New research shows that Russia helped spread and amplify false and misleading claims on the internet about the recent hurricanes and the response of the federal government in the United States. This is part of an effort by the Kremlin, to manipulate America’s politics before the presidential elections.

According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, the content is spread by Russian state-owned media, social media networks, and websites. It criticizes federal responses to hurricanes Helene, Milton, and exploits legitimate concerns regarding the recovery effort to portray American leaders as corrupt and incompetent. The London-based group tracks online extremism and disinformation.

Researchers say that in some cases, claims made about storms are accompanied by fake images, created with artificial intelligence. For example, a photo showing scenes of flooding at Disney World, which never occurred, was fabricated.

This approach is in line with a long-standing Kremlin practice that identifies legitimate debates and controversial issues in the U.S., and then exploits them. In previous disinformation campaigns, debates on immigration, racism and crime, as well as the economy, were used to paint the U.S. in a negative light.

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U.S. Intelligence officials and private tech firms say that Russian activity increased sharply in the weeks leading up to the November 5 elections as Moscow attempts to take advantage of an opportunity to undermine their chief global rival.

Russia’s disinformation agents can use hot-button topics to undermine Americans’ confidence in their government, and even each other, by seizing on genuine concerns about disaster recovery.

Melanie Smith, Director of Research at ISD, said that “these are not situations created by foreign actors.” “They are simply adding fuel to fires already burning.”

ISD identified English-language posts clearly intended for Americans as well as Russian language propaganda aimed at domestic audiences. The majority of disinformation targeted the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Democratic Administration of President Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris. She is the Democratic nominee for the White House against former president Donald Trump.

The Kremlin continues to spread lies about hurricane response due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Officials and analysts say that if Russia can convince enough Americans to oppose U.S. backing for Ukraine, this could pave the way for a Moscow win.

U.S. Intelligence officials said that Russia’s disinformation appears to be designed to support Trump. Trump has praised Russian president Vladimir Putin, and disparaged NATO and Ukraine’s leadership. In posts linked to Russia, Harris is regularly denigrated by saying that she ignores the pleas from storm victims. In contrast, a post by the Russian state-owned media company RT referred to Trump as “a mystical character of historic proportions.”

Officials from the Intelligence Community confirmed on Tuesday that Russia had created a manipulated YouTube video to malign Harris’ running mate and Minnesota Governor. Tim Walz.

Russia has denied claims that it is trying to interfere in the U.S. elections. The Russian Embassy did not respond to messages sent this week asking for comment on recent allegations made by researchers and intelligence officers.

Researchers at ISD discovered that Russian disinformation agents used weak content moderation to spread their content on U.S. owned social media platforms like X. Elon Musk purchased Twitter and renamed it to X. Twitter used to require labels on all content coming from state-controlled media. Musk removed this rule and weakened the platform’s efforts to moderate content, leading to an increase in hate speech, foreign propaganda and extremist recruitment.

Oft, the false or misleading statements come from fake websites or accounts that imitate Americans or other legitimate news sources. It is difficult to determine where they really came from. The content is then shared by unsuspecting Americans.

In July, American officials warned that “unwitting Americans”, who were doing Russia’s dirty work, had been assisting it.

Massive armies of automated or fake accounts spread the material.

Researchers from the Israeli tech company Cyabra analyzed posts that were popular on X and criticized FEMA’s storm response. One-quarter of the popular responses were fake. A large number of posts could not be verified to belong to a genuine person. Over half a billion users viewed the posts.

A spokesperson for X responded by pointing to the system of the platform that allows users context to false posts. The company didn’t respond to any questions regarding its labeling policy.

The report by Cyabra researchers stated that “False claims” such as FEMA diverting money to help migrants or conspiracy theories regarding weather manipulation undermine the public’s trust in government, and could have a serious impact on voter confidence.

Politicians have also helped to spread Russia’s talking point.

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) gave an interview to Sputnik News, the Russian state news outlet, for a piece which criticized the hurricane response. He told Sputnik the federal response to the hurricane was “nonexistent.” This claim is easily disproven by images and videos of FEMA workers and first-hand accounts from local leaders and residents of hard-hit areas.

Gosar repeated a second false claim, claiming that “billions” of FEMA funds had been used to give money to immigrants who did not have legal status. Money that pays for U.S. immigration and border control programs is a separate source from disaster funds.

The Gosar office did not return messages Wednesday seeking comment.