 My name is Douglas Farrah. I'm the project director for the Russia and Latin America project that was funded by USIP. And we're here today to present our findings from that project to a group of experts to discuss what our findings were and how to move forward. Russian influence operations in Latin America are designed to create an environment favorable to Russia and very anti-United States, appealing to the most illiberal sectors on both the extreme left and the extreme right across Latin America. They're much deeper and much more complex and is commonly understood using a variety of instruments including their embassies, businesses, state television, allied other media, super spreaders, which you call influencers who have access to multiple platforms to spread disinformation, and the result has been shockingly successful over the past few years as Russia has ramped up these activities across the region. The primary objective of the Russian information operations is to both create an environment that is more friendly to Russia so that Russia is viewed positively by the people of Latin America. But it's primarily aimed at the political elites to keep them from allying with the United States on a particular position, particularly in this case, the Ukraine, where it's notable that only one country in Latin America has joined the US-led embargo on Russian goods, and that's Costa Rica, which is a very small country. So the idea is to both create an anti-American dynamic, an anti-liberal democracy dynamic, create a neutrality so the countries, if they don't align with Russia, at least are not aligned with the United States. This is designed to keep the political elite from moving toward the United States or vocally supporting the United States, either in the United Nations or in other multilateral agencies, and to make sure their economic relationships with different countries, particularly Ecuador, Argentina, and a few others, remain intact because they're very important to Russia. What we found most surprising was, first, how well-developed these programs are as part of a Russian-specific doctrine on information operations, which they're executing step-by-step as they go forward. I think the other thing that was surprising to us in our findings was that they appeal directly to the far right as well as the far left, specifically looking for allies across the political spectrum. And I think that what is interesting is how embedded they have become in the media environment and in other parts of the economic life of the region in ways that we barely acknowledge or we barely understand, particularly not the breadth of what they're actually carrying out.