How Ted Cruz ended up sharing Russian far-right propaganda to attack the US military

• Cruz shared a video comparing Russian and US army recruitment ads, and called the US Army "emasculated."
• An expert on far-right disinformation has traced the meme to pro-Russian, far-right networks.
• Conservatives have long shared material originating from far-right networks to attack liberals.

A video shared by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz last week to attack the US military for being "woke" and "emasculated" originated from pro-Russian, anti-American far-right social media networks, experts on extremist propaganda have told Insider.

The video, which had been initially uploaded to TikTok, sought to unfavorably compare a US military recruitment ad to a Russian army one. The US Army clip featured an animation telling of a female corporal's life, while the Russian ad used masculine tropes, featuring fighter jets and shirtless men doing pushups.

"Holy crap," Cruz wrote in his retweet of the video. "Perhaps a woke, emasculated army is not the best idea…"

Alexander Reid Ross, a fellow at the UK's Centre for the Analysis of the Radical Right who specializes in mapping the spread far-right propaganda, told Insider that he had monitored the meme as it spread from pro-Russian and far-right networks to Cruz's Twitter feed over the course of a week.

The case illustrates the route far-right propaganda can take from fringe pro-Kremlin and white supremacist networks, into mainstream Republican platforms.

From Kremlin ally to 4chan to Ted Cruz's Twitter

Here is the timeline for the spread of the video, according to Ross' analysis:

• The earliest comparison of the recruitment videos was in two May 13 tweets by Koskovics Zoltán, an analyst at the Center for Fundamental Rights in Budapest. The center is linked to the far-right government of Hungary's Prime Minister Victor Orban, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• Zoltán's first tweet linked to a Vimeo page showing the Russian recruitment ad, and the second tweet linked to a post by the journalist Alan MacLeod slamming the "super-woke" US Army video. MacLeod is a frequent critic of western media outlets' coverage of Kremlin policy.

• Zoltán's tweets were cited on May 14 by the Russian far-right outlet Krasnaya Vesnya and the American conservative blog Red State. Both posts mocked the comparison between the Russian and US armies.
• Gavin McInnes, founder of the far-right Proud Boys group, discussed the recruitment videos in his YouTube show on May 15.
• The two videos were then posted and discussed in threads on 4chan, the messaging board that serves as a key online hub for the right.
• On May 17, the Russian and US recruitment videos were stitched together and posted on TikTok as a single video.
• From there, the video - in its slightly altered form - was shared widely in white-supremacist forums on Telegram, the encrypted messaging app that's become a haven for extremists ousted from mainstream platforms.
• The first post featuring the TikTok on Telegram was shared by an account that posts "white nationalist and fascist content," Ross told Insider. The post had spread, Ross said, in forums popular with the US white supremacist National Justice Party, the white-nationalist Groypers group, and the Russian ultra-nationalist National Bolsheviks.
• On May 18, the TikTok was uploaded to Twitter for the first time. Insider has seen the post, which has as of Tuesday been retweeted 1,000 times.
• On May 19, Rando Quaaden, a Dutch account that has posted tweets in support of the European far-right Identitarian movement and Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, tweeted the TikTok.
• On May 19, Pardes Seleh, a Texas realtor who posts conservative content on Twitter, shared the video posted by Rando Quaaden.
• And on May 20, Cruz retweeted Seleh.

Ross maintains that the version shared by Cruz made the leap onto Twitter from Telegram extremist networks. Rando Quaaden disputed this on Monday, calling it a "non-existent pipeline."

Ross said that the core message of the video was that liberalism was making the US weak, in comparison with the strength of Putin's traditionalist Russia.

"The blunt impact of the meme, for fascists, is that the US's liberal system is seen globally as a joke, and cannot stand up to other Great Powers," he said.

"The US far right picks up on pro-Kremlin propaganda, because it agrees with efforts to undermine liberalism, even when they attack nonpartisan US institutions," Ross said.

"That Republicans ally with illiberal propaganda spread by foreign adversaries should give us pause with regards to their claims to putting 'America First.'"

Cruz's response

A spokesman for Cruz told Insider that the controversy over the source of the video was distracting from the more important issue of how "wokeness" is undermining the US military.

"Sen. Cruz shared a widely-circulated video that shows wokeness is undermining the seriousness and purpose of our military. But instead of discussing this very real problem, journalists are dusting off absurd Democrat talking points and claiming the real issue here is racism, Russian propaganda, or both. They're so invested in this liberal narrative they will destroy innocent people's lives to advance it," said the spokesman.

Cruz last week claimed to be enjoying the controversy caused by the video, tweeting: "I'm enjoying lefty blue checkmarks losing their minds over this tweet, dishonestly claiming that I'm "attacking the military."

In an apparent response to Insider's request for comment, Seleh tweeted a screenshot of Insider's message, saying: "These people have been trying to destroy my life for the past week because I shared a funny TikTok video that Ted Cruz retweeted. I don't even know how to answer this. Is TikTok considered a 'white supremacist forum'??"

'US conservatives ... have frequently promoted Russian propaganda'

Critics have long warned of the dangerous melding of mainstream Republican propaganda and memes, and disinformation from extremist movements and forums.

Alex Newhouse, an expert in far-right extremism at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, backed Ross' assessment that the video was distributed widely among white supremacists on Telegram before being distributed on Twitter.

"US conservatives - especially those in the midst of the pro-Trump movement, and those outside the mainstream - have frequently promoted Russian propaganda through various channels," he told Insider.

Newhouse pointed to Trump's former national security advisor Michael Flynn's ties to Russian state TV network RT, and a segment on the far-right US network OANN last year on election fraud that was partly written by a former associate of the Russian state-news agency Sputnik.

Republicans have opposed measures in recent years to make the US military more inclusive, with Cruz in 2016 criticizing plans to allow servicewomen to serve in combat roles.