 Thanks for joining us for a discussion on a US IP Commissioned Report on Russian information operations in Latin America and influence campaigns And we're excited to have you here today's discussion. We'll cover the aims of these influence campaigns Whether or not they are effective and what the United States and its allies can do to be more resilient against these efforts I am Kirk Randolph your moderator today from the Latin America team here at US IP And I am joined by our three distinguished panelists Douglas Farrah is the president of IBI consultants and a senior visiting fellow at the National Defense University's Center for Strategic Research Previously he was a foreign Correspondent an investigative reporter for the Washington Post and other publications covering the region after leaving the post He worked with the consortium for the study of intelligence studying armed groups and intelligence reform And he is also one of the co-authors of the report. We will be discussing today Dr. Roman D Ortiz the other co-author of the report is an expert in the field of irregular warfare Having worked on these matters in Colombia Central America Paraguay and other Latin American countries He's also a senior consultant with IBI consultants and finally Olga Belogolova is the director of the emerging technologies initiative As well as a professor at the Alparovic Institute for cybersecurity studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Previously she led policy for countering influence operations at Facebook now meta So, thank you all for joining us today. I'm going to start by turning the floor over to our panelists Douglas is going to talk to you about the report and then turn it over to Roman and finally we'll hear from Olga on her Experiences and what this looks like in the region And once we've wrapped up our discussion will open the floor for questions both from the audience here in person as well as online So over to you Douglas. Thank you, and thank you to USIP for hosting this event and for the support in this project to Dr. Heather Ashby for her wonderful collaboration and support in this and we had a really great team working on this project So thanks to everyone who who participated with us in this I think I just want to outline a few of our major findings because I think it's the first Look of this nature at Russian influence operations in Latin America And I think we found what to me having spent my life in Latin America and looking at Latin America were some rather surprising different types of findings and I expected to find going in and I want to just lay out a little bit about what we think is going on there and the background why Russia is doing what it's doing and As Kirk said maybe try to look a little bit about what the US can do Going forward if they're interested in count countering these narratives going forward I think the first thing we found was that there is a broad persistent and effective and cost effective campaign on the part of Russia To carry out information activities in Latin America that they view as part of their hybrid warfare doctrine It's not happenstance. It's not a They're not unrelated to other things that the rush is doing both in Latin America and around the world and as part of what they Came what their doctrine is since the The night the late 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union I think that one of the things that we found most interesting is that We tend to think and I tended to think of Russia's activities being focused on the radical populace left of Latin America The Hugo Chavez Maduro Daniela Ortega sort of that group of people that have had historic relations with the Soviet Union in case of Nicaragua or more recent very close relations with Putin based on leadership and ideology But I think one of the things we found most interesting was that there is in fact a very effective campaign also reaching out to the radical populace Right that has been also very effective in Shaping the environment and making support for Russia Something that stretches across the political landscape in ways that we were not particularly at least I was not particularly aware of if you look at the doctrine put forth by Primakov when he was Prime Minister with in the late 1990s that doctrines continues to be Part of Putin's dynamic today a driving force of it and he laid out what he viewed as Russia's The horrible consequences of Russia having lost its status as a world power the need for Russia to recoup that power and the need for a Multi-polar world in which us what they call us hegemony is not primary and where you have a Role of many other countries creating a different world order than the world order We live and now which they view is dominated by the United States and European Union and And what we call them? What I conceive of as the rule of law sort of coalition and they want to do something radically different Which is much more supportive of totalitarianism They want in this new world order. They view as their Russia to views as its primary responsibility is right to Dominate and control what they call their near abroad, which is what was this former Soviet Union? That's a matter an article of faith that they have the right and the duty to protect that Space around them and while they do not recognize that the United States has any near abroad Authority over Latin America Because they don't believe the United States has the right to dominate like they have the right to dominate the former Soviet Union They do believe that the corollary to their near abroad is that Latin America and if we are their view is that if and they write about this a lot if we and NATO are in their backyard in their Area of their near abroad Russia has to be in Latin America to occupy a space There's a primary concern to to the United States and so you have that doctrine developed and you're the famous charisma of Which there's a lot of debate I think it's not a doctrine but the implementation of the Primikhov doctrine Listing how all of these different types of warfare are valid in the permanent war between Russia and the West and they talk a Lot about that how there will never be peace between Russia and the and the West But there are multiple different types of warfare including very specifically articulated Looks at information warfare and the head of rt the Russian state television an Empire around the world says something really interesting in where we're doing our research and that is that Information control of information having TV or media channels to put out their message is as important as having a defense ministry And that this is part of what Russia views as their offensive operations In the in the in the West and particularly in Latin America As you know Russia the former Soviet Union through Russia has long history in Latin America as does the United States in a much more Robust manner, but basically what begins this new dynamic of Russia coming into the region is the election of Hugo Chavez in in Venezuela in 1998 basically starting in 2005 when he moves into Helping other Bolivarian leaders get elected the creation of telessur, which is the Bolivarian TV station or network media network around Latin America The birth of ispan TV, which is Iran's 24-hour Latin America's Spanish language news station and the launching in 2014 of the Spanish language RT Actualidad Are they in Spanish and Sputnik Espanyol, which is the Spanish? Sputnik station obviously and so they they began to merge these three Empire media conglomerates into a Unified messaging because the one thing that they that the three agree on is that the United States is their primary enemy so what you see in the in the Cross-pollination of the messaging going out is that the United States is Extractive and imperialistic in its in its strategies and then you see in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea and then again with the 22 invasion of Ukraine these huge spikes in Messaging around that both in social media and in the content of their more formal Distribution networks, so they develop they believe that Authoritarian access is as Putin is obviously authoritarian himself They have no qualms about dealing with authoritarian groups around the region if the messaging is Consistent with what they believe is important and I think what we found and looking at this was that in Latin America They've had a lot of success with which Roman will talk about but it's not Directly aimed necessarily all the time at getting out a pro-russia message It's more of getting out an anti-us message. That is the primary sort of structure of what they're trying to do and in this sort of messaging to As a take a little bit of this button it can all we identified a group of there's much larger group than we put in the study of Individuals who work across multiple platforms in other words the same report will go on as it actually that it a Then go on tell the sur and then go on ispan TV And they will all be identical by the same person and then they'll quote each other one will say as a table say Oh, we'll tell a suit is reporting this It's the same reporter who just put down his microphone and picked up something else and then ispan TV will say it and then eventually AP or Reuters or France press will pick it up because now you have two or three mediums reporting the exact same information So it's a very effective system. I think that what as we talked about as I talked about initially on the right You have the key figure of Alexander Dugan Who has a much larger footprint and impact in Latin America than we believed going into it Alexander Dugan is the sort of ideologue Ideologically very close to Putin not personally necessarily that close his daughter was killed in the early days of the Ukrainian Invasion probably because they thought he was riding in that car and not her although She was very much on board with him So he is a key for he speaks relatively good Spanish He can do long interviews in Spanish you can do long interviews in in Portuguese and he's built this idea that this there is a multi-polar secular evil world being pushed by the West LGBTQ rights Multilateralism anything to do with the United Nations all of this Multicultural things are wrong and it's put him in very close alliance with the most conservative elements of the Russian Orthodox Church Which also and it's extremely anti-abortion and other social messaging which has put him in very close alliance with a lot of very conservative evangelical groups and others across the hemisphere as well So you have this coalition being built on the essentially the person who had the most contact with him was Jair Bolsonaro in or his they would contact with his ideology and his relatives visiting with Putin or with with Dugan is Bolsonaro in Brazil, but he if you look at now at the structure around me lay there are a lot of people very affiliated with with Dugan's thinking is well around him They have institutes of thought in Chile and Argentina that study Dugan and his essential View is that Russia should be the center of the universe and we were cheated out of this and one of the ways they translate this Into something that's more relevant for Latin America's in the terms of the Malvinas Falkland conflict in Argentina They'll say you know Argentina was a great nation until Russia came and ripped out Their heart by taking the Falklands and that's equivalent to what NATO has done to us or what the United States has done to us So you have this ability to spend these multiple Spectrums the other thing we found and wrote about a little bit is the ability of these groups Russian groups particularly the ones we looked at based in Chile who not only serve as Sort of ideological bridges to different parts of the Latin American Intelligentsia, but also are selling a lot of uncontrolled Surveillance technology very high-level using storm technology and other things that Russia's developed that will that allow them to empower People like Daniel Ortega who's taken a lot of a lot of their aid certain sectors private sector groups in Paraguay have bought the The technology and what this does is allow you to suck up There's one of the most the United States put out official warnings once you go to Russia Don't take your phones don't take anything in your computer because this is the technology that can monitor your keystrokes Phone what's that all the whole package they can they can monitor so we have this spread of This type of technology that's uncontrolled. It's not state-to-state There's no agreement that they won't sell it to transnational criminal organizations I think that's one of the the concerns and looking at this So I'll leave it there turn it over to Roman and look forward to the questions And thanks again for taking the time to come out and hear us Thank you Douglas. I want to start thanking to USIP for you know supporting us in this research and also To our to arrange to organize this event It's very difficult to summarize in just a few minutes a year of research But let me compliment Douglas with just six points. We think are critical in terms of the findings we got Through this investigate through this research, you know the first point I would like to mention is We think from our point of view to Reconcentralize a little bit what we understand as influence operations usually we think on then as just Online disinformation or mainly online disinformation and what we have found in our research is Russia is combining of course online disinformation with other traditional tools to get influence I am talking specifically on cover political action diplomacy Economic coercion and all these things work together. I mean online disinformation is just a piece within a comprehensive strategy to shape the environment in a way which is Functional for the Russian for in policy objectives. So this is my first point My second point is I think Russian disinformation in the region Has three key characteristics We have we have seen in a number of different cases. The first is they are looking for Short-term results. I mean they are not playing a long-term game. I mean just they are under pressure they feel they are fighting in a international Context which is against them and then they are trying to get results quickly in order to change the the balance of forces in their favor second The the influence effort is focused on elites what they want what Russia wants is basically to Influence to get influence over the decision makers They are not I mean they are interested in Getting influence over the public opinion as long as they are going to shape an environment In which the decision makers are going to make decisions according to their interest But this is I mean the influence over the public opinion is just a mean to get a result and the result is Decisions practical and short-term Decisions according to their interest and my third point is they are extremely Extremely aggressive. I mean they are ready to break basic rules about Non-interference in internal affairs or about, you know internal Legally internal law in order to get the objectives they are looking for So this is my second point. My third point is Russian operation Russian influence operations in the region are mainly or are work mixing private and Government assets. I mean in a way, this is a reflection of how put in regime work I mean basically as you know The the put in's put in's government mix Permanently private and government interest and what we have seen here in the region is when we are talking about Influence operations. Basically, we are looking at private companies working with government offices private individuals cooperating with government officials and so on and this provides a lot of flexibility and offers the opportunity for Russia to leverage on on Networks connected with corruption and with Crime in order to move forward influence in the Latin American countries my fourth point is a little bit about effectiveness what we have seen is basically the The the the Russian influence activities in the region has been a really highly cost effective effort I mean they have invested a really limited amount of resources and they they have got a significant amount of benefits What we talk about benefits we are talking about things like this Between let's say 2014 and to the present Russia Russia has became more and more aggressive in the international scenario They have became more and more disruptive But when you look at how the image of Russia has evolved in Latin America you can see the image until the World on a word of aggression against against Ukraine in 2022 until that point the image was improving. So there was basically a Kind of divergence between the behavior and the image the image in Latin America improved and The behavior was more and more aggressive in the international arena Additionally you can see more specific issues such as the rejection of all the Latin American countries To provide Russian weapons to the US in order to be sent to to Ukraine Just recently just this year as an example how Latin American countries have chosen Neutrality and have continued making doing business with Russia after the war in Ukraine. So We can discuss discuss how important has been the Russian influence activities in the region to get this let's say neutral environment for Russia But I would suggest We imagine if the situation in terms of Neutrality of the Latin American countries would be the same if we take out from the from the picture all the efforts Developed by by Russian Russian Russian government media and Russian online disinformation to shape and change the Latin American public perceptions about Russian international behavior my five and Comment is about electoral interference, which as you know is one of the key issues the most most relevant issues regarding how Russia has tried to change the political environment in the region Two things here are important first We have seen at least three clear cases of Russian interference in electoral processes in the region Basically, Colombia Mexico and Bolivia But these efforts these Russian efforts Were not the reason why the election was On a direction or other in other words they interfere, but they didn't change the course of the election the reason because Lopez Obrador or Gustavo Petro was elected as presidents in Mexico and in Colombia was not the Russian interference That's it from our point of view Russian influence activities Have played other role in terms of providing Russia with an opportunity To build a relationship and to develop an alliance with these potential new leaders in the region So in other words when you take part in an electoral campaign Will you support in an election to a potential leader? You are basically investing for the future and this is what Russia has tried to do in Mexico or in Colombia Providing support to these To to left-wing candidates. I mean basically demonstrating then they can be supportive in order to get their favor When they are when they become When they come to power And finally my my last point and I finish here Is about you know is that it about them In a way the The fragility of the Russian influence operations in the region I have said Russian operate Russian influence operations have been highly cost effective But at the same time I would like to highlight They are very fragile In other words they can be counter relatively easily and let me Tell you why we think in that way The reason is basically because they are using Assets which are in very short supply to develop these campaigns what I am when I When we talk about Assets in short supply. I would example of this is the case of the Russian diplomats in the region key assets for the Russian activities in Latin America are the small group of very skilly and experienced Ambassadors many of them coming from Soviet times and they have been extremely Effective promoting Russian image and Russian interest in the region now This group of people is very difficult to replace. I mean because I mean it's very difficult for the for Putin's regime To find similar people to replace Then once they retire or they can work in the region any longer So this is the type of situation the Russia is dealing with in the region They are being very effective in terms of influence But at the same time the capability to sustain this effort over time is Is a is a really big question mark? And this is an opportunity of course for the US to counter effectively these type of activities, you know In the region. Thank you very much Over to you. Okay. I wasn't sure if you wanted to intercede at all So I did not work on the report to be clear so I'm here sort of in the capacity of someone who worked on countering these types of campaigns and Identifying them so in sort of as a by way of introduction You know my first sort of role working at the company formerly known as Facebook currently known as meta Was conducting intelligence investigations into looking for these types of campaigns, right? On the digital side, of course, you know, I appreciate Ramon's comment about how some of these things are not just online That's not necessarily a new thing. That's something that you know, if you look at the history of Soviet active measures, you know That is very Similar to what we saw there a use of a lot of different types of techniques both, you know Agents of influence as well as individuals that might be valuable for those campaigns and not just using The mediums available or technologies available at the time But my role was to conduct investigations into these types of operations and to build the investigative team that looked for them and you know a couple things that you know, I can speak to As well as sort of respond to on some of the comments is You know, one of the things that we went into the hypothesis Is that you know when we conducted investigations into Russian influence in particular the internet research agency Russian military intelligence And some of the other actors that were behind some of these operations The expectation was that we would find them doing the exact same thing that they were doing in Latin America, right? Or in any country around the world, right? Every there was an expectation that you find the exact same thing and that they're targeting every other place But one of the things that we did find is that there is quite a bit of domestic run operations, right over the years the team that I worked with took down Troll Farms originating from the Nicaraguan government An Ecuadorian troll farm that was connected to a marketing agency a whole bunch of marketing agencies in Mexico As well as Brazil run military run operations, right? so it's important to acknowledge that there are actually a lot of influence campaigns in Latin America that are actually run by domestic actors meant at targeting domestic populations and so we went in with the hypothesis that we were going to find a lot of Russian campaigns But we didn't always find Russian influence at least in the digital domain, right? And that's where the limitations of online investigations are is sometimes you might be able to find, you know Some of those connections on the ground that you don't see online But the reason I raise that is because one of the things that you know having studied Russia for a long time and Russian influence campaigns I often end up in the place where I'm warning people not to give them more credit than they deserve Because you know over time we've seen you know There's a lot of things that appear to be Russian or Russian-centric narratives But they aren't necessarily originating from Russia and that's where the attribution question comes in It's often quite difficult when you're conducting an investigation To assess who might be behind that operation, right? As I mentioned sometimes the limitations of what you can see in the digital domain. Maybe there's money being exchanged You know on the ground And that you know, I'm certainly interested in hearing on the on the ground research that you guys did in the report And what you were able to see there because in some ways it almost takes away agency from the people that are You know living in these places if you're sort of Giving credit to the Russian influence campaigns with everything that is going on right there is there are a lot of domestic grievances As there were in the United States, right that Russian threat actors take advantage of right in the United States as an example You know things like civil rights movement during the Cold War as well as Black Lives Matter And the more present day those are domestic You know problems that people are raising real activist movements And so it's important to say, you know Russians didn't invent those things they took advantage of them And that's where you know the the comment that you know, we were talking about a little bit earlier hearing some of the findings about Narratives versus what you actually see the threat actors do right you might expect that they're that what you see from Russian threat actors is going to be You know Russia-centric narratives, you know support Russia send weapons don't send weapons But in in my experience conducting these investigations often times It's you know domestic issues that are elevated in order to create wedges in society rather than Necessarily showing their hand there are different threat actors that you see more of that from for example Chinese and Iranian influence campaigns where you see a lot more obvious Pro-China or pro-Iran narratives, but with Russian campaigns both during the Cold War and in the present day You don't see as much of the obvious. This is in support of Russian narratives You see a lot more of these are some domestic issues that we're going to take advantage of to sort of elevate those issues and drive those Wedges in society further And last but not least, you know one of the things I wanted to talk about as well as effectiveness So there's a lot of conversation in the influence operations research Field around how do we actually know whether campaigns are effective or not? And there's actually not unfortunately not been a lot of study that says, you know This equals this because it's actually quite hard to say someone saw this meme online And they decided to do this thing in the real world, right? That's a very difficult line to draw for anyone. And so it's important not to make assumptions about Whether a campaign indeed had impact. I think it's important to acknowledge, you know Some of the proxies that we might have for understanding impact that includes size reach How many people might have seen something but those are all imperfect and flawed, right? You might be able to say, okay. Well a campaign had a lot of fake accounts Does that actually equal impact? In a lot of our research and the research of the independent research community It's actually not clear that you can draw a line between numbers of accounts and effectiveness And so it's really difficult to you know assess whether something was indeed definitively effective And what are some of the other societal factors that exist that we have to acknowledge? And sort of give again that agency back to the individuals that live in these places for the decisions that they make Thank you so much, you know I think it's very interesting what we've heard from all the panelists in terms of these ways of the Convergence of different kind of tactics and picking up on grievances that are pre-existing pre-existing narratives obviously around the United States involvement in Latin America and Given the difficulty in even understanding where the effectiveness and the convergence exists My question would be, you know, what can the United States do in terms of working with allies in the region? build resilience among those Domestic populations but also among the elite actors against this kind of influence operation whether it's you know The online components or the greater aggregate of the different efforts that being made what efforts can the United States actually do that would help Build a more resilient society that have their own autonomy and kind of setting their own narratives and understandings Well, I think thank you all for your comments I think that was one of the really big challenges of this is trying to approximate What the impact was and that's you know the methodology and all that is all in the report But it is an approximation and I think it's also true that particularly in Latin America probably unlike any other place in the world There are legitimate grievances against US historical actions in the region and so they're very easy to create these Joint narratives that and what we said earlier. It's not so much the prone Russia narrative It's the anti-us narrative and it's because of the the history especially up until the fall of the wall you have you know A rich environment from from which to draw. I think the United States in recent Maybe since 9-11 almost since I've been looking at this has been very very Distracted from Latin America. There is not a person. There's not a persistent Ongoing effort to counter any of the narratives out there either China or Russia or Iran And I think one of the challenges in this particular project is as Olga pointed out is that it's hard to I Think it's a real problem the Russian influence operation But is it they're going to suddenly take over the United States? No Like there's a middle ground between how serious it is and how much attention we need to pay with it Pay to it and I think that we have paid far too little attention to it But I don't think it's an existential threat to the United States either at this time I think that it's building towards hopefully creating enough divisions I think the goal is to get democracy to crumble to have to create the Divisions that Olga talked about that divide society's cause institutions to collapse and then eventually get to a Maduro or Daniel Ortega that you then you have the the alliance with so I think we've been very Unsuccessful in or limited in our not maybe not as we haven't really tried in our efforts to Portray what Russia is actually doing in the region and portray what they're doing around the world is particularly anti Democratic and anti what the historical left has always stood for there. I mean, I think was the sort of the cognate Cognitive dissonance should be evident But sometimes it's not and I think one of the things Roman mentioned was the ability of the Russians to field really Experienced and dedicated diplomats who know who have great influence back in Moscow and can speak for the Russian government on the ground And we are still lacking ambassadors in a number of countries across the region and we had this huge You know Chile was without an ambassador for almost two years. I don't remember how long Panama was out an ambassador they're now there but we have this constant problem of delayed nominations and often people who are Political appointees who may not speak the language who don't know the power players and the Russian this cadre of Russian Ambassadors that Roman mentioned move from country to country. They know everybody they've been there for 30 years They write op-eds. They speak generally really good Spanish. They tweet. They have access to the major newspapers And we are largely absent in that field Yeah, I would like to add. I think there are three three issues which I think The US and and its allies in the region should pay attention One is is very surprising how permissive is the environment in the Latin American countries for Russian bad behavior. Okay, you can see how for instance at the Russian ambassador in in Colombia criticized heavily President Duque because He was discussing the President Duque was discussing about Russian interference in the elections you know publicly in Colombian newspapers, you know, I I mean, it's very difficult to see this level of permissiveness in other countries in Europe, for instance I mean the government governments are Much more harder Imposing limits about what a foreign diplomat can or cannot do, you know so This is one one issue the US or the latin american governments with us support Should Should do second is I think one of the big advantages For the russian this info in latin america is the difficulties of the latin american public to get High good quality information. I mean basically Information is becoming more expensive more difficult to get access and then In this vacuum you have for instance Actualidad de Rete, I mean the spanish version of russia today providing Good quality This information about international affairs So let's say the tv programs are really good are really well produced and of course all the information is fake, you know so This environment is is is is is very Good for russia and this information as long as majors can be taken in order to improve the access to would quality would to High quality information for the general public in latin america is the the environment is going to be more difficult for russia and this information And my last point is Of course, I mean it's needed to train I mean in general terms Journalists academics politicians, you know people who basically opinion makers In order to provide them with the tools to identify and Counter russia and this information. So I think these are three Potential avenues for the u.s. To support the latin american efforts to counter this information russia and this information I actually wanted to jump on that point because you know One of the things that I spent a good chunk of my career doing is what I would say playing a bit of whack-a-mole, right? Taking down these networks of fake accounts But it's important just as much to Fill the information environment with something else, right? You can't just remove the harm you have to do something to fill it with with some value for people And that doesn't necessarily mean that you necessarily have to do an eye for an eye, right? There's always these debates about whether, you know western liberal democracies need to run influence operations in response to influence campaigns But that's not necessarily True, right? You don't have to engage in some sort of malign or deceptive Campaign in order to fill the information environment with something of value for for people and And that's you know often where people people get lost because the reality is a lot of these, you know campaigns From russian influence actors, right are not necessarily just networks of fake accounts, right? There's a lot of gray area where you can see that You know there are times where every nation around the world has the desire to share their story and tell it And one of my favorite stories is actually that the word propaganda is actually at the root of it not Malign word, right? What it means is the dissemination of something that is favorable to a particular government or an organization But we've sort of now viewed the word propaganda really negatively and in fact In the 1970s the u.s. State department invented the word public diplomacy to basically say propaganda but not use the word propaganda, right? and I think it's interesting because Ultimately, it's all about effective strategic communication and where you can see a really good example of responding to russian influence Whether deceptive or not Is in ukraine where the ukrainians have found a way to fill the information environment with information that is True for the most part effective and You know tells a better story and and that's you know That doesn't necessarily mean that you know, you have to wade into You know creating networks of fake accounts on your own or doing some kind of You know malign influence yourself in order to to respond to that And the last point that I'll make is you know in order to build some of these Build resilience in society, you know, there are some research institutions investigative outlets that have cropped up both in latin america and other places some of the best investigations i've seen into Influence operations overall in latin america have been from the digital forensic research lab at the atlanta council from aches as well as from Cazadores de fake news So those are some research institutions that are doing some really good work in latin america But building up that capacity so that there are not just fact checkers But also people who can help people understand how to spot manipulation Where it's happening so that the average individual in society can understand what that looks like Thanks. We'll open it to the floor if there are any questions from the audience Thanks very much. I'm adam five and sin from the national down for democracy really appreciate this conversation It's helping us to drill in to a region that we've all been reading since the full-scale invasion began that rush has been And other other malign powers are targeting quite intently. So I really think this is timely And tremendously useful Really appreciate that list your commentary about anti us narratives roman about sort of more engagement around Interactions and sort of domestic narratives and all go what you were saying about this question of attribution And that's something that we've really struggled with as well And I wanted to put this out there not to be um A gadfly but because i'm really interested uh and how important is it that we know who started a narrative Versus sort of how important is it that we know who's engaging with a narrative because for me? I hear oh, that's not a russian narratives. Maybe we should maybe it doesn't matter Maybe as you were as you were saying to me I just wonder at the end of the day if russia is engaging with a narrative if they're amplifying a narrative in a particular context Shouldn't that be enough of a cue for us that it's probably harmful to democracy at least in that context and then from a civil society standpoint It's something worth amplifying and and sort of hammering on so that may be a question more for More for ogle but then for for douglas and roman i'm wondering what's your role of the view of civil society in that context in terms of responding Is it you know might be fact checkers journalists researchers and others? How does civil society fit into the response beyond the diplomatic piece, which i also of course really appreciate Yeah, i mean i think the reason i bring up attribution and the importance of it is that we also you know part part of Having studied russian influence operations one of the things that you see you know as a perceived objective anytime We talk about objectives by the way We're sort of making the assumption of what we think the threat actor wants to do but we don't actually know right What their intent is we can assume based on what they've done But the assumption You know having done years of research into russian influence campaigns Is that not only are they interested and necessarily you know pushing particular agendas but also getting people to trust nothing at all And if you think that everything Is a russian influence campaign that in and of itself is an effective russian influence operation, right? Because you trust nothing and you think that every narrative that's out there is you know not trustworthy and And then you can't believe it and so that's why you know That i'm so cautious about giving russia credit where they don't deserve it But that doesn't necessarily mean that some of these methods that we've been talking about on You know filling the information environment with good valuable accurate information aren't important because they're important No matter as you said, you know where a narrative comes from Um, but it's also you know sometimes the narratives can be a little bit on the line, right? They're not always going to be false Um famously, you know most of the URL shared by the internet research agency were actually not To some fake news website, but they were new yorktimes.com and soundcloud.com if you looked at some of the Network analysis But that doesn't mean that you know that there's always you know, even a new york times headline can have something that would be a kernel That would get someone to You know fall for a certain narrative, right? You don't have to necessarily share manipulative or false information In order to get someone to go down a certain path Another good example of that is when you know the war started in ukraine This particular war I have to say because there have been others The the headlines from outlets like splitnick and rt were There are biolabs in ukraine. Is that inaccurate? No, it's not right. There are in fact biolabs in ukraine It's what someone takes away from that headline that is problematic, which is that something untoward is happening There are in fact biolabs But what they were doing to was try to investigate and study the you know bio weapons material that was found there After the end of the cold war Their existence is not an untrue fact But it's the assumption that you you know, someone takes away from reading that headline that something bad is happening, right? And that's where you know filling the information environment not with like a 50 page report That explains to people what these biolabs are doing in ukraine is going to be effective But actually telling a better story and saying, you know, this is what they've been doing And like given in short easy snippets for people to consume So that when you're competing for people's attention span in an information overloaded environment, you're actually going to get their attention Yeah, I mean Emphasizing the the relevant of the of the of the let's say real information, okay I think is is is is really important to take into consideration russian this info Exploit grievances which frequently Are real, you know and And not just that they they are not not only real. They are also and this is very important local They are national. I mean russian this information isn't is a regional effort in latin america But has different tones in different places And this is the reason because they use Local allies, you know local when I I mean local allies Sometimes they are formal allies. Sometimes they are they are just actors Who or which reply? russian this information about a local issue or Shape the the the the russian this info in a way which is going to be easily consumed by local public opinion Okay, so so this is this is really important um I mean this this idea of exploiting real issues and Issues which are relevant in local terms That said I mean and this is one of the reasons because it's so important the role of civil society. I mean basically I think the the issue uh And I am a little bit following olgas comment on this Is not about providing counter information. I mean this is important and I think I think is necessary But this is not the real The the key factor in order to counter this information In public opinion the the key factor is to strengthen the capability of public opinion to manage this information To identify this information to have a critical view about the information that you are receiving And this has to do a lot with um Education with educating the consumer And this is a of course it a longer process And it's going to demand not just the work of governments, but also the work of civil society organizations And just to to to finish this this comment This means we are going to have to deal this at least in two levels in the short term level We need to counter, you know This information in a really very basic and guided way We are going to have to answer with russian and russian associated Entities are disseminating In the longer term They are uh doing what they are doing or they they can do what they are doing Because there is a weaknesses in the information space in latin america And we need to solve this but this is going to be a long term effort So we need to deal with the urgent stuff in order to be in a condition to deal with the most important stuff, you know If I may also just add, you know, the studies about countering some of these things Show that pre-bunking tends to be a little bit more effective than debunking, right? You don't want to be on the back foot having to respond to every single thing that is being put out there You'd rather sort of be in a position where you have actually gotten ahead of it and Said something ahead of time. And so that's the ideal sort of end state Just in the interest of time I'll just say we got right up in sputnik news about our report that highlighted How great we treated how great we said sputnik news in russia's News provision was and how we said, you know, we said all these nice things about sputnik was not the takeaway I would have preferred but there is a link to the report and you could take that away from it the other thing I think it's really important on the Filling the vacuum is that russia Or china or any of these groups don't need to make money on their influence operations They are not for-profit organizations So but if you look at Reuters and ap and although most of the western Providers of news they they are built on a profit model. So you have to charge for it So if you're a small newspaper or you're subscribed to tell us through it and russia comes and gives you a whole bunch of free content You're going to take it because you don't have the resources in this resource constrained environment to buy a lot of us that Not necessarily because you're anti us or anything. It's it's free and good-looking content. I think there is a lot of The liberate deliberately taking that as well But I don't but I think in the environment which we live if you're going to spend 2000 a month for the associate of press or get something for free You're and you're probably going to take it for free because you want to survive as a news medium. So Do you have any other questions? Thank you I would like to Invite you To reflect on the data you collected for your research in this particular report and olga in the case of all the work you did in facebook To look at the russian presence in latin america know as what russia russia is striving To do to advance their goals, but how russia is helping Latin american political actors to advance their own agenda and how that in the long term is Getting in the same path. So I I cannot disagree with the idea of this. They were in short term I think it's being a long term Alliance particular between venezuela and russia is 20 years in the making um I see that long term view and how russia Interact with political actors in nationally Will be held to understand The complexity of the environment and how it's lacking from united states response. I agree with uh, what far as say Uh, united states abandoned latin america 20 years ago. You said he likely it's like they forgot latin america exists It doesn't it doesn't appear in the map And that is part of that is the strength you we are seeing now here It's not that he started happening two years ago. They're having it started happening more than 10 years ago About united states was impeding attention. So I I seem trying to look at the same that data from latin american perspective Will act to the to the understanding of the situation and then after of the study the situation We may be in a better position to say what we may do this we may do that something at far Say it also was how they Had allies in the left and had allies in the right More interestingly they had a life in the left and in the right in One single country think about brazil with bolsonaro and lula Think about argentina with melea and masa So they had allies in both sides The logical size in a single country and this is normal for them to do because they can Foster different agendas for different allies in different moments. They are very adaptive. They are very flexible So tell me about how you how you change your lenses to try to to see from this point of view Well, I think one of the key things you see in the shaping of the alliances is The the ability to the desire to work or what does venezuela want it wants somebody who won't who'll veto Legislation Things in the united nations who will protect them from international sanctions Some things what is russia wants the same thing nobody wants to be looking like they're isolated and out there So I think part of the what brings these groups together besides the desire to What the break what they believe is us hegemony across the the region and destroy the The reshape radically reshaped the current world order is their own self-protection ways to evade sanctions So one of the striking things is that only one latin american country went along with the u.s And eu on sanctioning rush after the ukraine and that's costa rica Which is not a major player in the economic sphere of of latin america So the idea that you can you can create these alliances I think the the dynamic of being able to reach into someone like melea bolsonaro shows the flexibility But I think they did there's a constant putting out of information And I think they're very good at analyzing what works and what doesn't dropping what doesn't and moving on with what does And there's this constant Stream out there, but I think ultimately what we're going what this goes to in the region is the destruction of democratic institutions The lack of faith in everything is is all of this said which means you don't trust your voting system You don't trust whatever anything so in that sense you've moved to complete neutrality, which in latin america may be As far as they can go without going to create a radically pro-russian latin america But they can certainly create a radically anti u.s sections of latin america and a very neutral latin america Let me let me Explain a little bit more what I want to say when I when I talk about short-term goals Okay, I think russia has longer goals in the region of course and has long-term alliances in the region of course but I think it's interesting to make a comparison between the behavior of china influence operations and russia influence operations I mean China I mean china is is of course is trying to promote Its influence in the region But he's doing it in a way, which is less disruptive and less aggressive Because they feel they have the time the time and they have the power to do it in that way russia is trying to get the results More quickly basically because they need these results They need or they need it the the latin american countries rejected the The u.s request to provide weapons for ukraine that was strategic. I mean particularly just to give a Specific example in the area of helos. I mean latin america Armed forces had a significant amount of mi-17 helos. You know, so This was a short-term specific result the russians wanted And this is this is my point. They are ready to To take more risks And to be more aggressive in order to get the results quicker because they need them, you know They feel the time is against them is against russia, you know So that's basically what what what I feel what what I what I want to say when I am talking about short-term goals, you know, that said I I agree with you there are There are long-term alliances and I think Uh They are playing in different ways in different countries according to the political opportunities One thing is maduro in venezuela. The other thing is how russia tried to profit from The brazilian attempt to be independent foreign policy in the region Trying to find a way to develop a Relationship with brazil and reduce the or weaken the relationship between the us and brazil, you know, so That that that that's my point, you know, basically they are shaping Data operations according to the political environment in each country and the political opportunities for them I know we're at time. So I defer to you on whether So you you mentioned, you know local politicians and You know, one of the things I mentioned at the outset of my remarks is that a lot of what my investigative team Back at meta had seen was a lot of domestic run campaigns, right? domestic Troll farms targeting domestic populations And sometimes, you know, we've seen that in other places in the world and in particular for talking about russian influence or potential russian influence francophone africa is another place to look at right where There are times where there are domestic politicians Sort of invited waggoner and progosian to come and assist them with their campaigns In some ways they almost got free advertising from from everybody saying look at these guys They're so good at interfering in elections like come invite them to come do it somewhere else And so yeah, there's certainly individual politicians and political campaigns that have You know run their own domestic campaigns and then there's some that probably, you know, to roman's point earlier You know the There's a reason for those investments, right importantly like waggoner and progosian are not russian government Like owned assets, right there as we could tell based on recent kerbuffles but The there was an incentive for progosian to get involved there because of mineral rights And so there's a lot of incentives for people for russian Influence actors whether state or non-state to get involved because they may have some long-term gain of having relationships with those politicians And and and that's what we see Well, thank you all for joining us Please feel free to engage more and especially to read this report And thank you to our panelists for emphasizing this issue And leaving us with this thought that it's really important to proactively get out there to provide Accessible information with credibility that these societies can use to have a more resilient and independent Media and government from these types of operations. So thank you very much. Thank you