Australia, part of the report examined japan and australia and how chinese influence works there. Todays conversation is to look at how russian influence works in the United Kingdom as part of that broader work, we also looked at germany. The reason that malcolm was so important was because we used his framing of influence activity. We looked at covert, coercive and corrupted influence factors. Many reports have certainly examined the supply of influence activities, but very few look at the demand side. How democracys use and except these influence activities. So i record and focus much more on the demand, how democrats in the government in societies influence that activity. This report was made possible by the u. S. State Departments Global Engagement Center during the Information Access find and administered by the institute and we are grateful, of course, for their support of these views. Of course, the authors and not the state department if i may, let me briefly go over some of the key findings from this report. Russia and china certainly have different objectives in how they use their influence activities but they share one commonality. They both try to divide the United States from its most important allies and certainly the United Kingdom is americas and most essential, one of the most essential allies. They do this by using their influence activities to look at how democracies, how they divide society. So we looked at societal cohesion. We looked at the use of the community. We looked at the economic interconnectedness. That was a big key. How does money corrupt or capture and then of course we looked at the media. How social media was interacting and regulating the types of influence activities that russia was perpetuating within the United Kingdom the spoke of this report fell outside the coronavirus pandemic but of course near the end of our recording, we saw more disturbing trend, that was china emulating russias tactics whereas russia tries to divide society and basically degrade democracy and faith and democratic institutions. China attempts to coerce and try to suppress any criticism but all of a sudden, we are starting to see china take on the appearances of more russian influence activities. So those are the overriding key findings of the report we invite you to take a look at the final report. So now lets dive deep into the uk we could not have put together a more fantastic group of colleagues to speak about russian influence activities in the United Kingdom. Let me first introduced dame karen pierce, British Ambassador to the United Kingdom and she arrived earlier in the spring and, of course, we went into lockdown but we welcome you to washington, ambassador pierce, formerly British Ambassador to the United Nations and former uk special representative to afghanistan. We also have with us luke harding, he is Senior International correspondent for the guardian and author of a new book entitled shadow state murder, mayhem and russias remaking of the west. It is now out and we thank luke for joining us from london. And then of course we have our very own rachel ellehuus, Deputy Director of the Europe Program at csis and senior fellow, and lead author for the support and no one is better at helping moderate this conversation. They say timing is everything and i believe this conversation couldnt be more welltimed because we are told tomorrow the intelligence and security committee, committee of the uk parliament, will be releasing its muchanticipated report on russian interference in the uk, press we can use this conversation as a good framing for when that report is released tomorrow. So with that, thank you to our colleagues. Please read the report. Again, i am Heather Conley from csis, and were grateful you are here. Rachel, over to you. Thank you, heather. I will offer some brief remarks about what we saw in the uk case study and turn it over to ambassador pierce into the discussion. When we looked at the uk case study we saw two russian objectives in particular. The first was to weaken uk and totally. So this was magnified in things like accentuating existing divisions between leave and remain, rural and urban divides, even those in scotland who preferred to separate from the United Kingdom. The second was the related objectives and that was to diminish the uks place in the world. Sp the influence activities that fell into this bucket were related to nato, the European Union and the relationship with the United States. Clearly russia recognize the uk is made Even Stronger by its membership in nato and until recently the European Union and its uniquely close relationship with the United States. Those were targets of influence activities as well. What we found at look in the study was it wasnt so much the objective or tactic in either the russia or china case that meet the real difference in terms of influence and impact. Rather, it was what happened on the receiving end. How resilient was the society or the country that was on the receiving end of these tactics and objectives. In many ways the uk was very resilient. The government was accountable, its highly transparent. Theres a good balance among the different branches of government. Your medial landscape is very resilient. I was impressed to see that 50 of uk citizens are getting the majority of their news from the bbc. And the Diaspora Community which can often be a vulnerability was relatively well integrated and welloff, and did not present as a vulnerability in the uk case. However, we did find two vulnerability that were particular uk case by the help we can dive into a bit. The first was regulatory. In particular, the campaignfinance law created some the polls that possibly lead to more foreign money coming into the campaign. Of course weve got no proof of that but that is essentially where some of the trails lead us. The uk also is a very interesting structure with the crown dependencies and some of the overseas territories. So even when these regulatory gaps were fixed in the uk proper, they manifested themselves and the legislation was implemented later in those incidences. The second vulnerability were societal vulnerabilities which i i lived in the beginning. A polarization, whether it is political or ideological that we see across the United States and europe but certainly those were the two that jumped at the uk case and smartly i think in the uk response they tried to address those vulnerabilities through changes in the campaignfinance law, for example. Through efforts to increase Media Literacy or the ability to identify disinformation and misinformation. So while i think we are on a very positive track, certainly the tactics continue to change and so the response has to evolve. And with that i think i would like to turn the floor over to ambassador pierce to give us your impressions of essentially went to the uk become a target of russia . Why did they become a target of russia . What are you generally seeing both with regard to influence activities in the uk as well as the uks experience watching influence activities overseas . Great. Thank you very much, heather. Thank you, rachel, and thank you for inviting me to join the study interesting discussion. I think the first thing to say is that uk and russian action of a very long history. Weve had very good relations. One goes back over 300 years, and that was a state of the relationship, that for those times was very productive. Very productive, we admire the russian people, and we recognize the enormous sacrifices that the russian people made in the Second World War. And we appreciate the fact that that Second World War was one with soviet assistance and the soviet union ally at that time. And we have always made it clear that we want to protected load bearing relationship with the russian government including the current russian government and when i went with Boris Johnson johnson when he was foreign secretary to moscow, to deliver that last message, which seemed at the time to be appreciated by our russian powers however, at three month months after that, saws gru insults berry and the case, and eventually led to more than 150 Russian Diplomats being expelled across europe in the United States and its partners so i think the fundamental question has to be why does russia reject these overtures that countries like the uk but there are others, make in terms of the load bearing relationship. We are never going to always agree with russia, we are often not going to agree on a huge number of subjects, but we are both permanent members at the security council. And we do have certain interests in global stability. And that ought to be a Good Foundation for some productive evening conversations. But we dont see russia behaving. We see russia doing all the things you just described in more in georgia and other countries besides the uk. We also see them condoning if not abetting the use of chemical weapons in syria. Chemical weapons are a universal universally prohibited weapon, so why does a permanent five member want to allow one of its clients states to use such an awful weapon . And i think the russia of the Cold War Soviet Union would have seen as worth crossing a line in search of stability so i think this comes, rachel to how long this is been going on, and im not in the story and i havent looked into it in detail, but i think that anecdotally, all of these things we are seeing are synonymous with the rise of president putin. And theres something important and that i think, that something about this mantra that the russians have at the end of the west, the out show the western values that count anymore and the western approach to trade this account anymore the western approach to International Treaties and International Laws and standards doesnt count. Any more. And they are putting a lot of effort into undermining that and then as you say we come to the United Kingdom and all the things that you have described. We try in the United Kingdom to be resilient against that. Weve set up a number of programs like pending democracy and countering this information, to make us more resilient and use all the part of british institutions. But as you also say some of these arguments of these arguments by the russians and we all know how they affect opinion polls. I come back to my first point, why does russia want to behave like this . Why not just have a more productive relationship with the west . The west is no threat to russia. So why not take a different euroatlantic view, as in the late 1990s it seemed possible that russia might do. I think thats an important question which we should keep confronting russian representatives with. I think the second point of russiachina, i think these are very interesting and intriguing. I doubt very much its the partnership of two equals. At the same time i do wonder if the russians more manipulative with the chinese and perhaps the chinese let on. I think the whole disinformation thing where as you say weve seen the chinese copying russian practices of disinformation, increasing visavis uk [inaudible] thats an interesting area to explore. I will stop there so you can ask questions or move on to luke, but very happy to elaborate on any of that. Thank you. I think thats very insightful about your analysis that russia feels it has more to gain from being disruptive than from engaging in trying to think about why that might be the case. Certainly there are certain rules and norms that are viable but i think god that there is scope for thinking about how we change that calculus. Russia is not alone in that. A number of other countries, heather and i just looked closely at turkey and turkey is making the same calculation in its region that it has more to gain from acting unilaterally or pushing its agenda rather than engaging with eu and nato partners for a more collective instead. I think thats a very sharp observation. Before turning over to luke, maybe one more question to keep the flow going. Russia really has doubled down on these efforts that fall below the threshold of armed conflict. We looked at the brexit referendum, the Scottish Independence referendum and possibly the uk elections. When you observe these in retrospect, do you think these efforts have that impact . We struggled with this in the study very much. We could see influence but we really couldnt necessarily say because there was this point of influence or involvement, and led to this outcome. In your experience maybe even looking at the uks engagement in Central Europe you think these efforts have impact . I think thats a really good question. I use it its quite may be we are all too close to it to know of its impact. If one wanted to look at impact, the east europeans have more experience of the russian government, if you like, then anyone else. They certainly worry about the cumulative effect as well as individual decisions. So there may be some things quite important in russian attempts to destabilize over time, that we cant quite discern yet. I do think it was well said of the russian government that they took the saber in until they hit steel. And always have spoken in the u. N. That the russians have good chess players, police two strategies for any given venture. One, if you like is incremental and the other is much more dynamic. Depending on circumstances. Theyre very adept at jumping from circumstance to circumstance, advancing their agenda as fast as the circumstances allow. The consequence of that or the implication of that is that to hold them, they have to hit that steel with the saber early on. I think thats where sometimes collectively the west is not always forceful with russia as we might be. And i do think a bigger conversation russian tactics in this regard would be helpful picky as i think it we are to learn from the russian strategy, we end up we inadvertently let something happen that man has consequences that we werent expecting. That is definitely worth conversation and in many ways, i would like to have these conversations because thats where collective security resides. But, on the whole, i think the British Public is pretty resilient. As you say, people get their news from alls all sorts of objective an independent but well renowned outlets like the bbc and the national press. There is a healthy skepticism i think, in the British Public, which is useful on these occasions. And i think the russian message is obviously under anti democratic, that it goes against a lot of traditions, so people again, are skeptical. I think it is interesting, going back to the first point, the russians obviously cant get their message across by democratic means. That ought to tell them something, they are rational, clever people, but in terms of actual impact versus influence, i come back to the point, i think were just a bit too close to it to know if that would be the case. Thank you. Luke, you have looked at a lot of these issues of impact and vulnerabilities and what makes an influence activity more or less successful, in quotes, if you will. What in your experience should we be studying . How can we reduce the likelihood that we will see these influence activities occurring in the future, and if they do, how do we go about making sure that the impact or the influence is reduced . Thank you, rachel. Congratulations on a terrific report. Its been a pleasure to read in very timely. Just listening to the ambassador, i was put in mind of the conversation i had with a british diplomat soon after i got kicked out of moscow for years there as the correspondent 2000. Leaven it was a pretty discouraging experience which followed breakins by the secret police in our apartments and a series of harassments. The diplomat said the problems with the russians is they dont think the way we think they should think. And that really goes to the heart of it, to your question. Putin, in my view, ultimately unfortunately is not interested in mutually beneficial solutions. He is a classic zero some guy who rather have kind of loselose then winwin. In addition to that he really sees the world, he sees geopolitics, he sees International Alliances through a kind of kgb prison. Even though the soviet union is gone and communism is gone, hes thinking almost genetically is very kgb. In this world view which is paranoid conspiratorial, sees russia as a besieged fortress surrounded by nato and of the hostile enemies, the United States is the main adversary. The uk is a kind of lesser, kind of band together. What putin has done, with some success in recent years, its to take this old soviet playbook up disruption of undermining the enemy, of taking advantage of weaknesses in western society and hes sort of shined it up for our age of facebook and twitter on social media. I think its important that we dont exaggerate how powerful Vladimir Putin is. I mean he isnt, hes not a villain sitting in a cave pressing buttons and making things happen in d. C. Or in london or in berlin or wherever. What i would argue is that he is a set of classic kgb adventurous and opportunist. Well and he tries to have, sometimes it doesnt, the problems that his two most successful operations, i would say, took place in 2016 and theyre both related. One was the push by spy agencies to sort of sweep the operations help donald trump when the white house. The other was to actually launch a set of comparable pretty multifaceted operations to support