News/Politics thread by @Martinlaineolen

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Our new study reveals how Russia covertly organized interviews with 500+ "useful idiots" across the globe

We confronted them to see how they ended up participating in one of the biggest Russian state info-ops since the end of the Cold War.

This is what we found:

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A key website part of the Doppelgänger campaign - RRN - got hacked.  

"Doppelgänger got Doppelgängered" the site now reads.

The site became an exposé on the Russian info-op.

The hacker shared with me 500+ interviews published by fake news sites part of the campaign.

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A leaked meeting note from a Russian troll farm behind the campaign says: "we need influencers! A lot of them and everywhere. We are ready to wine and dine them.”

They monitor 2800+ "opinion leaders" globally.

We confirmed they actually approach these "influencers".

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For example, during the 2025 German federal election, Russian-controlled fake German news websites posted AfD election ads.

10 politicians from Germany's far right party AfD provided interviews.

They were published by dozens of Russian state-controlled sites.

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“Russia as a partner is something that is in our interests,” says Simone Mangiante, wife of George Papadopoulos (a key figure in the Trump-Russia probe).

She repeats pro-Kremlin talking points in multiple interviews for a Russian state-controlled fake French news site.

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She admitted being interviewed by Raphael Machado, a Brazilian, head of Nova Resistencia. A known Russian asset.

Machado has recruited soldiers to fight against Ukraine; is tied to Russian intelligence operatives; a friend of A.Dugin - an infamous Russian ultranationalist.

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In fact, we found that Dugin's personal social media manager Antonio Andreas Pires - another Brazilian - was also part of the interviewing process.

Pires also handles @AGDugin, Dugin's infamous Twitter account here.

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Many "useful idiots" in our huge list of individuals are close to Dugin or Dugin's fans.

For example, 20 of them participated in an online conference organized by Dugin and Nova Resistencia in 2023.

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Many of the fake news websites sharing these interviews dissappeared in summer 2026.

But two remained:

rrn.com.tr and kitalararasi.org.tr

Both are run now by Turkish pro-Russian Vatan party with close ties to... Aleksandr Dugin's family.

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This British gentleman is Matthew Gordon-Banks, former UK MP who befriended a mysterious Russian "journalist" Nikolay Maslov. 

Throughout years, he gave at least 6 different interviews to Maslov - these were published at 10+  Russian-controlled fake news sites.

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5 people admitted being interviewed by Maslov. Some remained in contact with him for a prolonged period.

Even after we explained that he was working for a Russian disinfo campaign, one Dutch activist did not believe us.

“He dismissed your claims as absurd!" they said.

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Russian government delegated this part of the campaign to a propaganda organization called ANO Dialog.

It seems that Dialog in turn has delegated content creation to Dugin fanboys and other oportunists.

Dugin in turn has ties to Russian military intelligence (GRU).

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If anyone wants to learn more about people involved with this project, you can message me.

Please do read our investigation here for more details:

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occrp.org/en/investigati…

🚨🚨🚨 Our new study reveals how Russia covertly organized interviews...

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