The disinformation campaign waged by Russia/USSR/KGB etc. was very effective in obfuscating truth and sowing doubt, getting people to question the trustworthiness of the news outlets,media and govt. amongst the people of the west. With solid evidence the protagonists new if they where sly enough they could drive a wedge into western culture splitting resolve focus and foment descent. Often playing a long game to allow their disinformation to percolate into the public's consciousness.
This has worked quite brilliantly as you see. People are willing to kill over the disinformation that these campaigns have unleashed. Many millions of people totally convinced by Russian inspired propaganda to the point where they supported and actively tried to overthrow the most powerful democracy.
To this day, in-spite of clear evidence to the contrary many people still hold onto the lies told to them by Russia propaganda machine.
Yes, I know that corporations and western nations engage in this same practice and seeing how corrosive an entity such as Cambridge Analytica has been around the world for the last 10 or so years, scraping data from FB then sculpting ad campaigns to target disaffected groups in efforts to sway votes, such as Brexit. But Brexit and the 2016 US elections where only the final episode of a 10 year program by these people.
