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      in US Politics

      Biden to unveil Russia sanctions over SolarWinds hack and election meddling

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      The US is set to announce new sanctions against Russia as soon as Thursday in retaliation for Moscow’s elections interference, alleged bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan, and cyber-espionage campaigns such as the SolarWinds hack, according to reports in US and international media.Ten Russian diplomatic officials are to be expelled from the US and up to 30 entities will be blacklisted, officials said, in the largest sanctions action against Russia of Joe Biden’s presidency.Additionally, the White House may issue an executive order barring US financial institutions from purchasing rouble bonds issued by Russia’s government, targeting the country’s sovereign debt and its broader economy. That could begin as soon as June, according to some reports.Q&AWhat was the SolarWinds hack?ShowIn early 2020, malicious code was sneaked into updates to a popular piece of software called Orion, made in the US by the company SolarWinds, which monitors the computer networks of businesses and governments for outages.That malware gave hackers remote access to an organisation’s networks so they could steal information. Among the most high-profile users of the software were US government departments including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the state department, and the justice department.Described by the Microsoft president, Brad Smith, as “the largest and most sophisticated attack the world has ever seen”, US intelligence agencies have accused Russia of launching the attack.SolarWinds, of Austin, Texas, provides network monitoring and other technical services to hundreds of thousands of organisations around the world, including most Fortune 500 companies and government agencies in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East.Its compromised product, Orion, is a centralised monitoring tool that looks for problems in an organisation’s computer network, which means that breaking in gave the attackers a “God view” of those networks.Neither SolarWinds nor US cybersecurity authorities have publicly identified which organisations were breached. Just because a company or agency uses SolarWinds as a vendor does not necessarily mean it was vulnerable to the hack.Kari Paul and Martin BelamUnnamed officials told the New York Times the new sanctions were meant to cut deeper than previous attempts to punish Moscow for its attacks on US institutions and allies. Some Russian officials have laughed off being added to the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions lists, comparing it to being elevated to an elite club. The threat of the ban on purchasing Russian debt has already depressed prices on the rouble and rouble-denominated OFZ treasury bonds.The sanctions will add tension to an already strained relationship between Russia and the US. Since last month, Moscow has been engaged in the largest troop buildup on its border with Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, provoking fears of an invasion. Biden called Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to urge him to de-escalate tensions with Ukraine and proposed a summit in a third country. The Kremlin gave a frosty account of the telephone call, and did not say whether Putin had agreed to the meeting.Earlier this year, Biden had agreed with a reporter when asked if Putin was “a killer”. Those remarks were replayed widely on Russian television. Putin responded by wryly wishing Biden “good health”, which was seen as a nod to Biden’s age.The US president’s tough approach differs considerably from that of the Trump administration, which largely sought to avoid confronting Russia over a CIA assessment that Moscow had offered and paid bounties for foreign fighters to kill US troops in Afghanistan. Trump said he doubted the evidence behind the reports.He similarly sided with Putin over an FBI assessment that Russia had interfered in the 2016 elections during a summit in Helsinki two years later.The planned sanctions were said to be retaliation for Russian interference in the 2020 elections, during which US intelligence agencies concluded that the Kremlin had backed Trump over Biden.Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe sanctions would also be a response to a massive and sophisticated cybersecurity breach against SolarWinds Corp that affected software used by US government agencies. The US has blamed Russia for the attack.Peskov this week said that “the hostility and unpredictability of America’s actions force us in general to be prepared for the worst scenarios”. More

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      in World Politics

      EU Concern Over Ukraine Is Not Enough

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      Hostilities between Ukraine and Russia reached an alarming level last week when further Russian troops were deployed on the Ukrainian border. Despite a statement from the Kremlin describing the act as “not threatening,” Kyiv accused Moscow of moving thousands of soldiers to its northern and eastern borders and on the Russian-annexed Crimean Peninsula to create an intimidating atmosphere in violation of the Minsk agreements and the ceasefire in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine. The Russian Foreign Ministry claimed it is Kyiv and NATO countries that are increasing their armed forces in Ukraine and the Black Sea close to Russia’s borders. 

      Nevertheless, the Russian Federation is following its usual scheme and is ready to seize any opportunity that arises. There may be three possible reasons behind these new developments: 1) Moscow wants to send a message to the US administration after recent statements regarding President Vladimir Putin; 2) the Russians are seeking a pretext to install their “peacekeepers” in Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine; or 3) the Kremlin wants to use the water crisis in Crimea to intervene and build a corridor through the Donbass region.

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      There might be other drivers, such as the ongoing power struggle inside the Russian administration, despite the fact that Putin signed a law that would allow him to stay in office until 2036. A manufactured external threat to Russian citizens — Russian passports have been issued to many Ukrainians living in the two self-declared people’s republics of Donetsk and Luhansk — would help deflect attention from internal economic problems, which have only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

      In February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shut down three television channels linked to Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedchuk, which may have contributed to the latest tension. Not only does Medvedchuk have personal ties to Putin, but the stations have also broadcast pro-Russian propaganda to the Ukrainian people.

      In the end, the cause can be left to Kremlinologists to decipher. Yet what is clear is that Putin has proved to be ready to act whenever there is a chance, and he has plenty of opportunities to create an event to trigger action. Ultimately, it does not matter why. What matters is that other regional actors are now using peaceful means to prevent a further escalation between Russia and Ukraine.

      Is Dialogue Enough?

      The US and the European Union have declared their support for Kyiv. Josep Borrell, the EU foreign policy chief and vice-president of the European Commission, expressed concern over the latest developments. The European Parliament also released a statement in which it reiterates that Moscow must reduce tensions by ending its military buildup in and close to Ukrainian territory. This is certainly not enough, but what are the options?

      Embed from Getty Images

      Engaging in dialogue is fine, but it seems the meaning of it has been forgotten — that is, to listen to each other and try to understand. When there is an argument between parties, there should be a general assumption that the other person could be right. It is not sufficient to only listen in order to respond and get one’s own points across. It should also not be disregarded that there is a civil society in Russia. When there is a dispute with the Kremlin, it does not entail the whole population.

      What is important is that language matters, words become actions, and actions have consequences — and this could lead to a dangerous downward spiral. Nevertheless, there must also be some clear lines established. This tit-for-tat blame game that has dominated the discourse for decades has to stop. This is not a reasonable discussion. The demands by Zelensky to accelerate Ukraine’s membership in NATO are not helpful, but nor is a meeting between Russia, Germany and France on the situation in Ukraine without including representatives from Kyiv.

      Diplomatic relations among regional actors have been strained for years but deteriorated further over recent months. In February, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated in an interview about relations between Russia and the European Union that “if you want peace, be prepared for war.” In the current political climate, this sounds far more threatening than it might have a few months ago. At that time, the German Foreign Ministry rightly called the comments “disconcerting and incomprehensible,” though Lavrov is known for his controversial statements.

      Nevertheless, this has marked a new low in the EU–Russia relations, and it seems that things could get worse. Expelling diplomats of EU member states while Borrell, the top European diplomat, was in Moscow is just power play. Despite Lavrov being in office for 17 years, the European Union has never found a way to reach a consensus on how to respond to his actions. In 2004, Central and Eastern European countries had just joined the EU, which was and still is a big success, but the necessary reforms in the institutional setup to be able to handle Lavrov have still not been implemented.

      What is even worse, the lack of capabilities to anticipate consequences has forever been a weak point in Brussels. Negotiations for an association agreement between the EU and Ukraine effectively led to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. Politics is much more complicated and one action does not necessarily lead to a specific outcome, but there is certainly a possibility of a butterfly effect.

      Better Preparation

      In order to be better prepared, member states need to pool resources together and ultimately transfer sovereignty to the EU when it comes to foreign policy. Otherwise, the divide-and-conquer approach by Russia will continue. After a rather humiliating meeting with Lavrov in February, Borrell said, “As ever, it will be for member states to decide the next steps, and yes, these could include sanctions.” This is not a language that the Kremlin understands.

      The German government, for instance, has been reluctant when it comes to imposing sanctions. On the one hand, this is due to Berlin’s history with the Russian Federation, but to a lesser extent, it is because of the Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. Nevertheless, this would be an opportunity to act as the pipeline also threatens Ukraine’s energy supply and might open another opportunity to act for the Kremlin. Yet there is a very good argument against sanctions: They would hurt the general population in Russia, which would further alienate the people who, in turn, would rally around the flag.

      Nevertheless, there are other ways to respond, ideally targeting the circles close to the Kremlin. Suspending Russia from the SWIFT global financial network could also be an option; calls to do so first emerged in 2014 after Russia’s actions in Ukraine. Yet this might lead to a fragmentation of the international financial system; Russian authorities have already backed international use of its alternative payment network.

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      The biggest danger for the Putin regime would be if the majority of Russians understood that it is possible to live in a liberal democracy. This is why a closer relationship between Ukraine and the EU is so dangerous for the Kremlin. The current escalation is not about the expansion of Russia’s borders or preserving traditional values, as often spun by Russian media and Moscow. This is a facade that masks the fact that if people were given the possibility of improving their lives without the strongman in the Kremlin, the Putin system would become irrelevant.

      Sanctions on Russia will most likely not lead to this outcome. There will not be a democratic revolution on the streets — this can only be through a gradual process. The question is: Will Western democracy survive long enough to see that change coming in order to still be a model?

      Therefore, the EU has to send a clear and unified message to prevent further escalation and not only react or be taken by surprise, as was the case in 2014. Ideally, this would also strengthen transatlantic relations by finding a common approach to the evolving situation. After the EU’s top representatives suffered political embarrassment in Moscow and Ankara, it would be even more necessary to send a strong signal to Russia.

      Being concerned is not enough — neither by institutions in Brussels, nor by EU member states. There is a need to be better prepared for certain scenarios. Repeating the same mistakes will be unforgivable for the region and the future of the European Union itself.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in World Politics

      Fair Observer Scoop: Putin Engineered the Blockage of the Suez Canal

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      MSNBC’s star journalist Rachel Maddow was ready to break the news but hesitated when certain insiders worried that, if the accusation was not borne out by verifiable facts, the reaction might further damage the reputation of a news organization whose ratings have been plummeting for the past two months. This lapse has enabled Fair Observer to provide the scoop that Maddow was on the verge of making before being pulled back by MSNBC’s marketing department. Maddow did mention a rumor that Russia could have been involved, warning that if this could be confirmed it would be seen as “a new variation in Putin’s playbook.” But with no substantial evidence to present or names to cite, she went on to focus on the lurid details of Representative Matt Gaetz’s sex scandal.

      Credible witnesses with access to the Kremlin have revealed to The Daily Devil’s Dictionary that the sandstorm credited with disturbing the navigation of the Ever Given — the Japanese container ship that ended up blocking the Suez Canal — was the result of a covert operation by Russia’s weather modification team. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aim was to damage the credibility of traditional trade routes, sowing doubt about the West’s ability to manage global commerce as the US prepares to disengage militarily from the Middle East. The message is clear. Russia is ready to mount similar operations in Syria, Iraq and even Egypt and Libya to further weaken the waning US influence in the region.

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      But there is another dimension of this geopolitical struggle whose implications will stretch out over decades. Thanks to global warming, which the Russians officially blame the US for encouraging, Putin has been nourishing his plan to turn the increasingly navigable Arctic Ocean that stretches across Russia’s northern coastline into the obvious choice for most East-West trade. Thanks to the melting ice, Russia will soon be in a position to monitor and control as much as 60% of intercontinental trade in the decade to come.

      Fair Observer’s scoop resulted from a cryptic remark spoken by a Russian official and overheard by CNN’s correspondent at a lunch table at the Kremlin. One of Putin’s closest aides, Nikolai Stavrogin, sat down with the intention of explaining to New York Times reporter Shawn McDermott a major shift in geopolitical history that would soon become apparent. The past, he claimed, was being undone in front of our very eyes. When asked for a detailed explanation, Stavrogin leaned back in his chair and slowly articulated this enigmatic thought: “Ice melts and ships float. It is ever a given that when water evaporates stillness reigns.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Evaporate:

      A verb used alternatively to describe the transformation of water under the effect of heat and the fate of many news stories left in the hands of journalists who refuse to think below the surface

      Contextual Note

      CNN reporter Elizabeth Prynne, who was just near enough to overhear Stavrogin utter his enigmatic statement, noted the words “ever” and “given” in his arcane message and suspected the remark might have a deeper meaning. Convinced that it needed to be followed up, she asked her colleague at The NY Times for some background. The Times reporter told her that Stavrogin’s observation concerned climate change, a purely scientific matter. He had other matters to deal with and would refer this one to his scientific colleagues, always eager to speculate about the effects of global warming.

      Prynne began asking around what Stavrogin’s remark might mean. She mentioned it to a friend who happens to be a Fair Observer contributor, who then informed The Daily Devil’s Dictionary. We immediately understood that this did indeed refer to the phenomenon of global warming. But, as Prynne suspected, it concerned the geopolitical impact of climate change. Thanks to the ever more apparent annual Arctic thaw that has opened up previously inaccessible trade routes, Russia is certain to obtain a growing strategic advantage. 

      Thanks to another of our relations, we were then able to reach Stavrogin himself who, without offering any new details, confirmed that his remarks concerned an impending revolution in maritime commerce. He also dropped the telling hint that the Kremlin’s weather experts had the knowledge and expertise to cause the stranding of an oversized ship in the Suez Canal. He refused to confirm that the operation was actually carried out by the Russians, but his boast that they were capable of such an operation left no doubt in our minds.

      Historical Note

      Fair Observer is not in the business of seeking or publishing scoops. But when one lands in our lap, we will not hesitate to disseminate it, especially at this crucial moment of history on April 1, 2021. The Daily Devil’s Dictionary published one of the first warnings concerning the suspicious disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in early October 2018. We pointed to the nature and the probable author of the crime well before the mainstream news began reporting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s possible involvement in Khashoggi’s disappearance.

      Embed from Getty Images

      We have now established the fact that Vladimir Putin effectively intervened in beaching the Ever Given, an incident that for a full week dramatically disturbed global trade by blocking the Suez Canal. This is a major story that neither MSNBC nor CNN have shown the temerity to reveal. Proud of our scoop, we find ourselves in the embarrassing position of having to backtrack on our own recent and repeated claims that The New York Times has been pathologically obsessed with blaming Russia for every crime and misdemeanor on the international stage, or even in domestic politics in the US. We hope the Gray Lady will accept our belated apologies.

      This incident that came to light through such indirect means tells us that, contrary to our own claims, The Times’ executive editor, Dean Baquet, was in the end justified in pursuing beyond reason the paper’s campaign against Russia. After what has now become clear about Putin’s intervention in the Suez Canal, what rational person could possibly doubt what The Times has been claiming for the past five years — that Putin colluded with Donald Trump and personally played the decisive role by tampering in the 2016 US presidential election to ensure the defeat of Hillary Clinton?

      It was barely a week ago that the sandstorm occurred leading to the blockage of the Suez Canal. Some will say that so soon after the event, with the facts still difficult to pin down, that this first day of April is not the appropriate time to claim the truth of such allegations. But we proudly proclaim that April 1 is a far more appropriate moment than the other 364 days of the years when MSNBC, The New York Times, CNN, The Washington Post and others have consistently pushed a similar story, and that for more than five years.

      *[Humorists have always been attracted to the temptation of reporting patently fake news on April Fools’ Day. In our turn, we have succumbed. Our apologies to MSNBC, CNN and The New York Times for doing what they would never dare to do: print news that isn’t true. As Jonathan Swift might describe it, they are the Houyhnhnms, who “cannot say a thing which is not” and we are the Yahoos, whom he describes as “restive and indocible, mischievous and malicious.” (Disclaimer: we have no legal connection to Yahoo!) Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in World Politics

      Will Multilateralism Be Great Again?

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      A few weeks ago, six eminent world leaders — including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Angela Merkel — called for the revitalization of multilateral cooperation. They reminded us of the UN Millennium Declaration, which was signed by 189 countries in 2000. The declaration expressed the confidence of the international community that multilateral policies could defeat global challenges such as “hunger and extreme poverty, environmental degradation, diseases, economic shocks, and the prevention of conflicts.”

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      The declaration marked the heyday of multilateral optimism. But contrary to the millennial vision of global governance, international affairs today are dominated by entrenched mistrust between governments.

      Sadly, the above-mentioned article by the six world leaders does not explain what went wrong in the 21st century. Without such an analysis, however, appeals for changing course risk being little more than aspirational talk. To really make multilateralism great again, we have to ask: Why did things go astray?

      The Adverse Effects of Nasty Surprises

      Harold Macmillan, the British prime minister between 1957 and 1963, is frequently quoted as having said that what he feared most in politics were “Events, dear boy, events.” This catchy phrase points to the proverbial overlooked elephant that has rampaged through international affairs in the last two decades. Apparently, unexpected events, escalating into major crises and global disruptions, have driven the international community apart and contributed decisively to the demise of multilateralism.

      To their credit, the world leaders are aware of this. They accurately state that major crises remind us of how interdependent we are, referencing the global financial crisis of 2008 and the current COVID-19 pandemic. However, there have been far more important disruptions in the past two decades: the 9/11 attacks in 2001; the popular revolts in the Middle East in 2011, which escalated into civil wars in Libya, Syria and Yemen; the eurozone crisis; Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014; the 2016 Brexit referendum in the United Kingdom; and the presidency of Donald Trump in the United States. More could easily be added to the list.

      These disruptions shattered international cooperation. Economic crises intensified cleavages within as well as between societies. Austerity and social inequality championed populist and anti-liberal sentiments that were expressed through battle cries of “take back control” and “America First.” Following 9/11, the 2003 war in Iraq split the West, whereas the military confrontations in Libya and Syria continue to divide the international community. Russia was suspended from the G8 after its territorial aggression against Ukraine, closing an important channel of communication with the Kremlin.

      The cumulative effect of these disruptions has been a significant decline in the willingness of governments to collaborate. International organizations and multilateral agreements have become political battlegrounds. Many administrations, including those in the United States, China, Russia, India, the United Kingdom and the European Union, prioritize policies such as decoupling, self-sufficiency and strategic autonomy. Consequently, the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding as a dual crisis of global connectivity and global governance.

      Credible Foresight Creates Trust in Multilateral Cooperation

      In their article, the world leaders shied away from the conclusion that global disruptions are not only a result of, but also an important catalyst for many governments retreating from multilateralism. That is why they are missing the low-hanging fruit for policy innovation: Avoiding nasty surprises by cultivating anticipatory governance — for instance, by investing in multilateral foresight and forecasting capabilities.

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      Hardly any of the major disruptions in international affairs have come as a surprise. Genuine “black swans” are very rare: The 9/11 Commission Report pointed out that several American agencies had been collecting evidence that al-Qaeda was planning attacks; there were plenty of reports from the Middle East and North Africa region analyzing the widespread dissatisfaction with repressive governments and bad governance; experts had frequently warned about the global financial crisis, the eurozone and the pandemic; and the referendum in the United Kingdom and the elections in the United States could only have had one of two outcomes. So, the lack of preparations for the unexpected results had more to do with wishful thinking than surprise.

      The exception to the rule is the annexation of Crimea. That the Kremlin would drastically change course instead of waiting out the developments in Kiev, which had proved a winning strategy for Moscow after 2004, came as a real surprise. But in all other cases, plenty of unheeded warnings lined the road to the tragedy of multilateralism.

      Of course, governments’ reluctance to trust forewarnings is understandable. The track record of expert predictions is not that impressive. Quite often, they turn out to be wrong. And crying wolf has consequences: Policymakers might be criticized by their opponents, the media, courts of auditors or the public when they order, for example, vaccines but a pandemic does not materialize as expected. This happened in 2009 with the swine flu scare, when policymakers in Europe and the United States learned a lesson that partly explains the inadequate preparations for COVID-19.

      But some predictions are better than others. Research has shown that the best forecasters achieve up to 30% higher prediction accuracy than analysts with access to classified material. Diversity and multi-perspectivity are important criteria for the success of forecasting teams that consistently outperform their competitors. Policymakers should harvest this knowledge. Investing in multilateral foresight and forecasting capabilities promises not only to increase timely awareness of future events. Collectively anticipating risks and opportunities could also stimulate international cooperation and joint policymaking.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      The Intelligence on Russia Was Clear. It Was Not Always Presented That Way.

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      A newly declassified intelligence report made clear that government agencies long knew of Russia’s work to aid Donald Trump, but he and allies muddied the waters.WASHINGTON — Representative Jason Crow listened during a classified briefing last summer while a top intelligence official said that Russia was hurting Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign to help President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Crow, Democrat of Colorado, held up an intelligence agency news release from days earlier and demanded to know why it said nothing about Russia’s plans.“‘When are you going to come out publicly and correct this record?’” Mr. Crow recalled asking the official, William R. Evanina. “‘Because there’s a massive disconnect between what is in your news releases and what you’re saying publicly — because of the pressure of the president.’”A report released Tuesday made clear that the intelligence community believed that Russia had long attacked Mr. Biden for the benefit of Mr. Trump. But throughout 2020, senior officials bowed to Mr. Trump’s hostility toward any public emphasis of the threat from Russia, and they offered Congress and the public incomplete or misleading portraits of the intelligence on foreign influence in the election.The picture is complicated. While Mr. Trump’s enmity toward the intelligence community loomed, and his political appointees emphasized the threat from China and Iran, not Russia, career officers did also get key findings about Russian intelligence declassified and disclosed last year.Soon after that briefing to Congress, Mr. Evanina released details about Kremlin-backed operatives denigrating Mr. Biden, fulfilling the demands of Mr. Crow and other lawmakers. In an interview, Mr. Evanina credited Congress for pushing for more information, but said it took time and effort to get other intelligence officials to declassify the information.Once made public, the information broke new ground in describing Russian activity, but it also angered the White House.“We were out there on our island,” Mr. Evanina said. “The White House was unhappy with us, and so were the Democrats.” After Mr. Evanina’s disclosure, Mr. Trump and senior administration officials worked to play down the intelligence about Russian interference or to redirect focus to China’s work.Their efforts allowed Americans to dismiss a widely accepted intelligence assessment as politics, deepening distrust and division among the electorate, current and former officials said, adding that a divided country was vulnerable to foreign interference.“We’re so polarized,” Mr. Evanina said, “we’re going to be even more susceptible for this kind of activity moving forward.”Former Trump administration officials defended their public assessments of the intelligence. Some administration officials saw intelligence analysts, particularly the C.I.A.’s Russia experts, as presenting an overly dramatic analysis of the Kremlin’s intentions.The newly released report, former Trump administration officials argued, blurs the definitions of influence and interference. Russia’s effort was always more about spreading misinformation and propaganda, the former officials said, and there was no evidence that the Kremlin changed votes, the report’s definition of interference.“There is zero evidence,” said Richard Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence. “Key judgment No. 1 is that no one interfered. This is influence vs. interference.”Throughout 2020, current and former intelligence officials privately expressed concern about how the White House characterized intelligence. Inside the intelligence agencies, officers continued to develop classified information on Russian interference and worked to present it honestly. For example, the designated election security czar, Shelby Pierson, was consistent in how she portrayed Russian actions in briefings to Congress, according to people familiar with her testimony.“We’re so polarized, we’re going to be even more susceptible for this kind of activity moving forward,” said William R. Evanina, a former top intelligence official.Joshua Roberts/ReutersBut one of her briefings, in which Ms. Pierson told lawmakers Russia favored Mr. Trump and was working for his re-election, prompted outrage among Republicans and contributed to the ousting of Joseph R. Maguire as the acting director of national intelligence. Mr. Evanina was then put in charge of briefing Congress, a role he was abruptly thrust into with little preparation, officials said.For Mr. Evanina’s first meeting with lawmakers on election security last March, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, then run by Mr. Grenell, prepared a document that tried to temper Ms. Pierson’s February warning by cautioning that officials had not concluded that Russia was backing Mr. Trump.“The I.C. has not concluded that the Kremlin is directly aiding any candidate’s re-election or any other candidates’ election,” an unclassified summary given to lawmakers said, using shorthand for the intelligence community. “Nor have we concluded that the Russians will definitely choose to try to do so in 2020.”Mr. Grenell privately pushed intelligence officials to provide evidence to back up their conclusion that Russian disinformation activity was about influencing the elections, rather than simply an effort to stoke divisive debates in the United States. He has in the past defended the March briefing as an accurate summary of the intelligence.But the intelligence community ombudsman said in January that there were substantive differences between talking points for briefing Congress and what the intelligence community really thought.The newly declassified report showed that the March briefing was at best misleading to Congress and backed Ms. Pierson’s February testimony.The report laid out how the Russian strategy of attacking Mr. Biden goes back to 2014, before Mr. Trump was a serious candidate for office. While some senior intelligence officials have suggested that intelligence on Russia was in flux at various points in 2020, the new report made clear that the intelligence community’s view on President Vladimir V. Putin’s support for Mr. Trump was little changed from 2016 to 2020.Senior Trump administration officials’ comments about China were also at odds with the report.John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s final director of national intelligence, said publicly before and after the election that China was the greatest national security threat. In a letter to Congress, he said the intelligence community was not applying the same definition to Chinese influence operations as it was to Russia’s.Some intelligence officials defended Mr. Ratcliffe’s comments on China, noting that Beijing was the most serious long-term threat to the United States and that it clearly tried to influence how it was viewed in America and elsewhere. The January ombudsman report did find merit in Mr. Ratcliffe’s critique of how intelligence on Chinese influence operations was handled.Mr. Grenell said his successor was right to focus on China, and that it was wrong to dismiss his critique of the intelligence agencies because analysts used different standards when looking at China’s influence operations compared with Russia’s. “China is a crisis,” Mr. Grenell said. “Russia is a problem.”Still, in appearances on Fox News, Mr. Ratcliffe’s relentless focus on China, rather than Russia, had the effect of leaving the impression, particularly with the president’s most enthusiastic supporters, that China was the most urgent threat to the 2020 election.The new report rejected that assertion.“Trying to equate, or at times suggest that, China was actually more actively interfering than Russia, it just wasn’t true,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. “I certainly tried to call them out on it at the time but wasn’t able to hold up the classified intelligence document to show how misleading they had been. But I think this report makes it very clear.”Even if China is a long-term national security threat, Russia will continue to be the larger threat in the next few elections, Mr. Evanina said.“There’s some political speak about China being a bigger, more existential threat,” Mr. Evanina said. “Sure they are, but not when it comes to elections.” More

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      Putin Authorized Russian Interference in 2020 Election, Report Says

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      The assessment was the intelligence community’s most comprehensive look at foreign efforts to interfere in the election.WASHINGTON — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized extensive efforts to hurt the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the election last year, including by mounting covert operations to influence people close to President Donald J. Trump, according to a declassified intelligence report released on Tuesday.The report did not name those people but seemed to refer to the work of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who relentlessly pushed accusations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his family involving Ukraine.“Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s interests worked to affect U.S. public perceptions,” the report said.The declassified report represented the most comprehensive intelligence assessment of foreign efforts to influence the 2020 vote. Besides Russia, Iran and other countries also sought to sway the election, the report said. China considered its own efforts but ultimately concluded that they would fail and most likely backfire, intelligence officials concluded.A companion report by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments also rejected false accusations promoted by Mr. Trump’s allies in the weeks after the vote that Venezuela or other countries had defrauded the election.The reports, compiled by career officials, amounted to a repudiation of Mr. Trump, his allies and some of his top administration officials. They reaffirmed the intelligence agencies’ conclusions about Russia’s interference in 2016 on behalf of Mr. Trump and said that the Kremlin favored his re-election. And they categorically dismissed allegations of foreign-fed voter fraud, cast doubt on Republican accusations of Chinese intervention on behalf of Democrats and undermined claims that Mr. Trump and his allies had spread about the Biden family’s work in Ukraine.The report also found that neither Russia nor other countries tried to change ballots themselves. Efforts by Russian hackers to gain access to state and local networks were unrelated to efforts by Moscow to influence the presidential vote.The declassified report did not explain how the intelligence community had reached its conclusions about Russian operations during the 2020 election. But the officials said they had high confidence in their conclusions about Mr. Putin’s involvement, suggesting that the intelligence agencies have developed new ways of gathering information after the extraction of one of their best Kremlin sources in 2017.Foreign efforts to influence United States elections are likely to continue in coming years, American officials said. The public has become more aware of disinformation efforts, and social media companies act faster to take down fake accounts that spread falsehoods. But a large number of Americans remain open to conspiracy theories pushed by Russia and other adversaries, a circumstance that they will exploit, officials warned.“Foreign malign influence is an enduring challenge facing our country,” Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, said in a statement. “These efforts by U.S. adversaries seek to exacerbate divisions and undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.”While it was declassified by the Biden administration, the report is based on work done during the Trump administration, according to intelligence officials, reflecting the vastly different views that officers had from their political overseers, who were appointed by Mr. Trump.The report rebutted yearslong efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to sow doubts about the intelligence agency’s assessments that Russia not only wanted to sow chaos in the United States but also favored his re-election.“They were disingenuous in downplaying Russia’s influence operations on behalf of the former president,” Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview. “It was a disservice not to level with the public and to try to fudge the intelligence in the way they did.”Some of the report’s details were released in the months leading up to the election, reflecting an effort by the intelligence community to disclose more information about foreign operations during the campaign after its reluctance to do so in 2016 helped misinformation spread.During the 2020 campaign, intelligence officials outlined how Russia was spreading damaging information about Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an attempt to bolster Mr. Trump’s re-election chances. It also outlined efforts by Iran in the final days before the election to aid Mr. Biden by spreading letters falsely purporting to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group.Accusations of election interference have been some of the most politically divisive in recent years. The intelligence report is akin to a declassified assessment in early 2017 that laid out the conclusions about Russia’s efforts in Mr. Trump’s electoral victory, further entrenched the partisan debate over his relationship with Moscow and cemented his enmity toward intelligence and law enforcement officials.With Mr. Trump out of office and the new report’s conclusions largely made public in releases during the campaign, the findings were not expected to prompt as much partisan fury. But elements of the report are likely to be the subject of political fights.Its assessment that China sat on the sidelines is at odds with what some Republican officials have said. In private briefings on Capitol Hill, John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump’s last director of national intelligence, said Chinese interference was a greater threat in 2020 than Russian operations.The declassified documents released on Tuesday included a dissenting minority view from the national intelligence officer for cyber that suggested that the consensus of the intelligence community was underplaying the threat from China.In a letter in January, Mr. Ratcliffe wrote in support of that minority view and said that the report’s main conclusions about China “fell well short of the mark.” He said the minority conclusion was more than one analyst’s view and argued that some intelligence officials were hesitant to label Chinese actions as influence or interference. Privately, some officials defended the consensus view, saying their reading of the intelligence supported the conclusions that China sought some level of influence but avoided any direct efforts to interfere in the vote.The most detailed material in the assessment was about Russia, which sought to influence how the American public saw the two major candidates “as well as advance Moscow’s longstanding goals of undermining confidence in U.S. election processes.”Moscow used Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s Parliament, to undermine Mr. Biden, the report confirmed. Mr. Derkach released leaked phone calls four times to undermine Mr. Biden and link him to Ukrainian corruption. The report said Mr. Putin “had purview” over the actions of Mr. Derkach, who had ties to Russian intelligence.Citing in one instance a meeting between Mr. Derkach and Mr. Giuliani, intelligence officials warned Mr. Trump in 2019 that Russian intelligence officers were using his personal lawyer as a conduit for misinformation.Mr. Giuliani also provided materials from Ukraine to American investigators to push for federal inquiries into Mr. Biden’s family, a type of operation that the report mentioned as an example of Russia’s covert efforts without providing names or other identifying details.The report also named Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a former colleague of Mr. Trump’s onetime campaign manager Paul Manafort, as a Russian influence agent. Mr. Kilimnik took steps throughout the 2020 election cycle to hurt Mr. Biden and his candidacy, the report said, helping pushed a false narrative that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for interfering in American politics.During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Manafort shared inside information about the presidential race with Mr. Kilimnik and the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs whom he served, according to a bipartisan report last year by the Senate Intelligence Committee.“Kilimnik was back at it again, along with others like Derkach,” Mr. Schiff said. “And they had other conduits for their laundered misinformation, including people like Rudy Giuliani.”Neither Mr. Giuliani nor his representatives returned a request for comment.Collecting intelligence to feed to Mr. Trump’s allies and use against Mr. Biden was a priority for Russian intelligence. Moscow’s military intelligence unit, the G.R.U., conducted a hacking campaign against a Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, in what was most likely an attempt to gather information about Mr. Biden’s family and their work for the company, the report confirmed.In the closing weeks of the campaign, intelligence officials also said that Russian hackers had broken into state and local computer networks. But the new report said those efforts were not aimed at changing votes.Unmentioned in this report was the wide-ranging hacking of federal computer systems using a vulnerability in software made by SolarWinds. The absence of a concerted effort by Russia to change votes suggests that Moscow had refocused its intelligence service on a broader effort to attack the U.S. government.Earlier in 2020, American officials thought Iran was likely to stay on the sidelines of the presidential contest. But Iranian hackers did try a last-minute effort to change the vote in Florida and other states. Iranian hackers sent “threatening, spoofed emails” to Democratic voters that purported to be from the Proud Boys, the report said. The group demanded that the recipients change their party affiliation and vote for Mr. Trump. They also pushed a video that supposedly demonstrated voter fraud.The Iranian effort essentially employed reverse psychology. Officials said Iranian operatives hoped the emails would have the opposite effect of the message’s warning, rallying people to vote for Mr. Biden by thinking Mr. Trump’s supporters were playing dirty campaign tricks. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, authorized the campaign, the report said. More