Why VOA, known as a ‘lie factory,’ has halted operations
Global Times | March 17, 2025
On March 15 local time, Michael Abramowitz, director of Voice of America (VOA), an international broadcaster whose parent agency is the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), confirmed on social media that he and “virtually the entire staff” of 1,300 had been placed on leave. A day earlier, the White House ordered budget cuts for multiple federal agencies. Funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, which are also parts of USAGM, has also been frozen. The so-called beacon of freedom, VOA, has now been discarded by its own government like a dirty rag.
Founded in 1942, VOA became a frontline propaganda tool in the ideological confrontation of the Cold War. In recent decades, under the banner of promoting so-called freedom and democracy, it has broadcast in over 40 languages worldwide, attempting to shape the image of the US as a “moral high ground.”
However, its independence and credibility have long been questioned and criticized. Known for stirring up conflicts, inciting social divisions, and even participating in regime change efforts, VOA is widely recognized as Washington’s carefully crafted propaganda machine for peaceful evolution, earning itself a notorious reputation on the global stage. Similar to Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, its primary function is to serve Washington’s need to attack other countries based on ideological demands.
When it comes to China-related reporting, VOA has an appalling track record. From smearing human rights in China’s Xinjiang to hyping up disputes in the South China Sea, from supporting “Taiwan independence” forces to backing Hong Kong rioters, from fabricating the so-called China virus narrative to promoting the claim of China’s “overcapacity,” almost every malicious falsehood about China has VOA’s fingerprints all over it.
A former VOA employee said that he didn’t realize until he came to China that the VOA news reports he used to read out every day were completely opposite to the real situation in China. The reporter also said that some people working for VOA were dismissed because they suggested increasing positive coverage of China.
Clearly, VOA has never been a “fair and impartial” media outlet, but rather a thoroughly biased “propaganda poison.” Now, in Washington, against the backdrop of reducing federal agency funding, the decision to stop funding for entities like VOA has immediately prompted some anti-China politicians in the US to label this move as “a massive gift” to China, effectively tearing off the fig leaf of VOA as a propaganda tool themselves.
Last month, Elon Musk criticized VOA on X, stating that “Nobody listens to them anymore” and that “It’s just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1 billion a year of US taxpayer money.” This may reflect the views of a significant portion of the American public.
Perhaps the US government has also realized that continuing to waste substantial national funds on these outdated and ineffective institutions is neither meaningful nor in the best interest of the country. In fact, the continued existence of these institutions only brings more chaos and creates more trouble for the world.
The Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation once publicly criticized VOA for lacking “professional ethics” and using dirty tactics to smear normal interactions and cooperation between Cambodia and China. In 2023, Kyrgyzstan ordered the closure of the local branch of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and last year, Russia designated Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as an “undesirable organization.”
The recent suspension of employees at VOA evokes memories of the absurd drama in which a certain anti-China think tank in Australia publicly complained about lacking funds due to cuts in US government funding. This further underscores the awkward reality of the industrial chain behind the “cognitive warfare” narrative concerning China: without financial backers, it is difficult to sustain.
As a tool of “cognitive warfare” that became active during the Cold War and has already shown numerous flaws, the positioning of entities like VOA suggests that they should not exist in today’s multipolar world. Whether it is VOA or anti-China think tanks, budget reductions, layoffs, or even complete closures of these institutions are inevitable outcomes, leading them to be swept into the dustbin of history.
In the information age, the monopoly of information held by some traditional Western media is being shattered. The narrative hegemony maintained by VOA as a “lie factory” can be broken at any moment by a short video from the scene posted by a netizen. The carefully constructed “iron curtain of public opinion” they have built is also on the verge of collapse under the impact of countless media and self-media showcasing authentic content. As more Americans begin to break through their information cocoons and see a real world and a multidimensional China, the demonizing narratives propagated by VOA will ultimately become a laughingstock of the times.
Not Just Voice of America: Deep State Mouthpieces Shut Down?
By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 16.03.2025
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order dissolving the US Agency for Global Media, which funds Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Radio Free Asia (RFA).What are US government-funded media known for?
VOA, RFE/RL and RFA routinely echoed US Democratic Party narratives, targeting not only overseas but also domestic audiences.
Russia
- RFE/RL spread unverified claims that Moscow poisoned dissidents with “exotic toxins,” from Polonium to Novichok, naming Viktor Yushchenko, the Skripals, Alexei Navalny among victims—without giving evidence.
- VOA and RFE/RL peddled Ukraine’s false claims that Russian troops committed a massacre in Bucha in April 2022, despite all Russian forces leaving the area by March 30.
Eastern and Central Europe
- VOA and RFE/RL praised Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution and the violent 2014 Euromaidan coup, providing highly favorable coverage of regime change efforts.
- RFE/RL has often targeted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On March 15, it reported protests against his government—but failed to mention that thousands of his supporters rallied on the national holiday.
Trump
- VOA actively pushed allegations that Trump ‘colluded’ with Russia, which were debunked by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in 2019.
Asia
- RFA’s coverage revolves around China’s alleged ‘threat’ to Taiwan and promotes the militarization of the island.
- RFA paints China as a regional menace, accuses it of ‘cultural genocide’ in Tibet and stokes fears about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities against the US.
Cold War Roots and CIA Covert Operations via VOA, RFE/RL and RFA
The media’s dependence on the US foreign policy establishment – predominantly led by Democrats – has deep historical roots.
Voice of America
- Established in 1942 during World War II, the Voice of America (VOA) later became a Cold War propaganda tool against the USSR.
- A July 1950 CIA document revealed that the agency supported VOA in overcoming “Soviet jamming.” Another CIA document from 1953 discussed similar efforts in Czechoslovakia.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
- Launched in 1950 as part of psychological operations, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) was covertly funded by the CIA until 1971. Historians document how it employed former Nazi collaborators from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.
- In 1977, The New York Times and Rolling Stone exposed the CIA’s “worldwide propaganda network,” which included at least 400 US journalists working for the agency. RFE/RL was specifically named as part of that network.
Radio Free Asia
- While the founding of Radio Free Asia (RFA) is often credited to Bill Clinton in 1994, CIA documents reveal that it had been targeting China and other Asian nations since the 1950s.
- RFA began broadcasting to mainland China in 1951 from the Philippines, Japan and Pakistan, operating under the CIA’s control until 1955.
- The agency halted RFA’s broadcasts in the mid-1950s due to low home radio ownership in China. It was later replaced by the Radio of Free Asia (ROFA), operated jointly by US and South Korean intelligence services.
For decades, the US-funded media functioned as extensions of Washington’s intelligence agencies, running psychological operations even after the Cold War ended.
Could the Russians Seize Congress?
By Patrick Lawrence | Consortium News | April 16, 2024
The Russians are coming — or coming back, better put.
As the November elections draw near, let us brace for another barrage of preposterous propaganda to the effect Russians are poisoning our minds with “disinformation,” “false narratives,” and all the other misnomers deployed when facts contradict liberal authoritarian orthodoxies.
We had a rich taste of this new round of lies and innuendo in late January, when Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who served as House speaker for far too long, asserted that the F.B.I. should investigate demonstrators demanding a ceasefire in Gaza for their ties, yes indeedy, to the Kremlin.
Here is Pelosi on CNN’s State of the Union program Jan. 28:
“For them to call for a cease-fire is Mr. Putin’s message. Make no mistake, this is directly connected to what he would like to see. Same thing with Ukraine… I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the F.B.I. to investigate that.”
O.K., we have the template: If you say something that coincides with the Russian position, you will be accused of hiding your “ties to Russia,” as the common phrase has it.
Be careful not to mention some spring day that the sky is pleasantly blue: I am here to warn you—“make no mistake” — this is exactly what “Putin,” now stripped of a first name and a title, “would like to see.”
There is invariably an ulterior point when those in power try on tomfoolery of this kind. In each case they have something they need to explain away.
In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton’s defeat at the polls, so we suffered four years of Russiagate. Pelosi felt called upon to discredit those objecting to the Israeli–U.S. genocide in Gaza.

Protest against Israeli genocide in Freedom Plaza, Washington, D.C., Nov. 4, 2023. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Now we have a new ruse. Desperate to get Congress to authorize $60.1 billion in new aid to Ukraine, Capitol Hill warmongers charge that those objecting to this bad-money-after-bad allocation are… do I have to finish the sentence?
Two weeks ago Michael McCaul, a Republican representative who wants to see the long-blocked aid bill passed, asserted in an interview with Puck News that Russian propaganda has “infected a good chunk of my party’s base.” Here is the stupid-sounding congressman from Texas, as quoted in The Washington Post, elaborating on our now-familiar theme:
“There are some more nighttime entertainment shows that seem to spin, like, I see the Russian propaganda in some of it — and it’s almost identical on our airwaves. These people that read various conspiracy-theory outlets that are just not accurate, and they actually model Russian propaganda.”
I read in the Post that McCaul’s staff abruptly cut short the interview when Julia Ioffe, a professional Russophobe who has bounced around from one publication to another for years, asked him to name a few names.
So was this latest ball of baloney set in motion.
A week after McCaul’s Puck News interview, Michael Turner, an Ohio Republican who, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, swings a bigger stick, escalated matters when, reacting to McCaul’s statements, reported that this grave Russian penetration was evident in the upper reaches of the American government, as again reported in The Washington Post :
“Oh, it is absolutely true. We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti–Ukraine and pro–Russia messages, some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor.”
Masked communications uttered on the House floor: Hold the thought, as I will shortly return to it.
The VOA Rendition
The taker of the cake — so far, anyway — arrived last week from Voice of America, the Central Intelligence Agency front posing as a radio broadcaster, under the headline, “How Russia’s disinformation campaign seeps into U.S. views.” Same theme: The Rrrrrussians are poisoning America’s otherwise pristine discourse in an effort to block authorization of the assistance bill, which also includes aid to Israel ($14.1 billion) and Taiwan ($4 billion).
To drive home its point, VOA quotes a lobbyist named Scott Cullinane, who works for something called Razom, which means “together” in the Ukrainian language. Razom is a non-governmental organization “formed in 2014 to support Ukrainians in their quest for freedom.” That is, Razom’s founding coincided with the coup in Kiev the U.S. orchestrated in February 2014.
Razom works with a variety of Ukrainian NGOs to advance this cause and sounds to me like a player in the old civil-society-subterfuge game, though one cannot be sure because, on its website and in its annual reports, it does not say, per usual in these sorts of cases, who funds it.
Here is a little of VOA’s report on Cullinane’s recent doings on Capitol Hill:
“On a near daily basis, Scott Cullinane talks with members of Congress about Russia’s war in Ukraine. As a lobbyist for the nonprofit Razom, part of his job is to convince them of Ukraine’s need for greater U.S. support to survive.
But as lawmakers debated a $95 billion package that includes about $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, Cullinane noticed an increase in narratives alleging Ukrainian corruption. What stood out is that these were the same talking points promoted by Russian disinformation.
So, when The Washington Post published an investigation into an extensive and coordinated Russian campaign to influence U.S. public opinion to deny Ukraine the aid, Cullinane says he was not surprised.
‘This problem has been festering and growing for years,’ he told VOA. ‘I believe that Russia’s best chance for victory is not on the battlefield, but through information operations targeted on Western capitals, including Washington.’”
Straight off the top, there has been no Washington Post “investigation.” The Post simply quoted two paranoid congressmen without bothering to question, never mind investigate, the veracity of their assertions.
Beyond this, the question of Ukrainian corruption is another case of the sky being blue. There is no “alleging” the Kiev regime’s corruption: It is thoroughly documented by, among other authorities, Transparency International, which ranks Ukraine among the world’s most corrupt nations.
You see what is going on here? This is an echo chamber, ever treasured by the propagandists.
Puck News, a web publication of no great account, puts out a warmongering reporter’s interview with a warmongering congressman, The Washington Post reports it, another congressman seconds the assertions of the first, the Post reports that, and then VOA joins the proceedings to report that well-established, beyond-dispute facts are Russian disinformation.
And the echoes multiply, like the circles in a pond when a rock is tossed in. Here is how Tagesspiegel, a Berlin daily whose Russophobia dates to its founding during the U.S. occupation after World War II, reported on the assistance bill immediately after the VOA report:
“The controversy about the aid, which has already passed the U.S. Senate, is reflected in numerous posts on social media and articles on news sites. As The Washington Post reports, one actor has played a decisive role in this: the Russian government.”
When propaganda is king, you have to conclude, what goes around keeps going around.
It is well enough to laugh at this silly business, transparently calculated as it is. Except that this kind of chicanery has a long history, and we learn from it that the Russians have been coming, off and on, for seven-plus decades. The consequences of these conjured imaginings, we also learn, are very other than funny.
When I decided to write the book that came out last autumn as Journalists and Their Shadows, exploring the past was essential to the project. If we want to understand our “press mess,” as I call the current crisis in our media, we had better understand how it got this way.
In the course of my researches into the exuberant anti–Communism of the early Cold War years, I came upon a lengthy takeout Look magazine published on Aug. 3, 1948, under the headline, “Could the Reds Seize Detroit?” This piece was exemplary of its time.
“Detroit is the industrial heart of America,” the writer began. “Today, a sickle is being sharpened to plunge into that heart… The Reds are going boldly about their business.”
Before he finishes, James Metcalfe — let this byline be recorded — has Motor City besieged in “an all-out initial blow in the best blitzkrieg fashion.” The presentation featured masked Communists murdering police officers and telephone operators, seizing airports, blowing up bridges, power grids, rail lines, and highways.
“Caught in the madness of the moment, emboldened by the darkness, intoxicated by an unbridled license to kill and loot, mobs would swarm the streets.” Communist mobs, naturally.
It is easy to read this now with some combination of derision and contempt. Do we have any grounds to do so? Are we doing things so differently now?
There were dangers implicit in the Look piece. It published Metcalfe’s paranoic fantasy a year and a few months after President Harry Truman gave his famous “scare hell out of the American people” speech to Congress in March 1947. Look was in essence recruiting the public as the Truman administration launched the Cold War crusade.
Representatives McCaul and Turner are on a recruitment drive of the very same kind. They are not lying to one another in any kind of effort to clean up Congress. Do not wait for them to lift a finger on that score. They are lying to you and me in what amounts to a scare-hell operation.
And the danger this time is the same as the danger last time. It is the cultivation of a climate of fear wherein the American public is to acquiesce as the new Cold War proceeds and all manner of laws and constitutional rights are abused.
Last Friday the House reauthorized, for two more years, the law known as Section 702, which allows the intelligence cabal to surveille Americans’ digital communications — without warrants and on U.S. soil — if they claim to be targeting foreigners suspected of subversive activities.
What does this have to do with the way the paranoids on Capitol Hill, reporters at The Washington Post, and professional propagandists at VOA are currently carrying on about assistance to Ukraine?
Nothing. And everything.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for The International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored.
US’ global media agency launches probe into ‘election interference’ after VOA runs Biden campaign ad targeting Muslims
RT | July 31, 2020
The head of the US agency for Global Media has announced an investigation into state-funded Voice of America (VOA) for possible election meddling, after its service in Urdu promoted a clip of Joe Biden courting Muslim votes.
The probe, announced by the newly-appointed agency CEO Michael Pack on Thursday, aims to determine whether federal employees of the broadcaster, funded exclusively through taxpayer money, “transgressed the VOA Charter, VOA’s Best Practices Guide, VOA’s Journalistic Code,” and whether they committed US election interference and a federal offence by airing a video “that can only be described as an apparent election advertisement for [the] presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.”
The clip, which was branded with a VOA logo, shows Biden addressing the Million Muslim Votes Summit earlier this month and citing a hadith (saying of Islam’s Prohet Mohammed), while making a series of election pledges such as the ending of travel restrictions to countries with substantial Muslim populations, labeled by US President Donald Trump’s detractors as a “Muslim ban.”
“Your voice is your vote. Muslim American voices matter. I’ll be a president who seeks out and incorporates the ideas and concerns of Muslim Americans on everyday issues that matter most to our communities,” Biden says in the clip.
The ad, which also features the first two Muslim women to be elected to Congress, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, sees Biden’s promise of “having Muslim American voices as part of my administration.”
The video urges American Muslims to go out and vote, calling the effort “the largest Muslim voter mobliziation in America.”
Also on rt.com Envoy demands VOA ramp up anti-Iran efforts to ‘support’ Iranians… because what they really need is more US-funded propaganda
The clip was shared on the VOA’s Urdu website as well as across its social media, before it was scrapped.
In his statement, Pack said that the agency is seeking to find those behind “this significant content and editorial breakdown.”
“USAGM staff members who attempt to influence American elections will be held accountable.”
Ever since Pack was confirmed by the Senate in early June to lead the agency, mainstream media and Democrats have been sounding alarms over the VOA, initially set up in 1942 as a propaganda arm of the US government, potentially becoming an outlet for the wrong kind of propaganda – that is, a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign. However, that does not seem to be the case, at least, for now.
A Brief History of the “Kremlin Trolls”

By Scott Humor | The Saker | October 15, 2018
Saint Petersburg, Savushkina, 55 is the most famous office building in the world, thanks to the relentless promotion of the United States government, the CIA, FBI, and by the powers of the entire Western media, financed by Western governments. VOA, NPR, and Svoboda, by the government of the US; the BBC by the government of the UK; CNN by the governments of Saudi Arabia; the DW, by the government of Germany; and so on and so forth. You name it, they all punched time to promote this office building.
To be specific, it’s not even a building, but several adjoined buildings that cover an entire city block, an urban development plan common for Saint Pete’s. That’s why every business here has the address of Savushkina, 55 followed by a building number. You can take a virtual tour around it, to see for yourself. The buildings are shared by several dozens of private businesses, by the local Police department, and by the newsrooms of half a dozen Russia Media sources like the FAN (Federal News Agency), the Neva News (Nevskie Novosti), Political Russia, Kharkov News Agency, publishing Ukrainian news, and others. They all are privately owned and operated and generate over 55 million unique visitors per month. Overall, several thousand people come to this building to work every morning. But you wouldn’t know this by account of Western media. For over two years now, these people are being harassed and collectively branded as “THE KREMLIN TROLLS.”
The building is very popular because it’s located in a quiet historical neighborhood and is in walking distance from a suburban train station. It’s newly renovated offices offer open floor plans with Scandinavian fleur so very appreciated by the news people. In addition, the rent for this building is less than in center city. Which is why Evgeny Zubarev, a former top editor for the RIA NEWS, choose it for his media startup. He took several offices allowing him to manage his growing media giant without wasting time to commute. Now, the FAN newsroom alone employs about 300 journalists.
This wasn’t always the case.
At the beginning of 2014, the building was still under construction and renovation, when an anti-Russian government group of hackers called first “The Anonymous International” and latter “Shaltay-B0ltay” fingered it as the “Kremlin trolls’ layer.”
Their wordpress blog is still here. It was last updated on November 2016. Its title states: “Anonymous International. Shaltay Boltay/Press Secretary of the group. Creating reality and giving meaning to words.”
November 7, 2014, Khodorkovsky, who acted as an integral part of the CIA “Kremlin trolls” Project, tweeted the picture of one of the entrances to one of the buildings saying: “Savuchkina 55. New home for bots. ID check system. Not a sign there. I won’t say who took the photo.”
Савушкина 55
Новый домик для ботов. Пропускная система. Ни одной вывески. Чье фото – не скажу. pic.twitter.com/oCVUAvSTW4— Ходорковский Михаил (@mich261213) November 7, 2014
Someone commented by saying
Nov 7 2014. The comment reads: “I live there and pass this building on my way to work. The sign on the building says “For Rent”
@tvjihad @mich261213 Михаил, я каждый день мимо проезжаю на работу. и да, чье фото с вывеской не скажу))) pic.twitter.com/FlTEJJwyTt
— Kirill_V (@Kirill_V1) November 7, 2014
The phone number on the picture 324-56-06 belongs to the commercial real estate company Praktis Consulting & Brokerage that managed the rent of offices.
Midsummer 2014, Evgeny Zubarev with his start up and several hundred journalists moved in, along with the Police department, and a slew of other businesses people. Little did they know what was to come.
***
The best way to get information is to make it up.
Everything what we know now about the so-called “Kremlin trolls from the Internet Research Agency paid by Putin’s favorite chef,” came from one source, a group of CIA spies that used the mascot of Shaltay-Boltay, or Humpty-Dumpty, for their collective online persona.
They were arrested in November 2016 and revealed as the FSB and former FSB officers. One of them even managed a security department for the Kaspersky Lab. They all were people highly skilled and educated in manipulating and creating large online databases, in any online research imagined, and the knowledge of hacking and altering databases, including those that were run by the Russian government. They weren’t poor people. They weren’t there for the money. They were ideologically driven. Their hatred towards Russia and its people was the motive for their actions.
At some point, Gazeta.ru, an online Russophobic publication, suggested that “Shaltai-Boltai was just a distraction meant to confuse everybody.” They themselves were more concise by stating that they were working to change the reality.
Russian authorities, the courts, and the lawyers, refused to call these men hackers. There was a reason for this. They weren’t so much hackers in a classic sense, as in when someone gains access to real information and copies it. This group wasn’t necessarily hacking existing information, but planting information. They were creating files about fake nonexistent companies and employees, files with blurry fake paystubs, memos, emails, phone messages and so on. The fakes looked convincing, but they still were forgeries that could be easy disproved for someone who had access to the real information.
That’s when the hacking took place, when the FSB agents went into government databases and created records of people and companies that didn’t exist.
I think that part of the reasons why some of them got the mild sentences of three years in general security prison, and some were left free, wasn’t just the fact that they agreed to collaborate with the Russian government, but also the fact that they didn’t actually steal information from government officials like Medvedev and his press secretary, Nataliya Timakova, or the owner of the largest in Europe catering business, Evgeny Prigozhin. They made information up and claimed that it was real.
These guys gave a bad name to all hackers, whistleblowers, leakers and spies. Now, journalists presented with some “hacked” and leaked secrets has to think it over, less they end up with an egg on their face like journos from the Fontanka, Vedomosti and Novaya Gazeta in case of the “Kremlin’s trolls.”
If we accept that the Shaltay-Boltay group was working to create and distribute documents they forged, claiming that those files were “hacked,” we would also understand a mysterious statement made by them to BuzzFeed.
“In email correspondence with BuzzFeed, a representative of the group claimed they were “not hackers in the classical sense.”
“We are trying to change reality. Reality has indeed begun to change as a result of the appearance of our information in public,” wrote the representative, whose email account is named Shaltai Boltai, which is the Russian for tragic nursery rhyme hero Humpty Dumpty.”
Bazzfeed also said back in 2014, that “The leak from the Internet Research Agency is the first time specific comments under news articles can be directly traced to a Russian campaign.”
Now, this is a very important grave mark.
Just think about this working scheme: Shaltay-Boltay with a group of anti-government “activists” created the “Internet Research Agency,” they and some “activists” created 470 FaceBook accounts used to post comments that looked unmistakably “trollish.”
After that other, CIA affiliated entities, like the entire Western Media, claimed the “Russian interference in the US election.” Finally, the ODNI published a report lacking any evidence in it.
The link to their report is here, but I don’t recommend you to read it. You will gain as much information by reading this report as you would by chewing on some wet newspaper. Ask my dog for details.
Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections
https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
Only three paragraphs are interesting on the page 4:
“Russia used trolls as well as RT as part of its influence efforts to denigrate Secretary Clinton. This effort amplified stories on scandals about Secretary Clinton and the role of WikiLeaks in the election campaign.
The likely financier of the so-called Internet Research Agency of professional trolls located in Saint Petersburg is a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence.
A journalist who is a leading expert on the Internet Research Agency claimed that some social media accounts that appear to be tied to Russia’s professional trolls—because they previously were devoted to supporting Russian actions in Ukraine—started to advocate for President-elect Trump as early as December 2015.”
In other words, in its report with a subtitle: “Background to “Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent US Elections”: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident Attribution” the Office of the Director of National Intelligence ODNI, is quoting the Shaltay-Boltay, a group that had been proved to work for the CIA by “creating reality.”
The only reason why they don’t provide us with evidence, with at least one lousy IP address with the Russian trace roots that would convincingly point at the company named the Internet Research Agency, is because this company never existed, it never had any IP addresses assigned to it that would be verifiable via third parties like RIPE network coordination and via online domain tools.
We understand that having hundreds of people working ten to twelve hours a day, as they claimed, posting hundreds messages hourly, would use huge amount of bandwidth. They would need a very fast internet connection with unlimited bandwidth that only a business can get. Inevitably, this internet connection would come with the assigned IP addresses. No internet provider would let this kind of bandwidth hog to create this kind traffic without being forced to separate them from other customers.
One example, a woman with the last name Malcheva filed a lawsuit in court against the companies “Internet Research, LLC” and “TEKA, LLC,” claiming unpaid wages.
The court asked her to produce evidence of her work, and then denied her claim after she produced a photo of a computer with an IP address on its screen as evidence of her employment.
IP Address 109.167.231.85
inetnum: 109.167.231.0 – 109.167.231.255
netname: WESTCALL-NET
descr: S-Peterburg Hotel Corintia Wi-Fi
An IP address that was assigned to a luxury hotel in Saint-Petersburg. A hotel that was awarded multiple international awards for excellence. An immensely popular hotel among discriminating travelers. A very expensive hotel located in the center of a historic city. The woman claimed that she was an “online troll’ working from this location ten hours a day with hundreds of other virtual trolls. The judge didn’t believe her. Would you?
People from the Shaltay-Boltay group weren’t hackers in the proper terms because they worked with and for the CIA. Middle-of the-road and run-of-the-mill intelligence agencies would collect and analyze information for their governments. The CIA invents information, then goes on to manufacture and forge documents in support of their invented information; they then recruit people inside other countries and other governments to claim that they “obtained” this explosive evidence. Being the dirty cops that they are, the CIA doesn’t obtain and secure evidence, but instead they plant fake evidence on their victims.
By this act alone they change our current and past reality, and they change our future. They change our history by forging never existing “proof” of invented myths. They hire and train groups of military men to act as “protesters” around government buildings, while other military men from other countries shoot at unsuspected bystanders whose death allows Washington to claim the sovereign governments’ wrongdoing.
CIA-operated groups arrest and kill government officials or force them to flee, like in Ukraine. They take over a couple of government buildings and declare their victory over a huge country, just like it happened in Russia in 1991 and 1993 and in Ukraine in 2005 and 2014. For some reason, they claim that governments are those people who take over a couple of buildings in one city. When in fact, our countries’ governments are those people whose names we wrote on ballots, regardless of where these people are located. We don’t run around like chickens with our heads cut off electing a new president every time our current president leaves the country.
Going back to the CIA’s Humpty-Dumpty project that came online sometime in 2013. Why would anyone name their enterprise after such predictable failure, you might ask. Because, in the Russian alliteration, Shalti-Boltai means “shake up and brag about it” and not as in its original Carroll’s version of “humping and dumping.”
I went ballistic after someone retweeted me this CNN clip titled “Russia used Pokemon Go to interfere with the US elections.”
I actually listened to the clip itself, in which they brought up the Internet Research Agency” from SP. Knowing full well that the hackers who “leaked” the information about this “Agency” were arrested and successfully charged for treason because they worked for the CIA should prevent the CIA to run fake news about the entities and people they themselves made up. You would think that the matter of the “Kremlin trolls from Saint Petersburg” should be dead and buried after the arrest. The CIA and other 16 intelligence agencies should know better than to use information that is being known now as “discovered’ with their “help.”
Because it’s all fake and we know it.
We also know everything that the CIA touches is fake. Speaking in layman’s term, it’s as if all those middle aged bald guys would start licking their balls while claiming to be in fulfilling relations. If it’s just you, guys, there is no relations. It’s just you. Deal with it!
The American intelligence community cannot claim an existence of threats against America if all fingers in those “threats” are pointing back at the American intelligence community.
By stating that someone interfered with the US election using the Internet Research Agency in SP, is plainly to state that it’s CIA that interfered in the American elections.
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Let’s just briefly run over the matter, before I tell you what exactly took place.
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On September 6, 2017, Alex Stamos, a Chief Security Officer, posted a statement titled “An Update On Information Operations On Facebook”:
“In reviewing the ads buys, we have found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 — associated with roughly 3,000 ads — that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies. Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.”
To make sure that people including myself won’t find those accounts, the FB deleted them.
“We don’t allow inauthentic accounts on Facebook, and as a result, we have since shut down the accounts and Pages we identified that were still active.”
That’s how it’s done in the US. They destroy all potential evidence while laying heavy blame on Russia. Facebook destroys evidence of “Russians crimes” while public ask them to show those evidences. This means only one thing: the pieces of evidence are pointing at something Facebook wants to protect, which is the CIA.
You see, I am not suggesting that they are lying about those accounts being real or that they “affiliated with Russia,” because, if the Shaltay-Boltay group worked with people from the Soros and Khodorkovky-backed group of human rights lawyers “Team 29,” created in February 2015, then their only task, it seems, was to service the psyop of the “Internet Trolls.” It looks to me like they could also coordinated the work done by those 470 FaceBook accounts while being on the territory of Russia. Considering that, it’s not a complete lie for the FB to say that those accounts were “Russia affiliated” and that they were “likely operated from Russia.”
Facebook also can claim with plausible deniability that they are ignorant of the fact that people behind the Internet Research Agency troll hoax are proved by the Russian court to be affiliated with the CIA, while people who have been acting as the “witnesses” to this Project are lawyers from Team 29, “human rights activists and also journalists from the Norwegian Bonnier AB owned Fontanka, Taiwan-based Novaya Gazeta, and the Latvia-based Meduza; these people are factually proven to be backed by Soros, a CIA financial branch, like a journalist who has received an award from Khodorkovsky.
The entire campaign of blaming Russia in “meddling” is being reported without ANY tangible proof that could be verified by at least two independently existing sources, that’s why we should grab ANY grains of information. That’s why Facebook’s statement that “About one-quarter of these ads were geographically targeted, and of those, more ran in 2015 than 2016″is very important.
Why?
Because, fake business entities known as “the Internet Research Agency,” and “the Internet Research” in the government electronic business registry, they were treated as real companies by the system. Because of their inactivity on all of their bank accounts and because no one ever filed required forms, they were automatically liquidated by the electronic system.
The United Business Registry database in Russia works according to the Federal laws, so after twelve months of inactivity a business is simply liquidated. The Internet Research Agency was liquidated in December 2016 by the government system after it been inactive for twelve month. It’s inactivity implied that the company had no employees, no office, and no bank transactions for at least twelve months! The Internet Research company was liquidated on September 2, 2015 by merging with TEKA company. According to the federal business Registry TEKA was a construction retailer. I wasn’t able to find any indication, like an office, phone number, names of the managers or employees, anything at all that would indicate that this company existed. Just like the Internet Research Agency and the Internet Research, TEKA existed only in the federal registry and nowhere else.
The automatic liquidation in the federal registry for inactivity explains the drop in activity on the accounts run by the Shaltay-Boltay and the others. Oh, yes, they were also hunted and on the run, out of the country. It’s hard to use bank accounts to simulate activities after you have fled the country.
The Team 29, of the human rights lawyers and activists, was created in February 2015. To give to this new company some proof of reality and instant notoriety they immediately filed a lawsuit against the Internet Research company using an activist woman with a Ukrainian last name Ludmila Savchuk (Людмила Савчук) who went and filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming some unpaid wages. Her first lawsuit the judge threw out. Only after the local general prosecutor’s office pressed the judge to take the case, the district court took the case and partially granted the Claimant her claim, but not the “moral damages.” She wanted the money for working for the “troll factory.” In essence, they wanted an official court paper that would say black on white, that there is a “troll factory” that this poor woman worked for. Without reading the file, I don’t know what the judge was thinking, but she might have smelled a rat among those virtual “trolls.”
This took place in August 2015, and by September 2 2015, a fake company named the “Internet Research” was liquidated by merging it, in the Business registry, with another fake entity, TEKA, that was created in spring 2015 as the construction materials retailer.
“Facebook disclosed on Wednesday that it had identified more than $100,000 worth of divisive ads on hot-button issues purchased by a shadowy Russian company linked to the Kremlin.”
“Most of the 3,000 ads did not refer to particular candidates but instead focused on divisive social issues such as race, gay rights, gun control and immigration, according to a post on Facebook by Alex Stamos, the company’s chief security officer. The ads, which ran between June 2015 and May 2017, were linked to some 470 fake accounts and pages the company said it had shut down.”
“Facebook officials said the fake accounts were created by a Russian company called the Internet Research Agency, which is known for using “troll” accounts to post on social media and comment on news websites.”
“The January intelligence report said the “likely financier” of the Internet Research Agency was “a close Putin ally with ties to Russian intelligence.” The company, profiled by The New York Times Magazine in 2015, is in St. Petersburg and uses its small army of trolls to put out messages supportive of Russian government policy.”
“To date, while news reports have uncovered many meetings and contacts between Trump associates and Russians, there has been no evidence proving collusion in the hacking or other Russian activities.”
“While there is no direct link between the Kremlin and any of these projects—both Surkov and Zubarev say their projects are privately funded—the timing, scale, and coordination of these efforts are suspicious. BuzzFeed was not able to find evidence of direct government funding to the “Internet Research Agency ,” the pro-Kremlin troll outlet operating out of 55 Savushkina, but they did reference a number of sources that revealed some level of involvement.”
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In my next study, I will provide you with more links, screenshots and translations. I will demonstrate to you how this story connects to the war on the Middle East and the international war on the Russian population of Ukraine.
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In conclusion I just want to say that everything the United State touches turns into a warzone. The building on Savushkina, 55 in Saint Petersburg is no exception.
Multiple death threats are being directed at people who work there. Popular and excellent in their quality media outlets operating there have to hide their true location and rent a separate office across the city for their visitors, because people are simply afraid to come in.
Journalists and multiple business employees are threatened online with rape.
Threats to hang the journalists during a “protest meeting” on Oct 1, 2017
At least one case of terror attack on the office building that resulted in arson on October 26, 2016.
On Oct 26, 2016, several men threw bottles of Molotov cocktail in the windows of the Nevskie Novosti (Neva News). Luckily, no one was there but the owner of the Media conglomerate, Evgeny Zubarev, who put out the fire.
All of these, every threat, every simple lie is all on the United State government, its intelligence community, on those traitors, who are in prison now, and those who are still at large.
UPDATE:
A couple of Kaspersky staff members (Stoyanov and Dokuchaev), including the head of computer crime investigations (Stoyanov), were arrested by
Russian FSB on treason charges in January this year. An FSB officer (Sergei Mikhailov) was also arrested. The treason charges suggest they
were acting on behalf of a foreign power. SputnikMaybe the US actions against Kaspersky Labs anti-virus software are an attempt to preempt the consequences of the trial of the Kaspersky and
FSB operatives?
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Scott Humor
Director of Research and Development
author of The enemy of the State
US gears up to fight Russian ‘disinformation’ with… disinformation
RT | March 17, 2016
Two US senators are proposing legislation to counter, what they consider to be “disinformation” spread by certain foreign media. What better way to kick-start their campaign than by basing their bill on spurious nonsense?
Republican Senator Rob Portman and his Democratic colleague Chris Murphy are deeply concerned about foreign “propaganda.” They demand that Uncle Sam throws even more money at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), which is already given around $768 million annually.
Not content with the EU’s Stratcom East and NATO’s Riga-based communications centre, Portman and Murphy want a new center for Information Analysis and Response to analyze “foreign government information-warfare efforts.”
What better place to launch the crusade than at NATO’s Atlantic Council appendage? An organization funded by such disinterested and neutral parties as the US State Department, Lockheed Martin, the Kingdom of Bahrain and the monarchy of the United Arab Emirates?
Portman certainly couldn’t think of a better venue, so he showed up on Wednesday to express his satisfaction that the “US version of events is better.” This attitude is not a shock. Most of the US elite, and their media champions believe America has a monopoly on truth. Next, Portman warned that Russia, China and other countries are trying to “manipulate and control information to achieve their national goals, often at the expense of the interests and values of America’s allies.”
The Senator sounded particularly worried about RT. And it is no wonder. Portman claimed RT spends $400 million a year just for the maintenance of our Washington bureau. Just imagine that? $400 million big ones.
Unfortunately, given that our entire budget for 2016 is 17 billion rubles, or around $248 million in today’s dollars, we have no idea where on earth Portman got this numbers – or if he even believes them. That $248 million pays for the global broadcasting and newsgathering operations of round-the-clock TV channels in English, Arabic and Spanish, documentaries, online portals in six languages, the RT UK channel, and yes, RT America – our stateside outpost. To run all of this RT receives one third of the funding the US government allocates for the BBG. Despite modest means, RT can boast 70 million weekly TV viewers, nearly 50 million monthly unique visitors to our digital platforms and a status as the number one international TV news network on YouTube, with more than 3 billion views.
Amazing, the BBG’S Voice of America (VOA) reported Portman’s $400 million figure without question, and with no apparent fact-checking. The Senator’s – and the supposedly venerated news organization’s he seeks to aid – fight against “disinformation” kicks off with a blatant lie. You really can’t make this stuff up.
VOA wasn’t alone, Germany’s own state-broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW), also carried Portman’s erroneous sums. DW, of course, is never regarded as propaganda in Washington because the administration in Berlin is not a threat to American interests.
This is despite the fact that it receives government funding – $332 million per year – to communicate its country’s point of view to the world. When RT contacted DW to correct this blatant falsehood, the outlet’s editors treated the issue as a “difference of opinion” before eventually adding RT’s budget figure as our own claim, and not the publicly available information that it is, and that has been reported by hundreds of, credible, news outlets.
The BBG, and its supporters, such as Senator Portman, are currently fighting hard in Washington to secure extra resources for their efforts. An intensive campaign has been fought over the past six months to support these objectives. Much of this lobbying has been based on exaggeration and outright lies. Portman’s $400 million is one of the most absurd yet. The fact that VOA and DW unquestioningly repeated the deceit speaks volumes.






