With the November presidential election just two months away, the United States is redoubling its efforts to neutralize Russian disinformation operations. Operations that are far more sophisticated than they were in 2016, heavily resourced and traced directly back to the Kremlin, according to official documents.

Sanctions, seizure of online domains, indictments, but above all detailed communication are part of the strategy to counter this. On Wednesday, September 4, the US authorities outlined the contours of the largely clandestine online war that Russia has allegedly declared, to influence foreign public opinion.

Two Russian nationals, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, 31, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27, have been indicted in New York on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. According to the court, which has access to their communications, these employees of the Russia Today channel (RT, the regime's propaganda tool abroad) used pseudonyms and shell companies to organize a sophisticated financing circuit from Moscow, to the tune of $10 million, to broadcast content in the US.

To this end, they signed an agreement with a platform based in Tennessee, which received regular transfers (30 in all, between October 2023 and August 2024), notably from the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.

According to the summary of the case file made public by the Justice Department, this company broadcasted nearly 2,000 videos, starting in November 2023, on all available social media (TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube). On YouTube, they garnered 16 million views. The videos covered a wide range of topics related to American current affairs (inflation, immigration) and foreign policy.

"While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, most are directed to the publicly stated goals of the Government of Russia and RT – to amplify domestic divisions in the United States," noted the summary. After the attack on a shopping mall near Moscow in March, one of the two employees asked one of the company's founders to accuse Ukraine and the US of being responsible.

The Tennessee-based company in question is not named in the charging document, but it is Tenet Media, founded by Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan. Tenet Media describes itself on its website as "a network of heterodox commentators focusing on Western cultural and political issues." It aims to bring together under one roof stars of the far-right, such as Tim Pool, host of the podcast The Culture War and Benny Johnson, host of The Benny Show.

You have 37.42% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.