CNN:
Russian intelligence is operating a systematic program to launder pro-Kremlin propaganda through private relationships between Russian operatives and unwitting US and western targets, according to newly declassified US intelligence.
US intelligence agencies believe that the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) is attempting to influence public policy and public opinion in the West by directing Russian civilians to build relationships with influential US and Western individuals and then disseminate narratives that support Kremlin objectives, obscuring the FSB’s role through layers of ostensibly independent actors.
As an American, I have every right to befriend anyone I want to befriend. As an American, I have every right to have conversations with my friends in which they can logically convince me to take whatever position on any matter.
I do not know any Russians, though. What I do know, because I am an American, is that the foreign and domestic policy of the US government has been hijacked by anti-American megalomaniacal ideologues who pose more of a threat to my birthright freedoms than the Russian government could ever pose.