Since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Russia has been intensifying its efforts to gain allies and strengthen its image as a world power. Latin America has been no exception in that goal. “Russia’s influence in Latin America has increased by 100 percent in the last two years,” Douglas Farah, an expert in national security and organized crime and co-author of investigations such as Dangerous Alliances: Russia’s Advance in Latin America and Russian Influence Campaigns in Latin America, told Diálogo.
Russia, heir to the defunct Soviet Union, has had a presence in the region since the middle of the last century with the Cuban revolution and the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. Both countries together with Venezuela, without excluding Bolivia, are today the closest to the Kremlin, and at the same time the most authoritarian in this part of the continent. “They found in Putin a diplomatic lifeline to defend them before the United Nations Security Council and avoid condemnations for human rights violations and electoral frauds, in addition to providing them with security equipment, intelligence, and military weapons that allow them to continue expanding their revolution,” said Farah.
In return, these countries provide Russia with access to their ports and airspace in the hemisphere, as well as political and diplomatic support that gives them a veneer of international legitimacy. But perhaps, most importantly, what Russia found in these three countries is a platform to expand its sphere of influence from Mexico to Chile, through a skillful two-pronged strategy: political and disinformation. “With the support of regional media, influencers, and fake accounts, also known as bots, Russia has created an information ecosystem from which it distorts reality in favor of its interests,” Farah said.
These low-cost disinformation operations, Farah says, are having a significant impact in the region. One of the results was the position of Latin American countries regarding the invasion of Ukraine during the last summit of Heads of State and Government of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the European Union (EU) in Brussels. Although CELAC countries expressed their “deepest concern,” they refused to include words such as “reject” and “condemn” in the final declaration which, with the exception of Nicaragua, was signed by all countries. At the end of the meeting, the President of Lithuania, addressing CELAC, posted on social media: “Do not let yourselves be seduced by Russia’s propaganda.”
And although this is the most visible strategy of Russia’s influence in the region, it is not the only one, says Farah, who, in an exclusive interview with Diálogo, revealed surprising findings about Russia’s penetration in this part of the continent.
“Russian activity in Latin America has not received the same attention as in the former Soviet space, Europe, or the United States, but that does not mean that we should be any less concerned. Today its reach is gaining important interest in the region,” Farah says, warning that Russia’s efforts are meant to destabilize democracy in Latin America, as key to advance in its struggle for a new world order.
Disinformation ecosystem: a weapon of war
In February, the Washington Post reported on an investigation carried out by a European intelligence team in which they unveiled an extensive and coordinated Russian media campaign to undermine Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. According to the more than 100 documents to which the U.S. newspaper had access, there were thousands of publications in social networks and hundreds of articles created by “troll farms” — an organized group that anonymously interferes in the public opinion — and distributed in Ukraine and Europe. Their objective was to exploit information clutter and actively contribute to it, to increase rumors about alleged tensions between the president and his top military commander, General Valerii Zaluzhny, and to divide the Ukrainian population.
The revelation of this investigation is just an example of the Kremlin’s disinformation efforts that are present in various corners of the world, including Latin America. “This is undoubtedly its most powerful and successful strategy of penetration and influence in the region,” Farah said.
In 2013, Moscow declared its relations with Latin America of strategic importance. Farah explains that since then, “Moscow has expanded its information warfare efforts in the region.” A situation the U.S. State Department denounced. In November 2023, the State Department warned about the Russian government’s disinformation campaign in the region.
As reported by the Spokesman’s Office, Russia established contact in several Latin American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela with the aim of “whitewashing its propaganda and disinformation efforts through local media in a way that comes naturally to Latin American audiences, with the purpose of undermining support for Ukraine and propagating an anti-U.S. and NATO mindset.” According to the State Department three Russian organizations are involved in the information manipulation campaign: the Social Design Agency (SDA), the Institute for Internet Development, and the technology company Structura. Both SDA and Structura have been under European Union sanctions since July, also over allegations of disseminating altered war propaganda, Infobae reported.
“What we are seeing is an increase in the intensity and avenues by which Russia propagates its narrative as a consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Farah said, referring to the result of one of his most recent investigations. “We found that while in the period between 2014 and 2015, the two leading Russian Spanish-language media outlets, Actualidad RT and Sputnik Mundo, published 1,324 entries, in the period between 2021 and 2022 those same outlets published 14,744 entries about the war in Ukraine. This is a dramatic illustration of how Russia has expanded its disinformation infrastructure in the region, but also the importance of media deployment in times of war.”
An observation that the Russian government has confirmed, according to the words of Margarita Simonyan, current editor-in-chief of RT and Sputnik, who in an interview with Russian media Afisha Daily compared the Defense Ministry with the media she manages. “The absence of its own foreign channel is similar to the absence of a Defense Ministry. When there is no war, such a ministry seems to be unnecessary. But when there is a war, the role of the Defense Ministry becomes critical. And you can’t create an army a week before the start of the war.”
Invisible army: modus operandi
The two key media of Russia’s communicational artillery in Latin America are Actualidad RT, which represents state-funded Russian international agency RT (formerly Russian Today) for the Hispanic world, and Sputnik Mundo, the Hispanic wing of Russian state news agency Sputnik. The former is available in all countries in the region and on various platforms, including television channels, social networks, and websites.
Both media have received countless complaints about the information they disseminate. RT has already been banned by the European Union, Canada, and the United States, which prohibited its broadcasting and dissemination throughout their territory. However, in Latin America they continue to be seen as legitimate news sources and alternatives to other national and foreign media for the most part. “In Guatemala, for example, the state channel broadcasts between 7 and 8 hours of Russian news daily,” Farah said.
Added to a significant audience are alliances with regional state media, influencers, and websites, through which Russia broadens the dissemination of its narrative and gains credibility. “The modus operandi consists of distributing identical content through this network of disseminators or ‘echo chambers’ that are in charge of echoing the Russian narrative over and over again until it reaches the hands of other media that end up repeating the same message without knowing that it comes from Russia.”
The biggest amplifier and at the same time the most important legitimizing force of the Russian narrative in the region is TeleSUR, the regional channel based in Venezuela and founded by Hugo Chávez, owned today by the Venezuelan and Cuban regimes among other nations. Also noteworthy are Agencia Prensa Rural based in Colombia, Red Nacional y Popular (Nac&Pop), and Página Transversal.
But beyond their alliances with authoritarian regimes, or those that are akin to their ideals, what is dangerous about this invisible army, Farah explains, is their ability to recruit media across the political spectrum. “They entered the Hispanic market offering fresh, dynamic content with a more marked anti-imperialist tone and favoring coverage of the Bolivarian Revolution, but today they have spread throughout the territory thanks to their ability to differentiate their messages and messengers according to the target audience they are addressing without generating contradictions.”
An example of this is the reach of Russian propaganda in influential sectors of the extreme right based on fascist messages of the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. “His followers are fanatics who take messages from Russian channels as gospel and advocate a multipolar world,” Farah said.
A strategy that together with the clandestinity of the messages spread by echo chambers has achieved a significant impact in the region. “What is interesting about the Russian success, albeit understated, is that it has done a lot with very little money. While the Chinese have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence through their media, Russia, investing far less, has managed to impact public opinion and decision makers throughout the region,” Farah added.
Manipulation, distortion, and calculation
The Russian disinformation machinery in Latin America is having a significant impact, Farah continued. An example of this is Russia’s involvement in the social protests that took place in Colombia and Chile in late 2019. “Part of Putin’s media strategy is to take advantage of local conflicts,” Farah said.
Amid these protests, Russian media disseminated information emphasizing the negative role of security forces in managing the protest, highlighting the unpopularity of the police, and negatively portraying human rights. The narrative had a significant diffusion. According to data provided by Farah, among the top 100 influencers on X (formerly Twitter) during these mass protests, Actualidad RT ranked second in Colombia and ninth in Chile. Meanwhile the best positioned Western broadcaster was German Deutsche Welle in Spanish, which only reached 44th place in Colombia and 47th in Chile.
On the other hand, in countries with which Russia has a close relationship, broadcasting of messages during social protests is minimal. An example of this was the little coverage in Nicaragua about the death of 351 students during the 2018 social protests. “Despite the fact that they were much more violent and deadly protests, that same network that disseminated messages during the demonstrations in Colombia and Chile, remained silent,” Farah said.
It is worth noting that these disinformation campaigns have not been successful in all parts of the world. Beyond the Russian media ban by the European Union, Canada, and the United States, Ukraine has also been able to unmask the strategy. As Deustche Welle reported in early May 2023, Russian bloggers known as “war reporters” announced the start of Ukrainian counterattacks, however, when it became clear that it was not an offensive, they had to edit their messages and even justify themselves to their followers.
Germany recently announced the creation of a special unit dedicated to detecting and disrupting Russian disinformation which, according to the Berlin government, is designed to undermine democracy and sow discord, Bloomberg reported. “The threat posed to our democracy by espionage, sabotage, disinformation, and cyberattacks has reached a new dimension,” said Interior Minister Nancy Feaser, after presenting the latest annual report of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.
The dangerous influence of bots
Just as the Kremlin has taken advantage of internal conflicts to expand its narrative, electoral processes have been a space to push its interests under the guise of internal political discussion and debate. “Their main weapon is bots, automated accounts or fake accounts through which they manipulate the debate on social networks,” Farah said, adding “Mexico, has been the epicenter of these operations.”
But Mexico is not the only country that has been the victim of alleged Russian attempts to sabotage Latin American democracy during presidential campaigns. According to an investigation by U.S. journalist Matt Taibi, there is evidence of the use of bots to favor the image of then-candidate Gustavo Petro and discredit his rivals. According to Taibi, there is evidence that several of the fake X accounts that were identified and disseminated by Elon Musk himself, were linked to Kremlin operators probably associated with the Internet Research Agency of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the now deceased head of the Wagner Group and former Putin ally and propagandist, says Taibi’s investigation.
A situation even more so alarming, when U.S. intelligence services revealed that between 2020 and 2022 Russia tried to undermine the legitimacy of at least 11 elections in nine democratic countries worldwide, according to a diplomatic cable sent by the U.S. State Department to numerous countries in the region, AP reported.
Part II
Russian efforts in the Latin American information space are of particular concern because of the threat they pose to the region’s stability. “What Russia wants is to disarm the system of institutional democracy and promote military authoritarianism,” Farah said. To this end, Russia has relied on other strategies that while less visible have been vital to Russian influence in Latin America.
In the second part of this report we will talk about these advances, such as the existence of a network with deep ties to Russian intelligence and the former KGB, in charge of distributing surveillance systems to countries in the region, based in Chile. “They knew that they would not be looked for there,” says Farah, who assures that this technology is responsible for the repressive capability increase of the most authoritarian and less transparent regimes in Latin America today. As well as the Russian advances in Paraguay, where they now control four of the country’s main ports, or the more than 300 Russian military personnel with a fixed presence in Nicaragua. “There is no doubt in my mind that Russia already has a military base in this country,” warned Douglas Farah, an expert in national security and organized crime.
