One of the biggest challenges for Donald Trump is the question of the possible meddling of Russian special services in the midterm elections to the U.S. Congress, which will take place in November this year.
Amid Robert Mueller's ongoing Russia collusion probe, the Kremlin will once again provoke two opposing camps in the U.S. politics to yet another round of conflict, aiming to undermine political stability from the inside and create an atmosphere of institutional mistrust, Information Resistance OSINT experts noted in their report.
Moreover, this could cast doubt on Washington's credibility among European and Asian partners, the analysts say.
At the moment, Russian special services, using certain political figures, created around the U.S. president the halo of an "insider man", which later turned into a propaganda slogan "Our Trump".
From the very start, Russia's key task was not only to ensure that a loyal president was elected, which was rather unrealistic, given the system of "checks and balances," but to create an internal political crisis for the future period that over time will only worsen, only to distract Washington from focusing on international problems generated by the Kremlin.
Read alsoRFE/RL: White House says U.S. still rejects Russia's annexation of Crimea
Speaking of possible Russia meddling in the future, ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson once said: "I would not say that we are better prepared, because the Russians are adapting also. The fact is that if they intend to meddle, they will find a way to do it. We can take action, but if they decide that they will do it, then preventing it will be very difficult".
This is logical because it is rather difficult to calculate how exactly and with whose assistance the Russian intelligence community will operate in the U.S. territory.
However, it is possible to single out individual signals indicating active preparations for such meddling.
Now, the Kremlin is making efforts to discredit Trump, again, using the same old schemes: the Kremlin creates fictitious situations portraying Trump in a negative way, making the American president once again look like someone "promoting Moscow's interests", the kind of image now being created ahead of the upcoming Helsinki Summit.
It should be recalled that in June 15, 2018, the American edition of BuzzFeed, known for publishing a fake report by a former MI6 operative Christopher Steele on Trump's Kremlin links, published an article stating that during the G7 summit Trump allegedly said that Crimea is Russian because the majority of the population there speaks Russian.
However, the thing is that the U.S. president did not speak at the G-7 summit about the "Russian" Crimea, IR says. He later even blamed Obama for allowing Putin to annex the peninsula.
Then came the reports that Donald Trump, answering a journalist's question about his readiness to recognize Crimea as part of Russia during the talks with Putin, said: “We’re going to have to see".
Read alsoBolton says he discussed Russia's annexation of Crimea with Putin in Moscow
Later, the speaker of the White House, Sarah Sanders, confirmed that Trump never stated this. "We do not recognize the attempt of Russia to annex Crimea. Our sanctions against Russia for the Crimea will remain in force until Russia returns the peninsula to Ukraine," she noted. According to the spokeswoman, the U.S. and Russia "agreed to disagree" on the issue.
And it would be illogical if the president, who earlier decided to toughen sanctions against the aggressor state, would suddenly decide to turn a blind eye to Crimea.
Apparently, someone is trying to show that Trump is ready to surrender the interests of the U.S. and its partners to Russia. It is this image that the Kremlin is shaping up in the mass consciousness of Americans and around the world.
Such fabrications are part of Russia's subversive strategy targeting the U.S., dating back to the DNC hack, setting up Americans against each other on social networks by creating fictitious organizations and holding fictitious rallies, allegedly in support of Trump or against Clinton.
In other words, neither the United States nor the European Union should harbor hope that the Helsinki Summit will bring reconciliation. In fact, it may mark the start of Russia's new aggressive campaign. And this battle will be much more threatening than the previous one.
