JRL NEWSWATCH: “Russian trolls target U.S. support for Ukraine, Kremlin documents show” – Washington Post
“… [S]eek[ing] to influence congressional and other political debates to stoke anti-Ukraine sentiment, Kremlin-linked political strategists and trolls have written thousands of fabricated news articles, social media posts and comments that promote American isolationism, stir fear over the United States’ border security and attempt to amplify U.S. economic and racial tensions, according to a trove of internal Kremlin documents obtained by a European intelligence service …. One …, for instance, instructed a troll farm employee working for his firm to write a comment of ‘no more than 200 characters in the name of a [fictitious] resident of a suburb of a major [American] city’ … [who] ‘doesn’t support the military aid that the U.S. is giving Ukraine and considers that the money should be spent defending America’s borders and not Ukraine’s. He sees that Biden’s policies are leading the U.S. toward collapse.’ …. The files are part of a series of leaks … allow[ing] a rare glimpse into Moscow’s parallel efforts to weaken support for Ukraine in France and Germany, as well as destabilize Ukraine itself. Russia has been ramping up … propaganda operations as … a second front [reportedly] almost as important for Moscow as the military campaign in Ukraine — especially as congressional approval for further aid has become critical ….”