Russia again favors Republican Donald Trump as its preferred candidate for the upcoming US presidential election, according to a US intelligence official.
While briefing reporters on US election security, the official refrained from explicitly naming the former president and presumptive Republican nominee when asked who Moscow supports as the next US president.
However, he suggested that Russia favors Trump, noting that the US intelligence community’s assessments of Moscow’s preference have not changed from previous elections.
“We have not observed a shift in Russia’s preferences for the presidential race from past elections, given the role the US is playing with regard to Ukraine and broader policy toward Russia,” said the official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) on Tuesday.
Previous assessments indicated that Moscow had attempted, through influence campaigns, to help Trump win in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and in the 2020 campaign, which he lost to current US President Joe Biden.
Russia’s Influence Operations
The US has not detected any plans by other countries to “degrade or disrupt” the presidential elections in November, according to officials from the ODNI, FBI, and the National Coordinator for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience, who attended the briefing.
However, the ODNI official mentioned that Russia continues to try to influence specific groups of US voters in battleground states through social media and other means by promoting “divisive narratives and denigrating specific politicians.”
“Russia is undertaking a whole-of-government approach to influence the election, including the presidential, Congress, and public opinion,” he said.
Moscow “determines which candidates they’re willing to support or oppose largely based on their stance toward further US aid to Ukraine and related issues,” the official added.
“It’s all the tactics we’ve seen before, primarily through social media efforts” and “using US voices to amplify their narratives,” the official concluded.
