WASHINGTON (NEWSnet/AP) — The Kremlin is counting on unwitting Americans along with public relations firms in Russia to share disinformation about the U.S. presidential race, top intelligence officials said Monday.

The report details updated efforts by America’s adversaries to influence public opinion ahead of the 2024 election, while disguising who is behind the messages.

While adversaries have revised some of the details of propaganda content in recent weeks, intelligence officials said adversaries have continued to show determination to plant false and incendiary claims about American democracy.

The intended impact: build mistrust in the election process.

“The American public should know that content that they read online — especially on social media — could be foreign propaganda, even if it appears to be coming from fellow Americans or originating in the United States,” said an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Russia continues as the greatest threat when it comes to election disinformation, authorities said. But there are indications that Iran is expanding its efforts. while China is proceeding cautiously.

During the briefing, the officials said groups linked to the Kremlin are increasingly hiring marketing and communications firms located within Russia to outsource some of the work of creating digital propaganda while also covering their tracks.

Two such firms were the subject of new U.S. sanctions announced in March. Authorities say the two Russian companies created fake websites and social media profiles to spread Kremlin disinformation.

The messages might focus on candidates, or on issues that are already the subject of debates in the U.S., such as immigration, crime or the war in Gaza.

The overall goal, however, is to get Americans to spread Russian disinformation without questioning its origin.

People are far more likely to trust and repost information that they believe is coming from a domestic source, officials explained. Fake websites designed to mimic U.S. news outlets and AI-generated social media profiles are just two methods.

“Foreign influence actors are getting better at hiding their hand, and getting Americans to do it,” said the official, who spoke alongside officials from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

Sen. Mark Warner, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last month that he worries the U.S. may be more vulnerable to foreign disinformation this year than it was before the 2020 election. On Monday he said the warning from intelligence officials shows the U.S. election is “in the bullseye of bad actors across the globe.”

“It also, disturbingly, emphasizes the extent to which foreign actors — and particularly Russia — rely on both unwitting and witting Americans to promote foreign-aligned narratives in the United States,” Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said in a statement.

In one measure of the threat, officials tracking foreign disinformation say they have issued twice the number of warnings to political candidates, government leaders, election offices and others targeted by foreign groups so far in the 2024 election cycle as they did in the 2022 cycle.

Officials won’t disclose how many warnings were issued, or who received them, but the warnings are issued so the targets can take steps to protect themselves and set the record straight if necessary.

Russia and other countries are also quickly resetting their content to recent developments such as the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump - as well as President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race while endorsing his Vice President, Kamala Harris.

After the assassination attempt, for example, Russian disinformation agencies quickly amplified claims that Democratic rhetoric led to the shooting, along with baseless conspiracy theories suggesting that Biden or the Ukrainian government orchestrated the attempt.

“These pro-Russian voices sought to tie the assassination attempt with Russia’s continuing war against Ukraine,” concluded the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, which tracks Russian disinformation.

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