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Russian extremists can simply exploit their ties with white nationalist teams in the United States to encourage violence around the presidential election, terrorism experts told Business Insider.
They warned that Russia’s influence with white nationalists in the United States was increasing and that Russian propaganda and misinformation directed at extremists that progressives are conspiring to borrow elections can simply motivate violence.
Fear of violence on Election Day is already having consequences. State officials are in favor of potential violence, as are corporations like Facebook, which has an emergency plan to curb incendiary content.
Experts Business Insider spoke to said Russian extremists, with the Kremlin’s prompt approval, can simply seek to exploit existing tensions to turn into violence.
“Russia needs chaos and violence to serve that, violence divides, violence reduces acceptance as true in institutions,” Daniel Byman, senior foreign policy researcher at the Brookings Institute, said in an interview with Business Insider.
Jason Blazakis, a professor of terrorism studies at the Middlebury Institute in California, said Russia will “ignite the fuse” of American white supremacy.
Blazakis told Business Insider: “It is in the strategic interest for the Russian Federation to create a politically volatile United States. Cyberinformation and misinformation efforts directed to the radical right in the United States remain a component of the toolkit, a set of tools used to remove darkness from the white supremacist fuse. “
The 2020 presidential election is the most debatable in recent history. President Donald Trump has spread unfounded accusations that Democrats are conspiring to borrow elections and has been accused of encouraging far-right and white nationalist groups.
In turn, they were through the president’s anti-immigrant policies and his willingness to stoke white complaints.
So-called far-right militias would heed Trump’s call for supporters to monitor polling stations.
One such team is accused of conspiring to kidnap and assassinate Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. FBI leader Christopher Wray, testifying before Congress in September, warned that racist extremists are the biggest urgent national terrorist risk in the United States.
For years, ties have been forged between the white nationalist teams of the United States and Russia, experts said. American extremists have long noticed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a bulwark opposed to what they see as the forces of decadent liberalism. , one of the organizers of the 2017 White Nationalist Rally in Charlottesville, described Putin in 2017 as “the leader of the loose world. “
Alex Newhouse, who studies white nationalist online propaganda in Middlebury, said the reverence white American nationalists feel for Russia exposes them to manipulation.
“One of the scariest portions of advances in the data area and in the area of extremism over the more than five years is the slow, significant but slow construction of pro-Russian sentiment among white American nationalist groups,” he said.
“And it’s a very express trend that wants to be addressed, because it opens them up to influence and manipulation. “
The relationship between Putin’s Russia and the resurgence of White American nationalists goes beyond expressions of admiration or ideological affinity: experts say teams have been building alliances for years to shape a foreign white nationalist movement.
One is the Imperial Russian Movement (MRI), which in April was the first white nationalist organization to be designated as a terrorist organization through the U. S. State Department.
Operating outdoor paramilitary education camps in St. Petersburg, the organization aims to restore the ancient Russian Tsarist empire. According CounterExtremism. com, the organization blames Western culture for “destroying the circle of healthy family members and ethical values” through “abortion, propaganda of debauchery and acceptance of sexual perversions. “
Heimbach, the organizer of Charlottesville, met with MRI leaders after the demonstration. They had traveled to the United States to negotiate alliances with white nationalist extremists. Heimbach told Think Progress at the time that movements shared a commitment to “conservative, non-secular reactionary politics. “renewal and nationalist principles. “
Blazakis, the academic, said: “The RIM has worked hand in hand with white supremacists in America.
“They invited far-right ideologists in the United States to meetings to exchange concepts and know-how. There have long been efforts among U. S. extremists. MRI to coordinate messages. This is emblematic of the transnational nature of the MRI. “
Heimbach claimed in April that he had renounced white nationalism and that his Traditional Workers’ Party collapsed. Business Insider might not succeed in Heimbach to comment. A source that monitors teams against extremists told Business Insider that it maintains a low profile.
In Europe, neo-Nazi extremists are known to have won in the RIM camps, where the Russians have been trained to fight in Ukraine and Libya, according to the Warsaw Institute’s Russia Monitor project.
Two members of the Neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement in 2016 and 2017 bombed a left-wing café and refugee centre in Sweden and attempted to bomb a camp that housed refugees. They were reportedly trained in an open-air RIM camp in St. Petersburg, according to Swedish prosecutors.
The organization has also forged links with extremists in Poland, Spain, Bulgaria and Austria in far-right meetings and conferences. The German government told Focus mag in June that two neo-Nazis had supported RIM in camps in Russia, the State Department said. referred to “assaults on forests and cities, tactical weapons and hand-to-hand combat”
Blazakis said the RIM works with the blessing of Russian officials, even if they disagree.
“I that the Russian Federation, at the very least, implicitly supports RIM. RIM operates shelters and educational camps in the Russian Federation and does so with impunity. These educational grounds have been a vital way for far-right extremists to train,” he said.
Elizabeth Grimm, an associate professor at Georgetown School of Foreign Service, told Business Insider that supporting extremists is a means through which “Russia seeks to sow discord in liberal democracies within countries. “
“By highlighting the divisions and hatreds that already exist in societies (including, but not limited to the United States and Europe), Russia is moving forward in its purpose of undermining the liberal order while maintaining a credible denial of those efforts. “
Another recent case seems to show a direct link between Russian intelligence agencies and extremism in the United States.
In January, the Guardian reported that an alleged member of the neo-Nazi organization The Base had told investigators that he believed in the organization’s leader, Rinaldo Nazzaro, a Russian agent.
Law enforcement resources supported man’s assertion.
In the feverish environment leading to the U. S. election, Russian extremists have the opportunity to exploit their growing influence over white American nationalists.
This can be exploited, Grimm and Blazakis say, through connections formed in far-right education and conference fields, or by spreading racist conspiracy theories and incorrect election information on social media.
Grimm said that prior to their classification as a terrorist group, RIM had conducted an operation on social media, spreading racist propaganda and English conspiracy theories on YouTube and Facebook.
Since the designation, social media corporations have taken steps to eliminate their channels, but the organization maintains an active presence on Russian social networks VK and the encrypted messaging app Telegram.
A study conducted by the Middlebury Institute earlier this year found that RIM disseminates COVID-19 misinformation and anti-LGBTQ and anti-friendly propaganda.
Reports indicate that many extremists who have been expelled from major social media platforms have migrated to Russian platforms, adding citizens of the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany.
Blazakis also highlighted the role of the Russian state in strengthening the QAnon conspiracy theory, the extensive online motion that believes “deep state” agents are conspiring against Trump. The plot has encouraged violent crimes through several fanatics and is supported by some Republican candidates.
Newhouse said his had revealed that QAnon’s rhetoric “quickly merges with anti-Semitic and supremacist white rhetoric on major social media platforms and Russian-speaking communities. “Last year, the non-profit civil rights organization, Southern Poverty Law Center, discovered a development overlap between the propaganda of so-called militias and QAnon.
In extremist forums, ties between white nationalists in Russia and the United States are widespread, he said.
He cited leaks of knowledge from the Iron March’s white supremacy forum that showed “fair patterns of cross-pollination and contact, so to speak, between White American nationalists, white supremacists and Russian and Ukrainian white nationalists and white supremacists. “
The Trump administration’s reaction to these threats has been un systematic.
In early September, a National Security Department (DHS) whistleblower said Trump had told analysts to minimize Russia’s risk and white nationalist extremism.
The State Department has referred Business Insider to the FBI to comment on the combined risk posed by white nationalist extremists and Russia. The FBI declined to comment. DHS responded to a request for comment.
President Trump’s persistent reluctance to condemn white nationalist teams has been interpreted by extremists as a call to action, and the president publicly smeared FBI Director Wray for addressing the risk posed by Russian interference in his testimony to Congress.
While Biden has been leading the polls lately, Byman said Russia is making a big bet on white nationalists, a bet that could be counterproductive if an atrocity through a far-right extremist was related to Russia or any of the white nationalist groups. within their borders.
“What if we notice that an individual has been provoked by something similar to Russia?Or is Russia guilty of the deaths of several Americans?”
“I think Russia is playing with fire, and under Trump, it hasn’t been a big deal, because it minimized it. But under a classic Republican or like Joe Biden, that would be much more important. “