every time i hear some one, mostly talking heads, speak of russia affecting 'our' elections, which to my mind are only potemkin elections anyway, i consider things the following article investigates;

  Russian Interference in Western Politics? What About Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE?

Whatever the Russians may have done barely counts compared with what these states do openly and brazenly.

By Ian Sinclair
October 03, 2018 "Information Clearing House" -  WITH almost the entire Western media in a constant state of mass hysteria about Russian interference in Western political systems, it’s worth considering some pertinent information largely missing from the debate.
First, it is likely the scale and effectiveness of Russian interventions has been greatly exaggerated.
“The simplistic narrative that basically imagines that a bunch of subliterate-in-English trolls posting mostly static and sort of absurd advertising could have influenced American public opinion to such an extent that it fundamentally changed American politics is ridiculous on the face of it,” argued Masha Gessen, a US-Russian journalist and outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, when asked about Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election by National Public Radio.
“I feel a lot of pressure … from interviewers and from people to kind of blow up the threat,” said New Yorker’s Adrian Chen, one of the first to write about Russian internet trolls, agreeing with Gessen.



http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/50374.htm