• Case of Dutch lawyer ties Rick Gates to Russian intelligence

    The government’s sentencing memorandum filed in the case of Dutch attorney Alex van der Zwaan, who pleaded guilty in February of lying to the FBI, shows Trump deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates knowingly communicated with someone tied to the Russian intelligence service (GRU) in the fall of 2016.

  • Taking up the fight against fake news

    In February, the Justice Department charged thirteen Russians with stealing U.S. citizens’ identities and spreading “fake news” with intent to subvert the last U.S. presidential election. The case is still unfolding, and may do so for years. In the meantime, researchers have built a tech-based solution to the dissemination of malicious misinformation. The algorithms they developed reveal patterns to help identify misinformation

  • “Information statecraft”: Conflicts reshaped by authoritarian attack on discursive space

    As artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into digital advertising, disinformation operations and legitimate political communications will gradually become concerted, automatic, and seamless. An expert argues that for students of disinformation — including the Russians who to date have not even had to leverage such sophisticated web technology to mislead American voters — the new information ecosystem presents a vast land of opportunity.

  • U.S., EU states expel dozens of Russian diplomats over nerve agent poisoning

    President Donald Trump has ordered the expulsion of sixty Russian “intelligence officers” in response to the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in England, while fourteen European Union members and Ukraine also announced expulsions. The nearly simultaneous announcements on 26 March signaled a united front in the face of the use by Russian intelligence operatives, on the orders of Vladimir Putin, of military-grade nerve toxin against Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia Skripal, in the English city of Salisbury.

  • U.S. not ready to fend off Russian meddling in the 2018 midterms: GOP, Dem. lawmakers

    Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence (DNI), told lawmakers two weeks ago that “the Unsaid States is under attack” by Russia. On Wednesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee held hearings about how the United States was addressing one of the components the three-pronged Russian attack: Russia’s ambitious effort to undermine and discredit American democracy by attacking the U.S. election infrastructure. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and former DHS secretary Jeh Johnson were confronted by pointed questions from both Republicans and Democrats, questions which revealed a bipartisan consensus that the United States is not prepared to fend off Russian meddling in the 2018 midterms.

  • Senate Intel Committee: Initial election security recommendations for 2018 election cycle

    The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will hold an open hearing today, Wednesday, 21 March 2018, on the threats to election infrastructure. The hearing will cover Russian attempted attacks on state election infrastructure in 2016, DHS and FBI efforts to improve election security, and the view from the states on their cybersecurity posture. The committee yesterday made available its initial recommendations on election security after investigating Russian attempts to target election infrastructure during the 2016 U.S. elections.

  • Nerve agent was placed in former spy’s BMW ventilation system: U.S. intel

    The former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, may have been exposed to a deadly nerve agent through his car’s ventilation system, ABC News reports. The two remain in critical condition in hospital after being exposed to the nerve agent novichok in Salisbury, in the U.K., two weeks ago. ABC News reported that intelligence officials had said the “dusty” substance used was likely placed in the ventilation system of the BMW Skripal was driving.

  • Lawmakers question lack of effort by State, Defense in countering Russian disinformation

    A bipartisan group of six members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee have urged the State Department and the Department of Defense to explain why tens of millions in federal funds designated to counter disinformation and propaganda from foreign governments like Russia have not been spent. The Senators’ letter comes in response to a report that the State Department has not spent any of the $120 million Congress allocated to the Department to combat foreign meddling in U.S. elections.

  • Russia planted sabotage-enabling malware in U.S. energy grid, other critical infrastructure

    Russia has not only attacked the infrastructure of American democracy: The U.S. government now says that Russia has engaged in a pervasive, wide-ranging cyber-assault on U.S. energy grid and other key components of the U.S. critical infrastructure. These sustained attacks on U.S. critical infrastructure – along with the Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Russian-launched NoPetya malware — were the reasons the administration on Thursday imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia.

  • U.K.'s Johnson says Putin probably behind ex-spy attack; Kremlin lashes out

    British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said it is “overwhelmingly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin made the decision to use a highly toxic chemical against a former double agent in England. “We have nothing against the Russians themselves. There is to be no Russophobia as a result of what is happening,” Johnson said on 16 March6, nearly two weeks after former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were exposed to what British authorities say was a potent nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union. “Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin, and with his decision — and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision — to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K., on the streets of Europe for the first time since the Second World War,” Johnson said.

  • New U.S. sanctions on Russia for election interference, infrastructure cyberattacks, NoPetya

    The U.S. Treasury has issued its strongest sanctions yet against Russia in response to what it called “ongoing nefarious attacks.” The move targets five entities and nineteen individuals. Among the institutions targeted in the new sanctions for election meddling were Russia’s top intelligence services, Federal Security Service (FSB) and Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), the two organizations whose hackers, disinformation specialists, and outside contractors such as the Internet Research Agency (IRA) troll farm were behind — and are still engaged in — a broad and sustained campaign to undermine U.S. democracy.

  • Skripal case: Johnson says U.K. may target “corrupt” Putin allies

    British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson has said that the country’s law enforcement agencies were investigating rich Russian individuals with assets in Britain, and suggested that those who owe their wealth to their ties with President Vladimir Putin could be brought to justice. Allies have expressed support for Britain’s assessment that Russia was behind the attack, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying that he would announce unspecified “measures” in the coming days. And NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the “unacceptable” attack was part of “a reckless pattern of Russian behavior over many years.”

  • French expert says novichok toxin is “clearly a direct link to Russia”

    Novichok, the toxic nerve agent that British authorities believe was used in the near-fatal poisoning of former spy and retired Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, is a powerful substance that is exceedingly difficult to manufacture. This is why a growing number of chemical weapons experts say it is highly likely that only a government could have the technology and infrastructure to make it. And given that the Soviet Union, in the 1980s, was the only state known to have produced it, that has led many experts to conclude that Russian intelligence was behind Skripal’s poisoning.

  • Police investigating death of Russian businessman in London

    A lawyer says a Russian businessman who associated with a prominent critic of the Kremlin has died in London. Nikolai Glushkov, 68, was found dead at his home in southwest London. Glushkov was friends with Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch who died at his home in Berkshire, England, in 2013. In 2011, Glushkov gave evidence at the court case brought by Berezovsky against Kremlin-friendly oligarch Roman Abramovich. Besides Berezovsky and Glushkov, two other prominent Russian exiles — Aleksandr Litvinenko and Aleksandr Perepilichny — died in Britain in recent years.

  • Deadly nerve agent novichok is a decades-old Cold War foe

    Novichok, the powerful nerve agent that British Prime Minister Theresa May says was used in the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, means “newcomer” in Russian. But the military grade chemical is anything but. Developed in the former Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s, novichoks are a group of advanced nerve agents designed to circumvent chemical weapons treaties and penetrate protective gear used by NATO forces.