The Sloppy Russian Schemers Impersonating Top U.S. Officials

As Russia’s opposition leaders in exile grapple with the death of Alexei Navalny, disinformation operators are already working to stir the pot.

In the days after Navalny died, a Russian disinformation site that peddles pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine narratives posted a story alleging audio had “leaked” of two U.S. officials discussing which opposition leader would take his place.

Over the course of the conversation, the two people—purportedly Under Secretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Jim O’Brien—decide to support Leonid Volkov, a close ally of Navalny’s who works as the Anti-Corruption Foundation’s Political Director.

The story was posted on Russian disinformation site clearstory.news, and presented as proof that the United States was secretly hashing out a coup plot or plans to interfere in Russian politics. A second site, Miami Chron—which appears to have been designed to look like a legitimate Florida news outlet,—posted the same story, which was cited and recirculated by Russian news outlet Pravda.

The articles do not share the purported origin of the audio. Both the story and the tape are, of course, fake.

The “leaked” audio posted on YouTube is a thinly veiled hoax. The two people speaking English in the recording have clear Russian accents. The stories use images of people that appear to be AI-generated.

A State Department official confirmed to The Daily Beast that the audio is a hoax.

“In case the thick Russian accents pretending to be U.S. officials were not clear, yes, we can confirm this audio is fake,” a State Department official told The Daily Beast.

The post was ranked very high on Google search results, despite its blatantly fake content. Early this week, a Google search for “Leonid Volkov and Assistant Secretary O’Brien”—who were in reality meeting with each other at the State Department on Tuesday— listed the fake story as the second and third results.

Google indicated it has work to do on preventing stories like this from ranking so high in search. YouTube, which is owned by Google, said that it was terminating the channel responsible for posting the fake “leaked” audio after being contacted by The Daily Beast. “We terminated a channel shared by The Daily Beast for violating YouTube’s Misinformation policies)" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/10834785__;!!LsXw!SI8Fg2AtjtFM40uxbb6NSQfyS6Qgkavy6EVH8CYxdtB5BDRuXDaDDjIcQWv5Bl77did2KuFQU_j27Q928T2QfZ1rrFveyg8$"> Misinformation policies,” a YouTube spokesperson said.

Google said it is working on its spam-fighting approach, particularly in situations where there isn’t a plethora of high quality information, or when there is not much coverage related to certain search terms.

“We’re continuing to bolster our spam-fighting systems, and invest in solutions to challenges like data voids, when there’s not a lot of high quality information to rank for uncommon searches,” a Google spokesperson told The Daily Beast.

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But the fake audio is not an isolated incident. The operation appears to be part of a sweeping Russian disinformation operation, relying on websites that look like news outlets to peddle fake information and pro-Russia stances.

Duped

Although the audio seems like a poorly executed attempt at an information operation, Russia has found much success with the broader campaign, according to Darren Linvill, a renowned researcher into Russian disinformation and co-director of the Watt Family Innovation Center Media Forensics Hub at Clemson University.

“It may seem laughable, but a lot of what this campaign has done has been really effective,” Linvill told The Daily Beast.

The sweeping campaign has resulted in at least five different fake sites so far and until now seemed broadly aimed at undermining Western support for Ukraine. The key to these Russian campaigns is not that they are particularly surreptitious, they are simply aimed at planting seeds of ideas that can tap into existing points of controversy. “It doesn't even have to be good to be effective,” Linvill said. “If you’re not thinking about it, if you’re not looking for it, you’re just going to accept it. And it doesn’t have to be quality, especially if you’re getting a message that you already want to believe.”

The allegedly “leaked” audio about the Russian opposition had 2,000 views as of last Wednesday. But that metric doesn’t give an accurate understanding of just how much damage one post can do, Linvill said.

“To really get the full impact of some of these campaigns, you can’t even look at how many people are retweeting this website or that website or this particular story. It’s not about the story. It’s about putting these ideas into the conversation,” Linvill said.

Republican lawmakers have fallen for the Russian campaign before. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) parroted a fake anti-Zelensky narrative peddled on YouTube and on a Russian disinformation site called DC Weekly, as the BBC reported. The story alleged that Zelensky had used American aid money to buy two yachts. The allegation was false, and the yachts hadn’t even been sold.

“That switch was thrown by the Russians,” Linvill said.

The fake audio about the Russian opposition movement appears to be the first prong of the campaign that isn’t explicitly about weakening Western support for Ukraine. But it can provide clues about the broader remit of Russian disinformation operators now. The strategic goal is likely about elevating Putin and solidifying his grip on power, in part by making it look like the opposition is controlled by the U.S. The operation is emblematic of a broader shift in the Russian playbook. In many cases, the websites’ content is created using generative artificial intelligence, cribbing from legitimate news outlets and slightly updating them, according to Linvill.

Linvill warned that as the U.S. presidential election approaches, Russia is only likely to increase its influence operations.

While in recent years, Russian influence operations have relied on troll accounts, they’re now “creating entire fake websites and systems,” he said. “And they’re relying on a lot more real people to circulate the messages.”