Russia targets Americans traveling to Paris Olympics with fake CIA video

Russia has intensified its disinformation operations targeting Paris Olympics, this time with a new video that makes it look like the CIA is warning Americans about riding the city’s subway. CBS News found that the fabricated video, which contains a false warning about a “high risk” of attack, originated on Russian channels before making its way to X and Facebook, where it has racked up at least 100,000 views across all platforms.

The video is “a fabrication, has no connection to the CIA and does not represent the views of the CIA,” a CIA spokesperson told CBS News. U.S. authorities have not warned Americans about traveling by subway during the Games, which are scheduled to begin July 26 and end Aug. 11. The Paris Olympics organizing committee said “safety is the highest priority for Paris 2024.”

The fabricated video comes from the same Russian disinformation network as Microsoft uncovered in early June, which used AI to create a fake Netflix feature film starring Tom Cruise. “Russian-affiliated actors hope to sow disinformation and make it appear that there is a probability of violence during the Games,” Clint Watts, general manager of Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center, told CBS News.

Russian athletes were banned from participating in the games under their own flag due to the country’s large scale in 2022. invasion of Ukraine. Watts said the Russian government has a long history of operations related to the Olympics and said the ban is likely “part of the motivation behind these operations.”

A CBS News investigation found an early version of this latest fake CIA video on Telegram, a popular messaging app, posted by an influential Russian military blogger with 200,000 followers who frequently shares content from Russian government and state media. Shortly thereafter, two identical articles—one in English and one in French—appeared in the fake news sites work by a separate Russian disinformation network.

From there, it spread to other social media platforms, including X, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn. CBS News estimates the video has been viewed at least 100,000 times.

On June 13, a new video was published on Telegram branded France 24, claiming to show a French official criticizing the CIA for alarming the public about the terrorist threat in the Paris metro. CBS News confirmed that the video is fabricated, was not produced by France24 and is part of the same Russian disinformation network as the others.

Alexis Prokopiev, co-founder of French human rights nonprofit Russie-Libertés, told CBS News this is part of a broader strategy to undermine trust in North American and European authorities. “On the part of Vladimir Putin himself, there is a clear strategy to polarize opinions, to create more distrust towards institutions.”

European Union authorities are investigating goal It is X for possible violations of the law related to misinformation on both platforms before the elections in early June. The EU is also investigating Telegram to determine whether the platform’s size would qualify it for stricter regulations in Europe, similar to Meta and X.

A Meta spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that the latest CIA-manufactured video violated its policies and has been removed from the platform. A TikTok spokesperson also confirmed to CBS News that the video was removed for violating its Community Guidelines.

CBS News reached out to Telegram for comment and received an automated response. A TikTok spokesperson shared the company’s Community Guidelines in response to a request for comment, LinkedIn shared its false and misleading content policies but did not comment on the CIA video, and X did not respond to a request for comment.

Watts said he hopes Russian networks can further intensify disinformation tactics closer to the Olympics. This includes using popular news headlines to lure people into misleading posts and influence them to share false content.

Watts said videos from this particular disinformation network generally aren’t widely shared or get much engagement outside of Russian channels, thanks in part to researchers who monitor and report on these operations.