Thread by @_JakubJanda

RUSSIAN INFLUENCE & SWEDISH ELECTIONS:

Swedish elections are happening now and there has been very little in-depth know how on Russian/disinformation activities are operating, I have talked to my trusted contacts in Swedish security institutions and this is how how it looks:

Sweden has been preparing for the 2018 elections for almost two years. They have studied pretty much every relevant election abroad, and especially the ones that have been tampered with by Russia. What seems to mitigate the Russian chances:

-Sweden’s declaration of intent at an early stage to identify and engage any foreign meddling in our elections as well as reiteration of such statements

-Public and private attention to the risks of foreign meddling

-The establishment of an election task force composed of dozens of relevant agencies and actors in both the public and the private spheres to safeguard independent elections. The value of liaison and cooperation cannot be underestimated

MORE FOLLOWING:

-A robust and transparent electoral system, including paper ballots

-Limited Russian resources capable of communicating fluently in Swedish

-Other elections that require Russian attention, most notably the US midterms, the election in Latvia, and the coming elections in Bosnia

-Sweden has an insignificant Russian minority (less than 20 000)

-There is no pro-Russian party per se, but populist parties such as the Sweden Democrats

The Sweden Democrats are anti-EU and anti-NATO, which conforms to the main Russian agenda for the Nordic region (However, the fact that the leader of the Sweden Democrats, Jimmie Åkesson, couldn’t state which one of Macron and Putin was the most democratic leader seems bad

- Alternative for Sweden (AfS), very small right-fringe party = Kremlins political front organization in Sweden. The AfS leadership visited Moscow in June to hang out with Russians and right-wingers.

- AfS is also behind most of the bot activity. So I privately suspect that they may have attended a course or two while visiting Russia, but that is once again just a suspicion.

-The polarization within Swedish society would in all likelihood decrease if Russian or for that matter other foreign influence could be proven. This would probably just galvanize the Swedish population

MORE:

-Forest fires over the course of the summer led to much media attention being diverted to this calamity, and not focusing on the coming elections.

All of that being said, there are certain things that stick out:

-A rather well-coordinated campaign against the conservative party (Moderaterna) by the youth Nazi movement (Nordisk ungdom) using posters, pamphlets, fake websites, social media and even manifestations with Nazis dressed in the tennis shirts used by Moderaterna while campaigning

No real damage was done, but the mode of operations is noteworthy
-Extensive commenting from various forms of alt-right and right-wing extremists in Europe and the USA, including disinformation from for example Alex Jones

Right-fringe social media swamping various platforms, mainly Twitter. I have tried matching the various user names with known lists of Russian bots and trolls from the US, Ukraine and the Baltics, but there is not a single match.

This is homegrown, although the execution is similar to Russian bot activities in other elections. BTW, it be interesting to launch a comparative study of methodologies used for identifying bots. We have a bunch of different methodologies used by academia and state actors by now

-A Swedish exit from the European Union (“Swexit”) has been a recurring narrative in right-fringe communication, despite the fact that EU-support in Sweden is at an all-time high. This has been repeated and enhanced by alt-right and Russian English-language media

-Various radical Islamic groups with roots abroad have been advocating that Muslims should not vote in the Swedish elections, and there have also been cases of disinformation with such groups stating that certain parties with curtail the civil rights of Muslims

All in all, it seems to be certain that Russian target audience analysis of Sweden has improved quite a bit after observing Swedish elections.

This is a case where the Kremlin can sit back and eat the proverbial popcorn, although that would in all likelihood been different if the question of NATO-membership had been part of the 2018 electoral campaign.