FBI watching if US support for Ukraine will spur Russian risk taking in 2024 election
CNN
US intelligence officials are watching closely to see if the United States’ support for Ukraine will lead the Russian government to take more risks in potentially interfering in the 2024 presidential election, a senior FBI official told reporters Thursday.
US intelligence officials are watching closely to see if the United States’ support for Ukraine will lead the Russian government to take more risks in potentially interfering in the 2024 presidential election, a senior FBI official told reporters Thursday. FBI officials are concerned that the war in Ukraine – and President Joe Biden’s reliable backing of Kyiv – might be an “animating event for the Russians,” the FBI official said at a briefing with reporters about election security efforts. “We’re certainly… keeping our eye out to make sure that that’s not increasing [their] risk taking.” The FBI briefed reporters on the condition that the senior FBI officials not be named. A clear divide has emerged in US politics, with Democrats largely backing Biden’s financial and military support for Ukraine, and some leading Republicans, including former President Donald Trump and congressional GOP hardliners, increasingly backing away from the foreign aid. US officials are concerned that, with US military aid to Ukraine potentially on the line in the November election, Russia could be motivated to more aggressively meddle in the 2024 election than it did in 2020. But US officials have not publicly identified any examples of that happening yet. In the 2020 election, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to denigrate Biden, support Trump and undermine confidence in the US electoral process, according to a declassified US intelligence report. But Russia’s actions in 2020 weren’t as brazen or far-reaching as its hack-and-leak operations to help Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in 2016, according to US intelligence agencies.
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