U.S. intelligence assessments have determined that the Kremlin has approved a new covert digital influence operation aimed at undermining public confidence in the midterm elections of November 2026, according to recent revelations from the New York Times with statements from officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The campaign uses videos generated with artificial intelligence that impersonate the image of Hollywood celebrities and disguise themselves as content from major media outlets such as CNN, BBC, and the New York Times, with the aim of attacking Democratic candidates in key states where Senate seats are contested.
Graphika, a company specializing in digital threat analysis, attributed the operation to a network connected to the Kremlin known as Operation Overload or Matryoshka, which typically impersonates real media to spread fabricated content.
In two separate waves during the week of September 14, that network published videos on X and BlueSky targeting Democratic candidates in tight races, including Jon Ossoff (Georgia), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Roy Cooper (North Carolina), Troy Jackson (Maine), Chris Pappas (New Hampshire), Mary Peltola (Alaska), Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan), James Talarico (Texas), and Joshua Turek (Iowa).
One of the videos impersonated the New York Times using an image of actress Jamie Lee Curtis with subtitles presenting her as criticizing Democratic policies on transgender rights. The actress's publicist, Heidi Schaeffer, was blunt: “There isn’t a shred of truth to this.” The video garnered nearly 200,000 views on X in just one day.
Intelligence officials indicated that the main objective of the Russian campaign is to sow chaos rather than to favor a specific party, although all documented examples so far exclusively target Democratic candidates in contested states.
The current campaign is described as less extensive than some previous efforts by the Kremlin, partly because Moscow is preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and regards the midterm elections as less of a priority than the presidential elections.
Nevertheless, since 2016 Russia has conducted influence operations in every U.S. federal election cycle, according to previously declassified assessments.
Jean Le Roux, senior researcher at Graphika, warned that content aimed at the U.S. emerged right after the elections in Germany and Sweden concluded, suggesting a pattern of geographic shift. "We definitely expect this to escalate," he said. "I don't think they are going to stop. We are witnessing the initial kickoff of the campaign focused on the U.S. elections."
The context is particularly revealing: while Russia deploys this machinery of disinformation against American democracy, Vladimir Putin's party, United Russia, has just declared itself the winner of its own legislative elections held between September 18 and 21, with 57.8% of the votes and 355 out of 450 seats in the State Duma, according to the Russian Central Electoral Commission.
These elections were widely denounced as fraudulent, according to an investigation by The Kyiv Independent: the OSCE was not invited to observe, the only registered anti-war party, Yabloko, was excluded from the contest, and irregularities were documented, including ballot stuffing, manipulation of records, and a lack of transparency in electronic voting. The European Union described the process as a "sham."
Russia is not the only adversary of Washington focused on the midterms. U.S. intelligence also points to Iran—at war with the U.S. since February 2026—as a possible actor in influence operations, although with less documented activity.
In August, Meta identified a small network of Iranian-origin accounts on Facebook and Instagram featuring content generated by artificial intelligence and "anti-Republican" messages. China, for its part, may act against congressional members that Beijing considers adversaries, although analysts estimate that it will likely refrain from doing so out of fear of retaliation.
The link between Russia and Cuba in this disinformation ecosystem is not new either: Russia has trained over 1,000 Latin American influencers, including Cubans, through the RT CompaRTe program, and RT has been broadcast on Cuban state television since 2020.
Midterm elections will be held on November 3, 2026, with 35 Senate seats and the entire House of Representatives at stake. Le Roux left no doubt about what lies ahead: "I don't think they will stop."
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