Project Lakhta

By all accounts, it was a carefully calibrated initiative to interfere in the electoral outcome. Strategies were developed and “guidance” provided to those with conservative and liberal viewpoints as well as particular social groups. The complaint by the Justice Department does not accuse Liftshits or other Project Lakhta members of promoting a particular presidential candidate in Election 2020. Many of these social media posts were entered early in Trump’s first term, well before Joe Biden had emerged as the presidential nominee of the Democrats. One such post referred to the 2018 Midterms as “motivated”. It is pretty obvious from the complaint that the influence operations have persisted. It has underlined contentious issues, such as race relations, that have over the past few years ripped America’s social fabric. The plot thickens with the disclosure that Lifshits was one of four persons mentioned by the Treasury Department regarded by the US government as an active Russian agent for over a decade.