The tentacles are short – Kommersant newspaper No. 169 (7370) of 09/14/2022

The Interim Commission of the Federation Council for the Protection of State Sovereignty and Prevention of Interference in the Internal Affairs of the Country on Tuesday analyzed the results of regional elections in Russia. Senators and public activists concluded that the electoral system survived “unprecedented attempts” of pressure from abroad, but at the same time “was not even shaken.” Nevertheless, they called for preparations for the interference of the “tentacles of the State Department” in the “expected referendums” in Ukraine, the regional elections in 2023, and even in the future presidential campaign, proposing a number of non-trivial solutions, for example, introducing penalties for spoiling ballots.

The pretentious tone of the meeting was set by the chairman of the commission Andrey Klimov, who stated that elections took place “against the background of an acute phase of the total hybrid war of the so-called collective West against our Fatherland”, and the goal of the “enemies” was no longer just a change of power in the Russian Federation, but its “collapse into a number of territories.” He called it no coincidence that the day before the start of voting, the “notorious Forum of Friends of European Russia” in the European Parliament, whose participants advocated the presence of foreign observers in the elections, was not accidental. “More precisely, the guards,” the senator specified. “Our future, from the point of view of anti-Russian circles, we cannot be trusted.”

According to Mr. Klimov, foreign interference in the electoral process manifested itself in the form of threatening calls to members of election commissions, false mines, illegal campaigning through foreign media agents, the spread of fakes, cyberattacks, etc. But everything was in vain: “the state and society turned out to be ready for similar challenges,” he reported.

As a result, the elections were “calm and civilized”, providing the constitutional principle of democracy, which “enemies” could learn from, the senator concluded.

Igor Borisov, a member of the Central Election Commission, spoke next, saying that our “individual politicians” during this campaign were “sitting on their hands”, waiting for the West to “ensure the result in the elections”, because so much money is being spent on this “hopeless” intervention. According to him, during the campaign, more than 29,000 “potentially dangerous impacts of a high degree of criticality” and 94 DDoS attacks on the electronic resources of the CEC were recorded. But “the electoral system was not hacked and not even shaken,” despite unprecedented attempts, Mr. Borisov triumphantly stated.

Over the past year, the number of foreign agents that form the prevailing mass of “negative content” about the elections has increased by more than 2.5 times, the CEC member continued. At the forefront of the “manipulatory movement” that spreads “misinformation and false interpretation of facts” stands “Voice” (included in the register of foreign agents) with its “map of violations”, explained Igor Borisov, “with a high degree of probability it can be argued that this map is fully moderated from abroad.” He thanked the voters “whose knowledge and experience make it possible to separate the wheat from the chaff,” and expressed confidence that in the next elections, “society will perceive Western projects such as the “maps of violations” and similar tentacles of the State Department as toxically as propaganda of unconventional values. “.

Member of the Civic Chamber Maxim Grigoriev spoke about calls to attack polling stations that sounded online – “the centers of psychological special operations of Ukraine were directly involved in this, they do not hide it.” Alexander Brod, a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, added that in a number of regions, “perhaps a deliberate provocation” took place: voters spoiled ballots and distributed their photos on social networks (that “damage” was usually expressed in writing anti-war slogans, a member of the HRC delicately silent). Mr. Brod found a non-trivial solution to this problem by suggesting that legislators introduce administrative liability for deliberately damaging a ballot and inciting it.

Finally, Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov called erroneous the opinion that since everything went smoothly, it means that the “enemies” changed their minds about interfering in the sovereign affairs of Russia. On the contrary, it is “we coped with the existing challenges with dignity,” he assured. “The unprecedented foreign policy, information-propaganda, psychological, military-technical and financial-economic pressure did not work,” the senator said, not without hesitation. He stressed that unfriendly countries stepped up funding for “anti-Russian programs”, thanks to which they managed to double the subscriber base on “subversive resources”.

Taking the opportunity, Mr. Dzhabarov anticipated attempts to discredit the “expected referendums in the territories liberated from American dictates” of Ukraine, as well as the Russian presidential election in 2024. “Obviously, today’s Russia can only be destroyed from within with the help of those who betrayed their Fatherland and became a pawn in the hands of our overseas enemies,” he concluded pathetically.

The head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, is not inclined to dramatize the problem of foreign interference in Russian elections.

Foreign critics proceed from the stereotype that the issue of power in the Russian Federation is not decided in elections, and therefore they do not show much attention to them, the expert explains.

“Interest is heightened if the elections are accompanied by turbulence, which was not observed in 2022,” he notes. According to Mr. Vinogradov, supporters of the thesis of foreign interference proceed from the fact that there are no internal contradictions either in Russia or in the countries where the “orange revolutions” take place, and all conflicts are a projection of external influence. “Some of the adherents of this thesis may even sincerely believe in it,” the political scientist sums up.

Andrew Ashes