Russian Operatives Flood Midterm Campaign With Fake Videos and Forged News Sites, Researchers Say

Russian operatives are pumping out fabricated claims about Democratic candidates, AI-manipulated videos of celebrities and fake posts impersonating real news outlets in a bid to influence American voters in the final days before the midterm elections, according to researchers and lawmakers briefed by the intelligence community.

The groups, backed by the Kremlin, are reviving tactics used in earlier U.S. elections and elsewhere. "It's a carnival out there," Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, told reporters this week. "They're throwing everything out there to generate a sense of chaos and anarchy." The aim, researchers say, is to deepen divisions, erode trust in democracy and, above all, weaken U.S. support for Ukraine.

"At the end of the day, the main issue for Russia is and has to be Ukraine," said Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub. He described a consistent playbook. A false claim is planted on social media or a fake website posing as a news outlet or think tank, then spread by state media, automated accounts and, increasingly, paid influencers who know their audiences. "It is hard to persuade anybody of anything, ever," Linvill said. "But what you can do is reinforce beliefs."

This week the playbook was used against a Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. Linvill and other research groups attributed the operation to a Russian network known as Storm-1516, which is known for staging fake videos with actors and laundering the claims through large influencer accounts. Two fraudulent videos were posted Tuesday on X by an account created last month with few followers. Graphika, a research firm, said the videos were likely made with artificial intelligence. A network of 15 accounts that Linvill flagged as bots shared the post immediately, and about 12 hours later three large accounts that have amplified Storm-1516 narratives before reposted one of the videos. One video drew roughly 857,000 views within 24 hours, according to the threat-intelligence firm Alethea. By late Wednesday, X had suspended the original account and one amplifier, and two others had deleted their posts.

Storm-1516 ran a similar effort before the 2024 presidential election, posting fake videos that made baseless accusations against Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz and purported to show ballots for President Trump being destroyed. This cycle, Russian operations have also pushed messages claiming Democrats are abandoning Israel and fabricated reports accusing Democratic candidates of corruption. "I increasingly have come to think of Russia as essentially a dark money PAC," said Lisa Kaplan, who founded Alethea.

Himes and Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, told reporters Wednesday that a recent classified intelligence report shows Russia opposes candidates of either party who have backed Ukraine. Himes stressed that nothing suggests foreign actors can interfere with the actual mechanics of voting. "Nothing out there suggests that there is either the capability or the intent to do interference," he said, "whereas there is a pretty robust influence environment."

The same networks have worked elections this year in France, Germany and elsewhere, using AI-generated audio and impersonations of politicians, celebrities and media outlets, Graphika said in a report released Friday. "They have run this playbook in half a dozen other countries in the past six months throughout Europe," Linvill said. "We're just the next in line."

With nearly 21 million ballots already cast, the question for voters is less whether such material is circulating than whether they can recognize it before sharing it.