Free societies are often split because people have their own views, and thats what former Soviet and current Russian intelligence tries to take advantage of, Oleg Kalugin, a former K.G.B. general, who has lived in the United States since 1995, said. The goal is to deepen the splits. Such a strategy is especially valuable when a country like Russia, which is considerably weaker than it was at the height of the Soviet era, is waging a geopolitical struggle with a stronger entity.
aktivniye meropriyatiye, or active measures is something that the Russians have done for years and done with many times to the U.S. during election years. The most notable ones were in 1982 and 1987 when Yuri Andropov, the chairman of the K.G.B, ordered foreign intelligence operatives to carry out active measures against the reëlection campaign of President Ronald Reagan. One of the people who just so happen to be connected to that is Donald Trump who took out a full-page ad in news papers against Reagan and just so after Trump had visited the Soviet Union and met with Mikhail Gorbachev. the unclassified report state that the Russians favored Trump and hacked the DNC and used the emails to damage Clinton. That's political espionage plan and simple. Hell Russia officials have basically admitted to it now stating that they opposed Clinton. One of the many reasons they opposed her was they feared she would turn Syria into a Second Afghanistan by deploying MANPADs to the Kurdish and Rebel forces and enforcing a no-fly zone. Hell Trump's campaign manager was even in contact with a Russian GRU agent. He denied it until it was confirmed that he had been in contact with Konstantin Kilimnik the GRU agent and Serhiy Leshchenko a pro-Putin member of Ukraine's Parliament.
Background to Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions
in Recent US Elections: The Analytic Process and Cyber
Incident Attribution
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf