Russian Disinformation: Nothing New

By Leo Gardner

20 March, 2025

For many, 2016 marked the year in which disinformation, and in particular Russian disinformation, hit world headlines. It was widely alleged to have had an impact on both the US presidential election that year, and the UK’s vote on EU membership, two votes of immense consequence, taking place in supposed strongholds of electoral freedom. It seemed that the advent of social media had, by enabling malign actors to spread deliberately false information to an unprecedented number of people, began an entirely new era of intelligence warfare. But this was not the case. Social media may have brought it to the fore, but this form of disinformation is nothing new.

Before discussing the history of disinformation, it is necessary to first establish its current form. Russian disinformation is endemic on social media, and the problem it continues to pose to the security of western democracies has been rightly recognised by the European Parliament, who in February reiterated the need to mitigate its impact. Current Russian disinformation can generally be recognised as having two forms. In appearance they are similar but are ultimately by their aims. For the purposes of this article they shall be given two distinct, but unofficial names – the first as ‘open’ disinformation and the second ‘targeted’. Open disinformation, ongoing and ever-present online, targets the mass population on a range of popular and divisive topics. Its aim is simply to splinter and divide societies, and in turn cause headaches for the national governments who have to deal with the fallout. This disinformation takes an open, bottom-up approach, targeting neither a particular person nor party, but instead spreading general division and undermining trust in institutions. ‘Targeted’ disinformation, however, is distributed at a particular time, with the particular aim of steering the geopolitical direction of a state. This disinformation is deployed around major events, such as referenda and elections, to try to influence the outcome, as well as at individual heads of state to try to force a governmental change. This form of disinformation is targeted and top-down. These two distinct forms operate in tandem: open disinformation weakens public trust in democratic institutions, so that the targeted disinformation can deal the knock out blow.

Online disinformation, both open and targeted, utilises a range of tactics. From the widespread production of posts proliferating aggravating opinions, disseminating links to fake news outlets, spreading hashtags connected to divisive issues, and using AI-generated content to dilute and pollute truthful online content, disinformation on social media aims to exacerbate and exaggerate preexisting tensions.

Open disinformation, given its aim of engaging with a wide range of topics, is particularly prevalent online. Russian actors have used it to consistently undermine Western democracies, applying pressure to what Professor Martin Innes described to the UK House of Commons foreign affairs committee as ‘pain points’. These are divisive issues on which certain sentiments and groups can be whipped up, leading to a confrontational, divided, and destabilised society. Such issues include immigration, climate change, and LGBTQ+ rights. On all sides of almost every issue debated online, you will find traces of Russian disinformation. When the aim is simply to cause confrontation, the Russians appear not to take any side in particular and simply use disinformation to aggravate as many people as possible. An example can be found in 2018 when it appears Russian disinformation orchestrated two opposing protests in the US. Other instances of disinformation being used to cause general chaos, rather than a specific change in government, are the false information spread around last year’s Paris Olympics, as well as conspiracies around the Princess of Wales’ health.

At the centre of the Russian disinformation campaigns are so-called ‘Troll Farms’, distributed throughout Russia, but ultimately directed by the Kremlin. These factories are meticulously run with research carried out and strategies put in place in order to ensure that disinformation is having the desired effect. These organisations are run so effectively in part because they have existed, in some form or another, for a century: the troll farms’ lineage stretches back to ‘Department A’, set up by the KGB in Moscow in 1923, and aimed at spreading disinformation, or дезинформация, in order to undermine the West. These tactics would become known as ‘active measures’ and were a key asset of all Soviet operations from then onward. It is through assessing the history of Russian disinformation, as shall now be done, that one can fully appreciate the deep foundations — and thus resilience — of its current operations.

The Soviet disinformation campaigns started slowly, but, under the pressure of the Cold War and Yuri Andropov’s accession to the top of the KGB, they accelerated. The aim of dividing societies and provoking distrust in institutions across the globe was at the forefront of their operations. Forged letters would be produced, and then strategically placed so they could work their way into news outlets and be reported as truth. These forged letters included falsified information on a plethora of topics seeking to undermine the US in any way possible. Stories ranged from the US government looking to overthrow the Ghanian government to the CIA playing a role in the assassination of John F. Kennedy. One of the most famous examples of Russian disinformation was a campaign known in Russian intelligence circles as ‘Operation Infektion’ which pinned AIDS as an American government creation. It was once again concerning seeing similar stories regarding COVID-19 being spread during 2020. The disinformation regarding AIDS spread like wildfire across the globe, starting first in a pro-Soviet newspaper in India and then making its way into other left-leaning papers across the world including in Bolivia, Grenada, New Zealand, Malta and Nigeria. Its impact cannot be understated – causing harm to global efforts to fight the virus, mirroring similar distrust of the Covid vaccine when it was eventually rolled out. These false letters offer us modern observers an interesting parallel into how, while social media may allow the dissemination of ‘fake news’ to occur at an unprecedented pace, it is not itself unprecedented.

Russian targeted disinformation, with its ability to actively reshape the geopolitical landscape, is arguably even more potent. Its presence was highlighted in the run up to the recent German elections, and caused even greater alarm when Romanian authorities were forced to annul the first round of elections as a result of its influence. It was claimed that hundreds of accounts had been set up on TikTok directly encouraging those eligible to vote for the pro-Russian candidate. A look into the past will, once again, reveal that this is not a new phenomenon. A significant historical precedent is the disinformation spread during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign for the presidency. The Russians forged documents claiming that the soon to be president had once been an FBI informant in the 1950s. This was ultimately to be uncovered and disproved. Attempts with even more vigour were later made when he ran again for his second term. The Soviets, determined not to let Reagan win, set up a series of stations within the US from which disinformation and anti-Reagan propaganda was disseminated, with slogans like ‘Reagan Means War’ publicised across the US.

As Russians saw it, however, this was all fair play, as they are far from alone in the deployment of such tactics. Both the US and UK utilised disinformation extensively throughout the 20th century — declassified documents from the CIA and MI6 have revealed purposeful ‘targeted’ disinformation campaigns in a range of countries, such as Thailand, Chile and Guatemala. The most prominent of these was the 1953 joint campaign in Iran where, despite not targeting an election per se, the US and UK spread disinformation regarding the leader Mohammed Mossadegh in an attempt to force a regime change. The two powers were concerned about the direction in which the newly elected Mossadegh was taking the country. Britain, in particular, was concerned with his bid to nationalise Iran’s oil industry, a highly valuable asset which was under the jurisdiction of Britain at the time. The British and Americans placed false stories about Mossadegh in Iranian newspapers, as well as spreading anti-Mossadegh cartoons and leaflets in the street. This campaign, along with others, indicates that the UK and US were acutely aware of the effect disinformation could have, as well as that they understood how the purposeful manipulation of narratives can destabilise and shape a country.

In light of this knowledge, the inaction of Western policymakers on Russian disinformation in their own democracies is startling. Russian disinformation and its tactics are nothing new, but have been steadily developing since the start of the 20th century. The synchronisation of open and targeted disinformation has been and continues to be an incredibly effective method by which Russia exerts control over its adversaries. The infrastructure to support these operations has rapidly expanded and social media has enabled it to operate at an even faster rate. If the West wish to keep up, it is vital that they first successfully learn from history and now develop their own active measures to confront it.

Image: The headquarters of the FSB, formally the KGB (Source: A.Savin, Wikipedia via CC BY-SA 3.0)