The Briefing:
- Brazil's Abin spy agency formally told a French-German EU delegation in Brasília on September 9–11 that both the United States and Russia are actively interfering in the country's presidential election, according to sources and documents reviewed by Reuters.
- Abin elevated the risk of U.S. pressure on the election to a "critical level" in a confidential report sent in late August to the presidential palace, the Ministry of Justice, and Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court — weeks before European officials arrived for the briefing.
- Cyberattacks against Brazil nearly doubled year-over-year, with a concentrated surge in hacks and phishing attempts targeting the presidential office that a senior Brazilian cyber official described as clearly "election-related."
Three days before Brazilians cast ballots in one of the hemisphere's most closely watched elections, their country's own spy agency has quietly transformed a domestic political feud into a transatlantic intelligence exchange — one with implications for democracies on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.
Brazil's federal intelligence agency, Abin, briefed a joint French-German European Union delegation in Brasília from September 9 to 11, formally confirming active interference in the country's presidential race by both the United States and Russia, according to sources and documents reviewed by Reuters. A written report compiled by a meeting attendee states that Abin officials "confirmed the existence of interference from the United States as well as Russia." The agency described the American operations as ranging "from lawfare to interference that is openly acknowledged," while offering no specifics on the Russian activities.
A European Delegation With Two Missions
The official purpose of the French-German visit was to assess how Brazil is putting into practice the European Union's Digital Services Act — Brussels' flagship regulation requiring online platforms to more aggressively police harmful and illegal content. Washington has been openly critical of that law, arguing it disproportionately burdens American technology companies.
A second, less publicized objective, however, was embedded in the same trip. A document reviewed by Reuters reveals the delegation's visit also aimed at "preparing coordinated responses ahead of the 2026 elections" — meaning the Europeans arrived in Brazil not just as digital regulators, but as intelligence partners mapping shared vulnerabilities in real time.
The French contingent came from Viginum, the government body dedicated to detecting foreign digital disinformation campaigns, along with representatives from Arcom, France's media and communications regulatory authority. Germany sent officials from its Federal Network Agency, which regulates telecommunications, energy, rail and postal services. Both Arcom and Viginum confirmed the participation of their representatives in the Brasília meeting. Germany's Federal Network Agency separately noted that possible U.S. meddling in German elections was not a topic discussed at the meeting.
Why Paris Is Watching Brasília So Closely
French officials have been speaking with unusual candor about what Sunday's Brazilian vote means for their own country. Privately, they described Brazil's October contest to Reuters as an early warning indicator for France's presidential election next year — a striking admission that a race taking place thousands of kilometers away is being studied by European governments as a dress rehearsal for what could come closer to home.
That assessment is grounded in a visible pattern: the Trump administration has openly backed right-wing candidates across Europe and Latin America in recent months. In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen currently leads presidential polls. In Germany, where the far-right Alternative for Germany party finished first in elections in two states last month, officials have been publicly critical of Washington's endorsement of the AfD. Across the Atlantic, the United States extended a bailout potentially worth $40 billion to Argentine President Javier Milei ahead of difficult midterm elections, while U.S. Vice President JD Vance traveled to Hungary to campaign alongside Viktor Orbán.
The Pressure Campaign Lula Has Made Personal
The accusations leveled by Abin are inseparable from the broader deterioration of U.S.-Brazil relations under the current administrations. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who is seeking his fourth term in office, has publicly accused the Trump administration of attempting to tilt the race toward his opponent. Lula has pointed to two actions he frames as overt political interference: the announcement of 50 percent tariffs on all Brazilian goods, unveiled July 9, 2025 and set to take effect August 1, 2025, which Trump linked explicitly to Brazil's prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro; and the revocation of the Brazilian ambassador's visa in Washington in August 2026, a move the U.S. tied to Brazil's refusal to grant approval for Trump's nominee to be ambassador in Brasília.
At the center of that dispute is former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison after a Brazilian Supreme Court panel convicted him of leading a criminal organization and organizing a coup attempt following his defeat in the 2022 election. Bolsonaro has been incarcerated since November 2025, when he was arrested after allegedly cutting through his ankle monitoring bracelet in what the court viewed as a bid to flee the country.
His eldest son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, is now carrying that political inheritance into the presidential race. On October 4, he will face Lula in a first-round contest that analysts describe as statistically too close to call, with both leading candidates carrying rejection rates close to 50 percent. If neither secures an outright majority of valid votes, a runoff follows on October 25.
Before the European delegation landed in Brasília, Abin had already begun escalating its internal warnings. The agency sent a confidential report to the presidential palace, the Ministry of Justice, and Brazil's Supreme Electoral Court in late August, raising the threat of U.S. pressure on the election to what it labeled a "critical level." The report, first disclosed publicly on September 19 by Folha de S.Paulo and subsequently confirmed by TV Brasil, framed the Trump administration's actions as part of a deliberate strategy to reassert American hegemony in Latin America by curbing the influence of rival powers, particularly China.
Brazil Builds Its Cyber Shield Before the Vote
The Brazilian Army ran the eighth edition of its Guardião Cibernético cybersecurity drill from September 21 to 25, drawing more than 1,300 participants, approximately 300 organizations, and representatives from 14 countries across Brasília and six other state capitals — São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba, Recife, Manaus, and Belém. Described by its organizers as one of the most comprehensive cybersecurity training exercises in the Southern Hemisphere, the drill simulated coordinated digital strikes against critical infrastructure across energy, telecommunications, and financial sectors.
The exercise ran the same week the Abin "critical level" report became public, and concluded five days before the Reuters reporting on the European intelligence briefings appeared on September 30. A senior Brazilian cyber official told Reuters that digital attacks on Brazil had nearly doubled year-over-year, with a particular spike in hacks and phishing attempts aimed at the presidential office — activity the official characterized as clearly tied to the electoral calendar.
A Pattern That Is Harder to Deny Than to Document
Both the U.S. State Department and Russia's embassy in Brasília declined to comment on the Abin briefings. Washington has previously denied seeking to influence Brazilian elections; Moscow has similarly denied election meddling in other countries.
What the Abin briefing makes difficult to dismiss is the structural shift it represents. Countries that believe they are targets of foreign political interference are no longer handling that pressure in isolation. They are sharing intelligence across borders, treating each other's election cycles as real-time intelligence inputs, and building the architecture of a counter-network at the same pace that influence operations evolve.
With voting beginning in under 72 hours, the question is no longer whether foreign interference will be alleged. The question is whether the evidence gathered by one of the world's most populous democracies — and quietly shared with its European partners — will ultimately matter to anyone who can act on it.
