Google posted the following unusual warning. The main sources are The New York Times, a YouTube video posted by Bloomberg News, and stories on MSNOW.

The warning asserted that Russian intelligence is deep into a campaign to sway the midterms in Trump’s favor, acknowledging his special relationship with Russian dictator Putin. That relationship was cemented by Trump’s latest deal to eliminate sanctions on Russian oil, to pour billions into the Russian economy, and to turn his back on Ukraine.

Google sent out the following warning:

Russia is deploying a highly sophisticated “army of bots” and generative AI to flood social media networks with fabricated videos, deepfakes, and targeted propaganda aimed at disrupting the upcoming November 3, 2026, U.S. midterm elections. [1, 2]

According to U.S. intelligence officials and recent independent research, Moscow’s primary goals are to inject chaos, undermine faith in democratic institutions, target Democratic candidates in key swing states, and weaken international support for Ukraine. [1, 2, 3]

Key Tactics and Operations

1. The “Matrioska” Drone Warfare Strategy

  • Automated Bot Swarms: A Russian disinformation network nicknamed Matrioska has been filling platforms like X (formerly Twitter) with fake election content. [1]
  • The Cycle: When researchers identify these accounts, X suspends them—but the network automatically replaces them with new dormant or artificial profiles. Experts describe this persistent replacement loop as the “disinformation equivalent of drone warfare”. [1]
  • Artificial Engagement: These bots rapidly inflate view counts on fabricated posts to make fake stories appear as though they are trending naturally. [1, 2]

2. AI-Generated Deepfakes & Impersonations

  • Celebrity Splice Fakes: Disinformation operators are pushing out AI-fabricated video clips of famous actors and musicians (including Robert De Niro, Julia Roberts, and Cher) appearing to attack political figures under campaigns like #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. [1]
  • Impersonating Major Media: U.S. intelligence reports that Russian covert campaigns are creating highly accurate clones of reputable Western news outlets like CNN, the BBC, and The New York Times to spread fake news articles and targeted character attacks against Senate candidates. [1, 2]
  • Commercial AI Misuse: Adversaries are reportedly utilizing commercial generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, to efficiently script and map out massive propaganda pipelines at an unprecedented speed. [1]

3. Integration into State Infrastructure

  • Cloud Infrastructure Consolidation: Security officials emphasize that Moscow has successfully integrated its state intelligence agencies with commercial cloud computing assets. This marks a shift from isolated “troll farms” (like the old Internet Research Agency) to a consolidated state digital ecosystem capable of massive scale.
  • Custom Bias Targeting: The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has been linked to programs designed to bypass traditional advertisement blocks by embedding customized, AI-driven propaganda directly into personal communication apps based on an individual voter’s specific biases. [1, 2]

To understand the warning, begin by watching the YouTube video posted by Bloomberg News.

Much of this material was based on a story in The New York Times about Russia’s election interference. This is a gift article. You can read it without a subscription.

Written by veteran intelligence reporters, it begins:

The Russian government has been targeting Americans with covert online disinformation operations seeking to undermine public confidence in November’s midterm elections, using a familiar playbook in an attempt to inject chaos into the voting season, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

Classified U.S. intelligence assessments from recent months have determined that the Kremlin has again authorized a digital influence campaign to peddle content across social media in hopes of seeding or amplifying domestic divisions around the election season, the officials said.

The assessments did not find evidence of attempts to take aim at voting machinery in a way that could compromise the actual voting process, the officials added. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss classified information, did not specify the efforts to influence attitudes online. But experts in Russian disinformation have spotted some social media campaigns in recent weeks that use artificial intelligence to create fake videos of Hollywood celebrities talking about key battleground Senate races.

The disinformation campaign appeared to be less extensive or coordinated than at least some of Russia’s prior efforts in American elections, some of the officials said. Since 2016, the Kremlin has initiated online influence operations in every American federal election cycle, according to previously declassified assessments. The officials added that U.S. spy agencies see Moscow as less interested in midterm races than in presidential contests and as distracted by its grinding war with Ukraine.

Still, the push to inflame the electorate comes as President Trump has repeatedly sought to challenge the integrity of American democracy. In July, Mr. Trump gave a televised prime-time address on election security in which he claimed there were severe vulnerabilities in U.S. voting systems and accused American officials of a yearslong “cover-up” to conceal efforts by China and others to influence elections.

He has instructed a task force to declassify documents purporting to support his narratives of rampant voter fraud and foreign tampering, but those files, which were heavily redacted, did not reveal major new weaknesses in the country’s election systems or show that foreign governments had manipulated any votes.

Some of the officials said the main goal of the Russian influence operations appeared to be to sow chaos rather than aid one particular party, though the examples that independent disinformation researchers in recent weeks have attributed to Russia have exclusively attacked Democratic candidates in swing states.

The White House, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Russian Embassy did not respond to requests for comment. Russia has historically denied U.S. allegations of election meddling.

Some intelligence assessments have also found that Iran, too, may engage in influence operations around the November election as well, the officials said, though little activity had been documented in classified channels that traced to Tehran. The country, which has been locked in a war with the United States since February, sought to spread propaganda undermining Mr. Trump in the 2020 and 2024presidential elections, and officials said it was reasonable to expect the regime to do so again….

In 2016, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ordered a multipronged interference effort that sought to denigrate Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and bolster the electoral prospects of her Republican rival, Mr. Trump, U.S. spy agencies concluded. Multiple audits of those intelligence findings, including a multiyear investigation by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee, corroborated those conclusions.

Researchers in Europe and the United States who track Russian disinformation campaigns have seen recent signs of Russian activity. In two separate waves over the past week, a network previously linked to Kremlin trolls posted a series of videos on X and BlueSky that appeared to rely on A.I. to churn out baseless claims against Democrats running for Senate in closely contested races. Elements of the campaign were reported earlier by MS NOW.

The posts attacked the candidates using themes that Mr. Trump and the Republican Party have relied on to disparage Democrats, including accusations of corruption, antisemitism and support for gay and transgender rights.

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