Javier Vrox, the host of a political program on a YouTube channel in Chile, recently noticed an uptick in pro-Russian political messaging, which had already been common in the country.
Vrox believes the messages are aimed at convincing Chileans that Ukrainians are a regional threat and that NATO and the United States are hostile to Chile while Russia is a reliable ally. He also noted that some posts referred to Ukrainian leaders as “Nazis,” even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish.
These sentiments are not shared by Chilean President Gabriel Boric, who has publicly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for invading Ukraine and met with Zelenskyy in September 2023 during the U.N. General Assembly in New York to discuss a possible Ukraine-Latin America summit.
James Rubin, the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center special envoy and coordinator, agreed in an interview with VOA last month that Russia is “covertly co-opting local media and influencers to spread disinformation and propaganda” in Latin America.
In a public statement issued on November 7, the State Department said Russia “is currently financing an ongoing, well-funded disinformation campaign across Latin America,” spanning at least 13 countries, from Argentina and Chile in the south all the way to Mexico in the north.
Christopher Hernandez-Roy of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, or CSIS, said Russia has a “legacy of propaganda” in the region going back to the Cold War. He added that Russia has a much more sophisticated apparatus than just its visible media outlets, such as using social media, sympathetic journalists, sympathetic influencers and Russian automated bots on social media to amplify its messages.
According to an October report by the United States Institute of Peace, Actualidad RT (Russia Today in Spanish) and Sputnik Mundo are the key purveyors of Russian state media in the region. Hernandez-Roy said these two media organizations have about 32 million regular listeners in Latin America, which has 667 million inhabitants.
Armando Daniel Armas, a Venezuelan opposition politician currently living in Europe, said Actualidad RT has offices in Havana, Buenos Aires and Caracas and over 200 Spanish-speaking journalists working in Moscow.
The object, according to U.S. officials, is to have Russian public relations and internet companies recruit and cultivate Latin American journalists, influencers and public opinion leaders to seed their publications and broadcasts with content favorable to Moscow while hiding any links to the Kremlin.
It is unclear how many of the journalists and opinion leaders are aware they are being fed Russian disinformation, although a senior State Department official told VOA, “There are definitely some willing participants.”
Russia’s ultimate objective, said Hernandez-Roy, is to convince people in Latin America that Moscow is not the only one to blame — that there’s blame on both sides in a war caused by the U.S. and NATO.
Yuriy Polyukhovych, Ukraine’s ambassador to Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, points to another asset utilized to influence opinions in Latin American that Moscow has used since Soviet times: its diplomatic corps.
At the same time, said Ukrainian Ambassador to Argentina Yuriy Klymenko, the Russian war against Ukraine at least somewhat undermined Russia’s standing in Latin America, presenting a diplomatic opportunity for the United States and its allies.
Christopher Hernandez-Roy suggested the U.S. project more soft power in the region, such as people-to-people exchanges, high-level visits and cultural interchanges. Kyiv, he said, should allocate more resources to the region and conduct active diplomacy with high-level visits and ambassadors to counter Russian narratives.
The U.S. and its allies have an opportunity to counter Russian influence in Latin America and promote a positive message of democracy and freedom. It is essential that the U.S. and its allies continue to work together to ensure that the region remains free from Russian influence and disinformation.
