At the time they are held USA important November 8 midterm elections, suspicious posts slandering Democrats and criticizing Ukrainian. These are the same accounts linked to an attempt to discredit the Democrats in the 2016 presidential election and leading to a specific Russian state agency.

As the New York Times notes, the posts primarily vilify US President Joe Biden and other prominent Democrats, sometimes crudely. They also expressed their opposition to the use of taxpayer dollars to support Ukraine in its war against Russian invading forces, which is entirely in line with Russian propaganda.

The collection of hot political topics is not accidental. According to cybersecurity group Recorded Future, the account was previously linked to the same Russian intelligence agency that interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and in 2020 to the Internet Research Service in St. Petersburg.

It’s part of what the team and other researchers have identified as a new, albeit more narrowly focused, Russian initiative ahead of Tuesday’s midterm elections. The goal, as before, is to stir up anger among conservative US voters and undermine confidence in the US electoral system. This time around, he also appears intent on undermining the Biden administration’s extensive military aid to Ukraine.

Not coincidentally, a related cybercampaign has targeted specifically Democratic candidates in the most contentious contests, including Senate seats in Ohio, Arizona, and Pennsylvania, in the belief that Republican majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives can help Russia’s war effort.

These orchestrated messages show not only how vulnerable the American political system is to foreign manipulation, but also how disinformation providers have evolved and adapted to major social media platforms’ efforts to remove or downplay false or misleading content.

Last month, the FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued a warning about the threat of misinformation being spread by “dark web channels, online magazines, messaging apps, fake websites, emails, text messages, and fake online characters.” Disinformation may include claims that election results are fraudulent.

U.S. agencies have urged users not to like, discuss, or post messages online from unknown or untrustworthy sources. They did not identify specific cases, but social media platforms and researchers monitoring the disinformation campaign have recently found many such campaigns taking place in Russia, China and Iran.

This year, the campaign has infiltrated smaller social networks such as Gab, Parler and Getter, which pride themselves on offering unlimited freedom of speech. This is a much smaller effort to spread hate and fake news than during the 2016 election, when fake accounts reached millions of voters across the political spectrum on Facebook and other major platforms.

But this year’s efforts are no less detrimental to advocacy that could help advance Russia’s goals, according to researchers cited by The New York Times.