It was 1:11 a.m. Moscow time when twenty-year-old a gunman in Butler, Pennsylvania, carried out an assassination attempt on former President Trump. The late hour somewhat dampened the enthusiasm of pro-Kremlin propagandists, influencers and apparatchiks. When most Russians awoke, they were met with a sea of reporting and commentary that conflated American conspiracism with distinctly Russian goals and interests, writes the Atlantic Council.
These early accounts provide a fascinating look at the Russian media ecosystem in action. They also suggest how and where Russian influence efforts might be focused in the coming weeks.
High-level official Russian sources quickly chimed in and expanded the hyper-partisan speculation that flooded US social media alongside news of the assassination attempt. On Telegram, the ecosystem of pro-Kremlin figures and war bloggers took things a step further, engaging in wild American speculation about the would-be assassin's training and motivations and attempting to tie some sort of conspiracy to continued US support for Ukraine.
While this coverage was not monolithic, it focused on several key themes. It was the supposed "dangerous" President Biden's rhetoric; complicity or conspiracy by the US Secret Service (due, according to some bloggers, to the existence of a global conspiracy to assassinate the US); and the inevitability of a second American Civil War. In some cases, Russian influencers have struggled to balance their sympathy for Trump with their more general disdain for the United States. Generally, these pro-Russian voices tried to tie the assassination attempt to Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine.
At the time of publication, DFRLab has not identified any large-scale malicious influence campaigns by pro-Russian actors seeking to take advantage of this event. This is not surprising. In many cases, such targeted efforts to manipulate information exploiting extraordinary news events take root after global attention has drifted away. DFRLab also identified several cases where Russian actors sought to create genuinely new narratives. Given the volume and intensity of speculation on US social media, there wasn't even that much need.
Official Russian sources open the door to conspiracies
Among the first representatives of the Kremlin to comment on the assassination attempt was Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. In his remarks, which were circulated in pro-Kremlin media, Peskov accused the Biden administration of creating the atmosphere that led to the attack. "We do not believe that the attempt to eliminate and kill Trump was organized by the current authorities," he said. "But the atmosphere surrounding candidate Trump... provokes what America is facing today."
After distancing himself from the idea that the plot was a US government plot, Peskov hinted that it might actually be a US government plot. "After numerous attempts to remove candidate Trump from the political arena, using the first legal tools, courts, prosecutors, attempts to politically discredit and compromise the candidate, it was obvious to all outside observers that his life was in danger," he added. he.
Soon after, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took to Telegram and reflected to her nearly 500,000 subscribers on the 1968 assassination of US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the security gaps that appear to link the two the case. She suggested that this was the almost inevitable result of US aid to Ukraine as terrorism returned to US shores from this "killing machine".
Russian political commentator Igor Dimitriev, a former Odessa city councilman, said US political rhetoric plays into the hands of a lone wolf shooter looking for an opportunity to make a name for himself. "I am far from thinking that malicious intelligence agencies are devising operations to eliminate recalcitrant leaders of states," he wrote. "No, I guess it doesn't work that way. It's just that the media and political pundits are creating a situation where crazy people get excited, stay awake at night and dream of ridding the world of a particular dictator. Some of the lunatics will find a gun and decide to commit a murder for which they have been given moral credit by the rulers of their minds."
Speculation by other semi-official Russian sources blurred the line between irresponsible rhetoric and conspiracy. "The shooting is a direct consequence of years of dehumanization of the Republican by his Democratic Party opponents," commented Valentin Bogdanov, New York bureau chief of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK). "Biden's entire campaign (so far) has been built on the idea that Trump is an absolute evil who cannot be allowed into the White House at any cost. Sooner or later there was going to be someone who thought it was Trump's life at any cost. There should have been. And they did."
Pul N3, a popular Russian Telegram channel administered by Dmitry Smirnov of Komsomolskaya Pravda, shared a video of former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich discussing the assassination attempt. "Trump has been vilified by Joe Biden, the Democrats and the left wing more than any president since Abraham Lincoln," he translated Gingrich's words. "And it was a political act. It was a deliberate act."
Down the rabbit hole
The wider network of pro-Russian channels on Telegram took on conspiracy theories circulating on American social media, adding their own permutations and peppering their analysis with anti-Ukrainian commentary. Other pro-Kremlin voices have weighed in on the sheer volume and intensity of American discourse on the subject, with some going so far as to suggest that it portends a second American civil war.
Colonelcassad, a popular military blogger on Telegram with more than 860,000 subscribers, highlighted President Biden's remarks from a July 8 fundraiser in which he stated: "I have one job and that is to defeat Donald Trump. I am absolutely sure that I am the best person to do this. So we're done talking about the debate, time to get Trump talking." As the Russian blogger added a zoomed-in photo of Trump's bloodied face to that quote, the implication was clear.
MIG Rossiya, an influential, pro-Russian military Telegram channel with more than 460,000 subscribers, compared photos from the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy to photos of the flying bullet that nearly killed former President Trump. It includes the caption "Two photos that have already made history". Telegram subscribers were left to ponder the deep web of conspiracy theories still swirling around the Kennedy assassination, even as a new generation of such theories took shape.
In another post, Troika, a pro-Russian channel with nearly 220,000 subscribers, shared a screenshot of an Instagram page purported to belong to the shooter, which included images of the Ukrainian flag and the caption in English: "WE STAND WITH UKRAINE." The image was, of course, a fake, one of numerous misleading photos and social media profiles that spread across the Internet in the hours before the killer was officially identified by law enforcement officials. That didn't stop it from spreading far on the Russian-language Telegram, to even bigger channels.
Some of the most prominent English-language comments by actors neighboring Russia sought to link the assassination attempt on Trump to the assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in May 2024. That incident sparked a storm of conspiracy theories about Western complicity and "dirty media" in the violence fueled by the Russian media (Fico is widely perceived as pro-Russian and Eurosceptic).
As news of the assassination attempt against Trump spread, so did comparisons to the events in Slovakia. The most prominent figure to draw such a parallel was Fico himself, who wrote a note in Slovak on Facebook in which he claimed that the assassination attempt on Trump followed a familiar script. He blamed Trump's political opponents, saying they had tried to "make the public so mad that some loser would pick up a gun.
Aussie Cossack, a pro-Russian propagandist with more than 60,000 followers on X, suggested it was all part of a plot to assassinate populist leaders seeking to prevent a World War and warned Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán would be next . Aussie Cossack is run by Simeon Boykov, an Australian citizen who routinely spreads viral lies and who was granted Russian citizenship last year after taking refuge in the Russian consulate in Sydney to avoid assault charges by local police.
Other Russian observers were more interested in the general conspiracies of the American public than in advancing a specific theory of their own. Kotsnews, a Telegram channel with nearly 570,000 subscribers run by Alexander Kots, a prominent Russian propagandist and Komsomolskaya Pravda contributor, mocked Americans for "drowning in conspiracy theories" while implying that the attack it may have been centrally planned.
At least a smarter point of view comes from the Russian writer and cultural critic Platon Besedin. "The reaction to the Trump shooting is telling," he wrote to his 11,000 Telegram subscribers. "It seems that the objective search for truth is finally a thing of the past. People write and broadcast exclusively what fits their perceptual paradigm. Step right, step left is a firing squad. So each camp will stick to the strictly canon version: the damn deep state / Trump did it all himself." Besedin also took the opportunity to promote one of his latest YouTube videos, a critical reflection on the 2024 Hollywood film Civil War, which imagines a future civil conflict and dystopia in the United States.
Indeed, the prospect of an American civil war is raised regularly by Russian bloggers, Russian agents of influence, and in Russian commentaries. Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the lower house of the Russian Duma, shared a stark assessment with his nearly 1.2 million subscribers on Telegram: "With its long-standing policy, the United States has allowed itself to literally come to the brink of civil war." He claims that a recent "sociological study" has pegged a 37 percent chance of civil war in the US in the event of Biden's re-election.
Russia-24 military correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny made similar claims to his more than 700,000 subscribers, saying that an assassination attempt on Trump could "plunge the United States into the abyss of civil war".
WTFMoldova?!, one of a network of anonymously run and highly visible Telegram channels flooding the Moldovan media with pro-Russian content, echoed that sentiment. "If the shooter had hit, then a civil war in the States would have been almost inevitable," a channel operator wrote to his nearly 10,000 subscribers. "We live in very interesting times."
Solidarity and bitterness
Some ends of the pro-Russian Telegram expressed solidarity and sympathy for Trump. Just sixty minutes after the assassination attempt, the hugely popular Miliblogging channel Operation Z shared an unusual image with its 1.5 million subscribers. It was a photo of a 152 mm howitzer shell purported to have been taken from the Russian front lines in the Ukrainian town of Chasov Yar. A message was scrawled on it: "For Trump's ear". It only took another thirty-four minutes for X influencer Aussie Cossack to translate and share this and other similar cannonball messages with his audience. For Americans following events on the platform formerly known as Twitter, this is likely to be among the first Russian-language messages they would see.
On several pro-Russian military channels, particularly those associated with the private military company Wagner, a defiant photo of Trump immediately after the assassination can be found superimposed against a Russian flag with the words: "The Russians will not surrender." The more general news and commentary-focused channel Pul N3 (more than 340,000 subscribers) shared a meme that expressed sympathy for Trump even as it condemned the United States. It featured Trump next to a number of other assassinated US presidents with a crosshair over his face. "True democracy," read the inscription.
Yet expressions of support for Trump have also been tinged with bitterness, particularly by those who closely monitor Russia's military efforts. On Telegram, milliblogger Andrey Medvedev warned his 185,000 subscribers that this news should not distract them from their focus on Ukraine, and that either a new Biden presidency or Trump would likely give aid to Ukraine.
There was also fear. Russia-24 Millblogger Yevgeny Poddubny reminded his 700,000 subscribers that an American civil war would benefit neither Russia nor China because the United States is a nuclear power and no one can predict who might end up at the helm "the red button". Daniil Beznosov, deputy information minister of the Russian-controlled Donetsk People's Republic, struck a cautious tone with his roughly 320,000 subscribers. "This assassination attempt suggests that those who now rule the Western world are deranged maniacs," he said. "If they are willing to kill their own presidents, then why are they unable to start a nuclear war? This is necessary and important to think about." Beznosov's message was forwarded through the Wagner ecosystem on Telegram.
Wagner channels also found black humor in the news. They cited Russian law that entitles wounded Russian soldiers to three million rubles. Some joked that he was unlucky to be wounded outside the territory of a so-called "special military operation" of Russia in Ukraine because it will not meet the requirements. Others - sharing memes and altered images - claimed he would still be eligible.
Opportunism in action
In June 2024, the Washington Post reported on leaked Kremlin documents that revealed a vast Russian operation to interfere with the outcome of the European Parliament elections. At the center of these efforts was Viktor Medvedchuk, who presents himself as a "Ukrainian opposition figure" but serves as a Russian puppet. Medvedchuk had helped lead efforts to raise the profile of European politicians opposed to Ukrainian aid and cast himself as the leader of a viable government-in-exile.
Shortly after the assassination attempt on Trump, Medvedchuk appears to have turned his attention to the United States. On July 16, the Russian propaganda agency TASS published an English-language story about a letter sent to Trump by Viktor Medvedchuk. In the letter, he claims that Trump's stated intention to seek an end to the conflict has angered both the "Nazi regime" and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and "his American sponsors from the Biden administration." Medvedchuk continued: "I think a Ukrainian connection may appear in the case of attempted murder.
At least in the pro-Russian Telegram, the "obvious" ties between Ukraine and the assassination attempt on Trump.