U.S. reveals Russian plot to use fake video as pretense for Ukraine ...

U.S. officials registered a record-breaking number of efforts by Russian state media and proxies to push out anti-American and anti-Ukrainian content online, even as the Kremlin continues to threaten Ukraine by massing troops and equipment along the border.In another example of Russia's online malign influence campaign, self-declared "Russian federal news agency" Avia.pro published an article on January 23, claiming, "the United States has begun moving its heavy tanks and light armored vehicles to the border with Ukraine, apparently preparing to use these vehicles to attack Russia." While Avia.pro is geolocated in the Netherlands, open-source data indicates the domain is registered to a private address of an apartment building in Moscow, Russia, according to fact-checking website StopFake.org.Researchers at the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis have sorted through an avalanche of disinformation produced by Russian state media groups —including state media RT and Sputnik — that claim Russia has no intent to invade Ukraine and that the West fabricated the invasion story as an excuse for its own military buildup.DHS warned state and law enforcement partners this week that "from September 2021 to January 2022, Russian state media and proxy websites published a greater number of anti-Ukrainian and anti-American narratives on a month-by-month basis than during any preceding period," going back to World War II."Ukraine-focused article production by Russian media outlets" surpassed 800 in January 2022, according to the DHS bulletin published Monday and obtained by CBS News. The group took note of one recently hatched claim that Ukraine and NATO are plotting an undercover operation code named "Crushing Sword." That story, initially posted on the telegram account of Yan Leshchenko, self-proclaimed military leader of the so-called Luhansk People's Republic, and circulated by Russian state media, uses bogus footage of Ukrainian aggression as a pretext for Russian military deployment.While many messages are posted anonymously, others on Telegram connect to pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians such as Yevheniy Muraiev, the owner of "NASH" TV channel and one of Moscow's chosen candidates for pro-Russian leadership, according to recent British intelligence reports concluding Putin plans to install a puppet government in Kyiv.The White House dispatched its top cybersecurity official to NATO, Tuesday, to organize its mission to detect and deflect Russian cyberattacks – both against Ukraine, as well as possible retaliatory cyberattacks against Europe and the U.S. Neuberger equated Russia's use of cyber with "a kind of kinetic operations" intended to destabilize a target population and government. But Russian meddling in U.S. elections — surfacing again for a bite in 2020 — offered up its share of hard-earned lessons to U.S. officials, too.Experts tracking Kremlin-backed information warfare have welcomed the administration's approach to combating Russia's disinformation campaign, along with efforts by social media companies to curb fake news at its source."One thing that's improved in recent years is that the social media companies have gone from saying, 'Oh, we're just, we're just a bulletin board….' to making a much more aggressive effort to weed out fake information," Lewis said.