Russia's Election Interference Went as Well as Their War in Ukraine

Pro-Kremlin figures in Russia might have to rethink their boasts about Moscow's ability to shape American politics after an anticipated red wave in this week's midterm elections failed to materialize.

Russian state media were rooting for significant Republican gains in the hope that the party could shift the dial on U.S. policy towards the war in Ukraine. Vladimir Solovyov started his radio show Full Contact (Polny Contakt) on Tuesday by saying, "Happy interference in the U.S. elections day."

Given the GOP's rhetoric on the campaign trail, supporters of Ukraine feared that U.S. aid to Kyiv could be affected if the Republicans took the House and Senate by a big majority, thus helping Russian President Vladimir Putin in his invasion.

But as of Thursday, it looks like the Republicans will only win a narrow majority in the House while the Democrats will likely retain their majority in the Senate, in the Democrat's best midterm election result since 1998.

"It appears that Russia was not able to strongly influence U.S. politics in this election as previously believed," Mark Temnycky, a Ukrainian-American who is a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, told Newsweek.

If Moscow wanted a GOP-dominated Congress, Wednesday saw it dealt a double dose of bad news. Solovyev said on the Russia-1 channel that the midterms, which were going to be the focus of his nightly show, had been overshadowed by Russia's retreat from Kherson.

Earlier in the week, another Putin ally, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who founded the Wagner mercenary group that is fighting in Ukraine, said Russia had previously interfered in U.S. elections "carefully" and "surgically," without specifying further.

Elizabeth Van Wie Davis, author of Shadow Warfare: Cyberwar Policy in the United States, Russia, and China, said that ever since Prigozhin was indicted by a U.S. grand jury in 2018, along with 13 Russian companies, Moscow's interference in the U.S. electoral process "ebbs and flows but has not ceased."

"Since Prigozhin is in charge of several of the largest disinformation factories, it is fair to assume that this is what he was talking about in the recent pre-election comments," she told Newsweek. "So even bragging about interference helps further the goals of the disinformation campaign."

The indictment against Prigozhin unveiled a sophisticated network designed to subvert the 2016 election and to support the campaign of former president Donald Trump, who was described in August by another Russian state anchor, and Russian MP, Evgeny Popov, as "our candidate."

In January 2017, a U.S. intelligence report warned that Russian intelligence had accessed parts of "multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards."

Davis said as Moscow tries to push negative economic news about the U.S. and cast doubt on the voting process, "the real issue is the massive disinformation campaign that targets Americans daily."

"The purpose of the disinformation is even more effective from a Russian perspective—it intends to destabilize the American populace, make people afraid, and hurt the overall civic structure," added Davis, a professor of humanities at Colorado School of Mines.

As of Thursday afternoon, Democrats had won 48 Senate seats and the Republicans took 49, with control of the chamber to be decided by outstanding contests in Arizona and Nevada, as well as a run-off in Georgia.

But Davis said that Russia's long-term strategy, "isn't necessarily just to flip specific elections, but to cause discord and make the United States both internationally and nationally whether their electoral processes are fair and good."

"From a Russian perspective, I would argue this is much more important in this long game," she added.

Meanwhile, Kyiv is confident that the pro-Ukraine Republicans and Democrats will continue to introduce legislation and policy to support Ukraine whatever the final results of the midterms.

"I don't believe support for Ukraine is conditional on either party winning. Support for Ukraine is conditional on public support," Ukrainian MP Maryan Zablotskyy told Newsweek.

"Americans overwhelmingly support Ukraine in its fight for freedom. (President) Volodymyr Zelensky managed to consolidate enormous public support," he said.

"As long as Zelensky leads the gathering of support for our military, we have nothing to worry about. He will win the informational war with Putin hands down any time anywhere."