The report builds on previous concerns the US has had about Russian interference in the upcoming election. Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two Russian state media employees in an alleged scheme to secretly fund and influence a network of right-wing influencers.

Russia-linked actors have spent several months seeking to manipulate American perspectives with covert postings, but until this point, their efforts saw little traction. Notably, some of the recent examples cited in the Microsoft report received significant social media engagement from unwitting Americans who shared the fake stories with outrage.

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“As the election approaches, people get more heated,” Clint Watts, general manager of the Microsoft Threat Analysis Centre said in an interview. “People tend to take in information from sources they don’t really know or wouldn’t even know to evaluate.”

Microsoft explained that the video blaming Harris for a fake hit-and-run incident came from a Russian-aligned influence network it calls Storm-1516, which other researchers refer to as CopyCop. The video, whose main character is played by an actor, is typical of the group’s efforts to react to current events with authentic-seeming “whistleblower” accounts that may seem like juicy unreported news to US voters, the company said.

The report revealed a second video disseminated by the group, which purported to show two black men beating up a bloodied white woman at a rally for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. The video racked up thousands of shares on the Elon Musk-owned social platform X and elicited comments like, “This is the kind of stuff to start civil wars”.

Microsoft’s report also pointed to another Russian influence actor it calls Storm-1679 that has recently pivoted from posting about the French election and the Paris Olympics to posting about Harris. Earlier this month, the group posted a manipulated video depicting a Times Square billboard that linked Harris to gender-affirming surgeries.

The content highlighted in the report doesn’t appear to use generative artificial intelligence tools. It instead uses actors and more old-school editing techniques.

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Watts said Microsoft has been tracking the use of AI by nation states for more than a year and while foreign actors tried AI initially, many have gone back to basics as they’ve realised AI was “probably more time-consuming and not more effective”.

Asked about Russia’s motivation, Watts said the Russia-aligned groups Microsoft tracks may not necessarily support particular candidates, but they are motivated to undermine anyone who “is supporting Ukraine in their policy”.

Harris has vowed to continue supporting America’s ally Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion if elected president. Trump has demurred when asked about whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, saying in the recent presidential debate, “I want the war to stop”.

At a forum in early September, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to suggest jokingly that he would support Harris in the upcoming US election. Intelligence officials have said Moscow prefers Trump.

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The Harris campaign declined to comment. The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

Earlier this northern summer, Microsoft found that Iranian groups have also been laying the groundwork to stoke division in the election by creating fake news sites, impersonating activists and targeting a presidential campaign with an email phishing attack.

US intelligence officials are preparing criminal charges in connection with that attack, which targeted the Trump campaign, two people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

Microsoft’s new report also touches on how a Chinese-linked influence actor has used short-form video to criticise Biden and Harris and to create anti-Trump content, suggesting it doesn’t appear interested in supporting a particular candidate.

Instead, the company said, the China-aligned group’s apparent goal is to “seed doubt and confusion among American voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election”.

AP