In recent years, Russia has executed a series of influence operations in the United States. The main goal of these operations with regard to the United States is to sow domestic discord, disrupt and discredit democratic governance, undermine US international standing and influence, and weaken the existing international system (Kenney et al., 2019; Posard et al., 2020). To achieve these goals, Russia’s information operations manipulate internal domestic vulnerabilities and seek to amplify existing societal fractures within the United States (Mueller 2019; Tucker 2020). With these strategic goals in mind, Russia’s information operations on social media appear to have multiple objectives, including inducing decision-making paralysis, suppressing electoral participation, strengthening groups that share Russia’s objectives or point of view, and creating alternative media narratives that advance Russia’s objectives (Helmus et al., 2018: 2). In fostering divisions, Kremlin proxies focus on political hot-button topics, in particular race, nationalism, immigration, terrorism, guns, and LGBT issues (Kim, 2020: 8).

This report examines recent research on the constitutive elements of the Kremlin’s social media operations, as well as the results of our own analysis conducted in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election in the US. We find that, since 2016, the Kremlin’s social media operations have significantly evolved by improving their ability to conceal the identity of Kremlin proxies, as well as using the changing and more polarizing US internet environment. We also find that the groups most likely to engage with Russia-aligned content are found on the extremes of both the right and left ends of the political spectrum in the US and tend to share lower trust in mainstream media and institutions. In terms of its impact, higher engagement with Russia-aligned content correlated with increased individual propensity to take part in the 2020 US presidential election, and with decreased individual propensity to support the presidential candidates from the opposite political camp among individuals on both sides of the political spectrum. This finding is consistent with the argument that the Kremlin attempts to exacerbate the existing political divisions within the United States.