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How the Kremlin paid 10 million euros to famous American influencers to spread Russian propaganda in the USA! The Department of Justice files charges

2024-09-10 19:11:52Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
How the Kremlin paid 10 million euros to famous American influencers to spread
Tenet Media / Illustrative photo

A scandal of great proportions has become known in the United States of America, where some right-wing influencers are accused of having received 10 million dollars in total from the Kremlin to spread Russian propaganda to Americans.

The details of this operation with hidden money, non-existent persons, and their collaborators in the US, have been revealed by the lawsuit filed by the US Department of Justice. Although the names of the American influencers are not mentioned, the discovery of their identities has been made possible through some other details stated in the file of the American authorities, such as the number of followers on social networks and the name of the media that would be used to spread the propaganda.

How the Kremlin paid 10 million euros to famous American influencers to spread
Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva in the Department of Justice file

Two Russians, registered as employees of Russia Today (RT) , a Kremlin-sponsored and controlled media agency, Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, are accused of financing the US media company based in Tennessee, Tenet Media , with $10 million. through secret bank transfers with offshore companies.

Tenet Media is a media outlet that works primarily on social networks, and with a YouTube channel, and that often invites well-known conservative voices like Lauren Southern , Tim Pool , Tayler Hansen , Matt Christiansen , Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson .

How the Kremlin paid 10 million euros to famous American influencers to spread
Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson and Tim Pool, Tenet Media Associates

Some of these political commentators have reacted after the issue was made public, saying that they were "deceived" and that they did not know the origin of the money, or that they were spreading Russian and anti-Ukrainian propaganda.

The scheme started with the Russian Kalashnikov, who, according to American investigators, is in charge of developing covert operations in the US. He appointed Russian national Afanasyeva to control and manage Tenet Media in the US, and to determine for them the propaganda line they should spread.

Afanasyeva contacted citizen Liam Donovan and Chinese-Canadian Lauren Chen , telling them a banker named  Eduard Grigoriann  ( non-existent person ) wanted to finance their media with 10 million dollars . Chen and Donovan were skeptical at first, but they didn't get too far into the matter by agreeing to cooperate with the Russians. At one point, Chen expressed surprise as to why the billionaire who was financing them did not turn out to be a public name on the Internet. Afanasyeva responded by giving her a falsified "CV" with a person she invented named  Eduard Grigoriann , who did not actually exist.

How the Kremlin paid 10 million euros to famous American influencers to spread
Founders of Tenet Media / Liam Donovan and Lauren Chen

After Chen and Donovan agreed to start the collaboration, the payments started. In some cases, Tim Pool is rumored to have received as much as $100,000 for a single video to spread Russian propaganda.

One case is that of the terrorist attack in Moscow , when the Russians asked the founders of Tenet Media to spread propaganda that Ukraine and the USA were behind the attack, and not ISIS terrorists. Tenet Media founder Chen responded to the Russians by saying that two of her political commentators " were willing to publish the matter ".

In another case, RT's Russians had delayed payments to Tenet Media, and Chen wrote to them but received no response. She then Googled " Moscow time ", to confirm that it was night there, so she was not getting an answer.

One of the laws US influencers are accused of violating is the " Foreign Agent Registration Act " (FARA), which requires any foreign agent working in the US to register with the Department of Justice. The goal is transparency precisely to avoid dark financing of various states or entities in the USA.

For several days, Lauren Chen and her husband, founder of Tenet Media, have disappeared from social networks, while their fate is unknown. They may have been detained in the US, or they may have fled to Russia.

While other conservative commentators such as Tim Pool and Tayler Hansen or Benny Johnson are being described by the public as "useful idiots" who fell into the trap of this foreign influence.

The Tenet Media channel with thousands of videos and about 300,000 subscribers has already been deleted from YouTube.

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