Did you hear about this today?
Exclusive: Even Pokémon Go used by extensive Russian-linked meddling effort
Russian efforts to meddle in American politics did not end at Facebook and Twitter. A CNN investigation of a Russian-linked account shows its tentacles extended to YouTube, Tumblr and even Pokémon Go.
One Russian-linked campaign posing as part of the Black Lives Matter movement used Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and Pokémon Go and even contacted some reporters in an effort to exploit racial tensions and sow discord among Americans, CNN has learned.
Go hit the CNN news for the full story.
Answers
The Russian government wants to create maximal chaos in other countries. That doesn't always mean that they're always competent at what they're doing.
The basic idea behind the events covered in the article was that the Russians appear to want to stage enough bogus (or real but entirely-Russian-instigated) protests - on both ends of the political spectrum; do a Google search for "Russian protests Idaho" - to heighten already existing American social conflicts like those over BLM, etc. Trying to intensify real racial conflicts in the US was a major component of the USSR's psyops strategy in the Cold War*, so pretending to run BLM-esque protests is right in Russia's wheelhouse. There are still people who believe that 1970s-era Soviet forgeries of "CIA documents" about the US government trying to manipulate the African-American leadership are real. To say nothing of the idea that the US government created AIDS - this originated in Soviet propaganda also from the mid-1980s, and tons of conspiracy-minded Americans still say they believe it's true.
In this case I would guess that the idea was some half-baked combination of "hey, this Pokemon is a very popular thing in America right now" and "it seems especially popular among young people, maybe we can reach impressionable youngsters that way." It's like a clueless middle-aged pastor trying to trick pot-smoking teens into going to his church by appealing to them with "Christian" hip-hop or otherwise acting like his religion is SUPER EDGY, YO. It's too weird and tone-deaf to succeed, but that doesn't stop them from trying. It only takes a few successes to make it worth it.
*None of which is to say that these social issues are not real and serious problems in the US. They are, and in cases like BLM the real protests around these issues are good things that deserve to be addressed with better government policies. But obviously it is very messed up that the Russians are trying to make these conflicts worse to achieve their own ends.
Some background reading:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/russias-long-history-of-messing-with-americans-minds-before-the-dnc-hack
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080201751.html
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/01/putin-russia-tv-113960_Page3.html
It is easy to use Pokémon for something. Bring a lot of people into one location, where you could expose them to certain information, or even launch a terrorist attack. Pokémon collects quite a bit of data, the most obvious of them GPs coordinates. I am pretty sure intelligence agencies can use that for something.
