Hybrid challenges to democracy: some cases of Russia’s foreign interference in elections

Abstract

Contemporaneous wars are subjected to some profound changes regarding applied means and sometimes goals of the confronting parties. It is becoming clear with the cases of special operations, launched by Russia against its strategic rivalries and countries, which have been proclaimed by the latter sphere of Russia’s geopolitical interests. Kremlin tries to undermine the electoral process and distort their results. They serve very important tools of Russia’s actual policy. For instance, they aim at distortion of the election agenda settings, spreading fake news and false perception of main topics for a public discourse into targeted countries. USA, France, Great Britain seem to be only a few examples of those actions.  Most of all, the vulnerability towards Russia’s interference into democratic elections are attributed with Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and some other post-soviet counties. The article characterizes some cases of such intrusion and points out at the urgent necessity to set in forth counter-policy against this kind of the interference.