing. Nada. Crickets.

Why Trump will never accept what his spy chiefs keep saying (Maya Kosoff, Vanity Fair)
Despite unanimous warnings from intelligence leaders, the president remains unconvinced of Russian election meddling.

How Trump can hit the reset button on Russia sanctions (Daniel Fried and Brian O’Toole, Politico)
Congress gave the Trump administration a powerful tool to combat Russian aggression when it passed last summer the “Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act,” or CAATSA. Section 241 of the bill called for the administration to deliver a report by Jan. 29 on, essentially, Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s power structure in and out of the Russian government. The prospect of a serious “Kremlin Report,” as it became known, naming those close to Putin and making them liable for future sanctions, alarmed the Moscow elite. Their alarm is America’s potential leverage, if the administration can reclaim it. Sadly, the administration blew the public rollout of Section 241 by sending to Congress and the press what appeared to be a cut-and-paste list derived from the Kremlin org chart and the Russia Forbes list of rich Russians, even replicating mistakes on the Forbes list. That sloppiness caused blowback in Washington, initial smirking in Moscow and Russian markets that had been down ahead of the report rebounded with a sigh of relief.

Corbyn’s meeting with a Communist spy: Labour leader met a Soviet agent from Czech security services during the Cold War and tipped him off about MI5 clampdown (Jacob Furedi, Daily Mail)
Jeremy Corbyn warned a Soviet-backed spy about British intelligence activity at the climax of the Cold War, according to secret documents. The Labour leader met the Czech agent at least three times after being vetted by communist handlers in 1986, papers reveal.

U.S. Democrats push $1 billion bill for election security (Reuters)
Congressional Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday that would provide more than $1 billion to boost cyber security of U.S. voting systems, and Vice President Mike Pence defended the administration’s efforts to protect polls from hackers. The measure followed warnings on Tuesday from U.S. intelligence officials that midterm races in November are likely to see renewed meddling from Russia and possibly other foreign adversaries.

The Trojan Horse of Russian gas (David Koranyi, Foreign Policy)
Energy resources aren’t just a commodity – they’re a vehicle for Russia’s political ambitions.

U.S. will impose costs on Russia for cyber ‘acts of aggression,’ White House cybersecurity czar says (Natasha Turak, Hadley Gamble, CNBC)
Russia will be made to pay for its acts of cyber aggression on the international stage, Rob Joyce, special assistant to the president and White House cybersecurity coordinator, told CNBC on Friday. The act in question was the malware attack known as NotPetya that wiped out billions of dollars as it spread across 64 countries in July 2017. The White House, for the first time Thursday, directly blamed Russia’s military for the attack.