The United States government on Thursday became, for a brief moment, one of the biggest and perhaps most annoying telemarketers in Russia.
Seeking to publicize new rewards of up to $10 million for information about people trying to attack American voting systems, the State Department sent text messages to cellphones in Russia as well as Iran.
It was the 2020 version of a longstanding tradition of projecting American messages across the borders of adversaries. During the Cold War, Radio Free Europe broadcast pro-democracy programs across the Iron Curtain. In 2003, the United States dropped leaflets in Iraq warning against the use of (nonexistent) chemical weapons.
To the Russian government, and many Russians, the attempt looked ham-handed.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the Russian government, ridiculed the message, which she said had appeared on many Russian cellphones. The program would yield nothing for the United States government, she predicted, and was more than just annoying to Russians.
“By calling on people to talk for money about interference in American elections, the American special services are unceremoniously interfering in our life,” she wrote on Facebook. “What is this if not a real hybrid attack?”
One Twitter user in Russia posted: “For 10 million, I’ll say anything. Even that the Americans landed on the moon.”