U.S. announces plan to counter Russian influence before 2024 election

The United States on Wednesday announced a broad effort to push back on Russian influence campaigns in the 2024 election, as it tries to curb the Kremlin's use of state-run media and fake news sites to sway American voters.

The actions include sanctions, indictments and seizing of web domains that U.S. officials say the Kremlin uses to spread propaganda and disinformation about Ukraine, which Russia invaded more than two years ago.

Attorney General Merrick Garland detailed the actions taken by the Justice Department. They include the indictment of two Russian employees of RT, the state-owned broadcaster, who used a company in Tennessee to spread content, and the takedown of a Russian malign influence campaign known as Doppelgänger.


"The American people are entitled to know when a foreign power engages in political activities or seeks to influence public discourse," Garland said.

The Treasury Department imposed sanctions on ANO Dialog, a Russian nonprofit that helps run the Doppelgänger network, as well as the editor-in-chief of RT, Margarita S. Simonyan, and her deputies.

The State Department has offered a $10 million reward for information pertaining to foreign interference in a U.S. election. The department specifically said it was seeking information on a group known as Russian Angry Hackers Did It, or RaHDit.

The State Department also said it would designate five Russian state-funded news outlets, including RT, Ruptly and Sputnik, as foreign government missions and restrict the issuance of visas to people working for Kremlin-supported media institutions.

U.S. officials have stepped up their warnings about Russian election influence efforts. U.S. spy agencies have assessed that the Kremlin favors former President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris in the November contest, seeing him as more skeptical of U.S. support for Ukraine.

The United States was caught flat-footed in 2016 as its spy agencies learned about Russian efforts to influence the vote on behalf of Trump and were late in warning the public. In subsequent elections, U.S. intelligence officials more aggressively called out Russian, Chinese and Iranian efforts to influence U.S. elections.

Officials say that fighting election interference has been more difficult this year. Some Americans, particularly Trump's supporters, see accusations that Russia is spreading disinformation as efforts to undermine their views.

Garland said the charges announced Wednesday were not the end of the case: "The investigation is ongoing."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.