On January 6, 2016, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) released an Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA): “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in the Recent US Elections.” The document is a declassified version of a highly classified assessment provided to the President by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the National Security Agency (NSA).
According to the Assessment, “Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goal were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process…” The influence campaign consisted in a messaging strategy that used “covert intelligence operations – such as cyber activity” with other overt efforts concerning social media.
According to this source, Russia has already used hackers to influence election results in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, France and Austria.
The report assesses that Moscow “will apply lessons learned from its Putin-ordered campaign aimed at the US presidential election to future influence efforts worldwide, including against US allies and their election process”.
The full text of the ICA is available at http://apps.washingtonpost.com…
For more information, Francesca Giannoni-Crystal and Federica Romanelli.
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