Russian Intelligence Operations Tied to Decrease in US Support for Ukraine

Stephen Humphreys examines a recently declassified National Intelligence Council report and finds that Russian interference in the 2022 mid-term elections has had serious consequences for Ukraine.

Senator Tommy Tuberville and US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, both Trump allies have been accused of parroting Kremlin narratives, Washington DC, 29 November 2023. Photo by Rod Lamkey/Abaca Press/Alamy

A recently declassified US intelligence report shows a direct correlation between the current impasse in Congress on aid to Ukraine and Russian intelligence operations. The US intelligence report also makes a direct connection between the Russian influence operation against Ukraine in the US, intended to affect the 2022 midterm elections, and the actions of Russian military commanders in the field. Arguably, the Russian influence operation, which partly consisted of manipulation of information from the battlefield at Kherson, turned Russia’s most ignominious defeat into its biggest victory of the war – as the House Republicans elected in 2022 blocked further aid to Ukraine in 2023.

This Russian intelligence success also signals a complete reversal of the Reagan Doctrine of opposition to Moscow’s attacks on the West, as the US Republican Party now aligns itself with Kremlin policy in cooperation with Russian war aims in Ukraine, a position that was unthinkable for Republicans during the Cold War of 1945-1991.