RussiaGate Archives - Doctor Paradox

RussiaGate

March 24, 2024

Ukraine Timeline

The war in Ukraine is less “surprising” to some who’ve seen it raging since 2014. Although it escalated greatly in 2022, the Ukraine timeline dates back all the way to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

To understand the backstory — which is now inextricably intertwined with our own presidential history given the impeachment of Donald Trump over his phone calls with Zelensky to the Republican Party‘s current-day support of the aims of Vladimir Putin — we have to go back to a time when no one was stronger on anti-Russian policy than GOP darling Ronald Reagan.

1991 — Ukraine declares independence and becomes an independent entity after the fall of the Soviet Union
1994 — Ukraine agrees to give up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a protection agreement with Russia, United States, Britain, and Ireland (Budapest Memorandum)
2004 — Viktor Yanukovich “wins” election under dubious circumstances and is deposed for a do over election, which he loses to Viktor Yuschenko (Orange Revolution)
2006 — Viktor Yanukovych begins working directly with Paul Manafort, in an effort to boost his image after his electoral loss. Manafort was known for his work helping the “Torturers’ Lobby” of brutal dictators around the world in the 1980s, with Roger Stone (another infamous dirty trickster best known for his role as a fixer for Richard Nixon).
2007 — Yanukovych’s Party of Regions does well in the Ukranian parliamentary elections, gaining a large number of seats credited to Manafort’s strategic advice about Western-style campaigning.
2010 — Yanukovych is elected President of Ukraine, again largely crediting Manafort’s strategies for his comeback.
Nov 2013 — Having promised a more European-style government in order to win the presidency in 2010, Yanukovych turned on his word and initiated more pro-Russian policies than the Ukranians had signed up for. Yanukovych is now beset by enormous public protests against the corruption of his regime, and his unilateral decision to abandon an association agreement with the EU in favor of a trade agreement with Russia (Maidan Revolution / Revolution of Dignity)
Feb 2014 — After a harrowing 93 days barricaded inside Kyiv’s Maidan Square, activists are victorious; Yanukovich is deposed and flees to Russia
Mar 2014 — Russian forces invade and annex the region of Crimea within Ukraine
Apr 2014 — Russian forces invade the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, escalating a war that continues to this day and had already killed more than 14,000 people by the time the 2022 large scale invasion began
Apr 2014 — Hunter Biden and business partner Devon Archer join the board of Burisma
May 2014 — Candy magnate Petro Poroshenko succeeds Yanukovych as president of Ukraine
Feb 10, 2015 — Viktor Shokin takes office as the prosecutor general of Ukraine, tasked with getting a handle on rampant corruption
Oct 8, 2015 — US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland reiterates strong concerns that Shokin is failing to prosecute obvious corruption in Ukraine, and that efforts at anti-corruption must be stepped up there
Dec 8, 2015 — Then VP and point person on Ukraine Joe Biden gave a speech to the Ukrainian parliament, urging them to step up their efforts to pursue anti-corruption reforms to help strengthen their young democracy
Winter 2015-6 — Biden is talking to Poroshenko about how Shokin is slow-walking their anti-corruption efforts
Feb 16, 2016 — Viktor Shokin resigns as Prosecutor General of Ukraine
May 12, 2016 — Yuriy Lutsenko is appointed as the new Prosecutor General, despite having no law degree or legal experience. At first he takes a hard line against Burisma.
Aug 14, 2016 — “Black ledger” payments to Paul Manafort from Viktor Yanukovych go public
May 10, 2017 — Trump hosts Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office, the day after he has fired James Comey as the Director of the FBI over “the Russian thing” — only a photographer for Russian news agency Tass is allowed to cover the meeting
June 2017 — The NotPetya malware emerges and causes extensive damage — especially in Ukraine. It is widely fingerprinted as a Russian state-sponsored attack.
October 30, 2017 — Paul Manafort is indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for money laundering, acting as a foreign agent, making false statements, and conspiracy against the United States, as part of the ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.
Apr 30, 2018 — At a Trump dinner in his DC hotel, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman tell Trump they think Ukraine Ambassador Yovanovitch isn’t loyal enough to him
May-June 2018 — Lev Parnas pressures US Congressman Pete Sessions to pressure Trump to fire Yovanovitch in exchange for campaign funding; he and Fruman are later arrested for this scheme and other federal charges of illegal foreign funding of election campaigns
Summer 2018 — Trump reportedly frets a potential Biden run for the presidency
August 2018 — Lev Parnas’s company, which is named (I kid you not) “Fraud Guarantee,” hires Rudy Giuliani‘s firm for $500,000 to continue working on getting Ambassador Yovanovitch fired for doing her job pursuing corruption in Ukraine.
Sept 2018 — Congress passes and Trump signs a spending bill for the Department of Defense, including $250 million in military aid to Ukraine under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI)
Late 2018 — Lev Parnas arranges for Giuliani to meet with both Shokin and Lutsenko on multiple occasions; Devin Nunes also secretly meets with Shokin in Vienna.
Dec 6, 2018 — Trump pressures Parnas and Fruman to pressure the Ukrainian government to open an investigation into the Bidens
Late Feb, 2019 — Parnas and Fruman pressure then-President Poroshenko to open an investigation into the Bidens, in exchange for a state visit at the White House that would help his challenging re-election campaign against the popular young upstart comedian Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Spring 2019 — A “working group” of Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, conservative Hill reporter John Solomon, Joseph diGenova, Victoria Toensing, and Devin Nunes’s top aide Harvey meet regularly to work on the quid pro quo project
March 2019 — Prosecutor General Lutsenko opens 2 investigations: 1 into alleged Ukrainian involvement in the 2016 US election (a Russian conspiracy theory) and a 2nd into Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma (he will later retract many of his allegations).
March 24, 2019 — Don Jr. tweets criticism of Ambassador Yovanovitch
March 28, 2019 — Giuliani hands off a smear campaign packet of disinformation cobbled together on Yovanovitch, intended for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
April 24, 2019 — Trump orders Marie Yovanovitch recalled from her diplomatic mission in Ukraine, after Giuliani and other allies reported she was undermining and obstructing their efforts to extort Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky to claim he was investigating the Bidens for corruption.
July 25, 2019 — On a phone call with Zelensky, Trump pressures him to investigate Biden in exchange for the release of funds to keep the Russians at bay in Crimea. He disparages Yovanovitch on the call, referring to her as “bad news.”
Oct 3, 2019 — Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is unsummarily fired by Donald Trump after recently having been invited to continue her post for several more years
Dec 18, 2019 — The House of Representatives votes to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the first of two times Trump will be impeached.
Feb 5, 2020 — The Republican-controlled Senate voted along party lines, having called no witnesses, to acquit Donald Trump of both impeachment charges.
Feb 2022 — Russian forces begin a large scale land invasion of Ukraine including massive attacks on civilian cities.
Feb 2024 — Donald Trump holds up a bipartisan immigration deal in Congress that would allow military aide funds to Ukraine to be released. Running for a second term as US President, Trump continues to break with 80 years of the post-WWII international order — in refusing to support NATO, the alliance widely regarded as keeping the peace in Europe broadly, as well as in supporting the regime of Vladimir Putin in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

February 7, 2024

💻 Information Warfare Dictionary🕵🏻‍♀️

Hybrid Warfare

Information warfare involves the use and management of information to gain a competitive advantage over an opponent, including both offensive and defensive measures. Offensive tactics might involve cyber attacks, hacking, and disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining an adversary’s decision-making process or public morale. Defensive measures focus on protecting one’s own information systems and networks from similar attacks. Information warfare is heavily reliant on technology and the internet, making it particularly relevant in the digital age.

Geopolitical conflict is now less about the collision of massive armies and much more about a combination of information warfare, intelligence, espionage, criminal networks, cyberwarfare, psychological warfare, and an overall blend of strategies in addition to traditional “hot” war mechanisms like troop deployment — as well as more modern twists on military engagement including drone strikes and cyberoffensives (the Russia-Ukraine conflict is a canonical modern example of this hybrid warfare strategy). Russian psychological warfare of the Cold War era presaged much of what was to come in modern day spy vs. spy intensity, and the advent of the Internet, social media, and an entirely new digital threat horizon heralds the growth of this form of conflict for years and decades to come.

Information warfare in the United States

Nor is it simply a geopolitical problem manifested by foreign adversaries — now information warfare is a domestic disturbance fomented largely by right-wing political actors and reactionaries in a massive backlash to the cultural and social progress of multiethnic democracy in America since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. From massive corporate PR campaigns lying to the public about the cancerous consequences of smoking to the deliberate seeding of conspiracy theories like QAnon into political discourse, the information warfare playbook has gone mainstream within the Republican party.

Whether we’re aware of it or not, we as American citizens are unwitting infantry in a new form of slow-moving Civil War. In this war, some of the first armaments to pick up are in this set of dictionaries below. Knowledge has always been power — but now, knowledge is one of our best defenses against the Dark Arts as well.

Information warfare terms

More dictionaries »

February 3, 2024

Active measures

In it simplest form, active measures incorporates information warfare aimed at undermining the West.

Active measures (“активные мероприятия” in Russian) refer to a form of political warfare conducted by the Soviet Union and now, by extension, Russia, to influence the course of world events. These measures include a wide range of activities, such as espionage, the dissemination of propaganda, and the establishment of front organizations, all aimed at manipulating the public opinion and decision-making processes in other countries.

The goal is often to destabilize opponents and weaken alliances contrary to the interests of the Soviet Union or Russia, without engaging in much riskier direct military conflict.

Disinformation in active measures

Historically, active measures have included complex operations, such as spreading disinformation, orchestrating smear campaigns, and using psychological warfare to sow discord and confusion among the target population. For example, during the Cold War, the KGB engaged in active measures to spread false information about the United States, aiming to weaken its credibility and influence on the global stage.

These operations were meticulously planned and could span years or even decades, employing a variety of tactics from leaking altered documents to fostering relationships with sympathetic or unknowing individuals within influential positions.

In the digital age, the concept of active measures has evolved with technology. Social media platforms and the internet have become fertile grounds for such operations, allowing for the rapid spread of disinformation and the manipulation of public opinion on a scale previously unimaginable.

These modern active measures can involve cyber attacks, the use of trolls and bots to amplify divisive content, and the strategic release of hacked information to influence political outcomes, as seen in various elections around the world (the Wikileaks email dumps that helped Trump eke out the presidency in 2016, e.g.). The adaptability and covert nature of active measures make them a persistent challenge for governments and societies trying to safeguard democratic processes and maintain national security.

January 8, 2024

Sockpuppet accounts

Sockpuppets are fake social media accounts used by trolls for deceptive and covert actions, avoiding culpability for abuse, aggression, death threats, doxxing, and other criminal acts against targets.

In the digital age, the battleground for political influence has extended beyond traditional media to the vast, interconnected realm of social media. Central to this new frontier are “sockpuppet” accounts – fake online personas created for deceptive purposes. These shadowy figures have become tools in the hands of authoritarian regimes, perhaps most notably Russia, to manipulate public opinion and infiltrate the political systems of countries like the UK, Ukraine, and the US.

What are sockpuppet accounts?

A sockpuppet account is a fake online identity used for purposes of deception. Unlike simple trolls or spam accounts, sockpuppets are more sophisticated. They mimic real users, often stealing photos and personal data to appear authentic. These accounts engage in activities ranging from posting comments to spreading disinformation, all designed to manipulate public opinion.

The Strategic Use of Sockpuppets

Sockpuppet accounts are a cog in the larger machinery of cyber warfare. They play a critical role in shaping narratives and influencing public discourse. In countries like Russia, where the state exerts considerable control over media, these accounts are often state-sponsored or affiliated with groups that align with government interests.

Case Studies: Russia’s global reach

The United Kingdom: Investigations have revealed Russian interference in the Brexit referendum. Sockpuppet accounts spread divisive content to influence public opinion and exacerbate social tensions. Their goal was to weaken the European Union by supporting the UK’s departure.
Ukraine: Russia’s geopolitical interests in Ukraine have been furthered through a barrage of sockpuppet accounts. These accounts disseminate pro-Russian propaganda and misinformation to destabilize Ukraine’s political landscape, particularly during times of crisis, elections, or — most notably — during its own current war of aggression against its neighbor nation.
The United States: The 2016 US Presidential elections saw an unprecedented level of interference. Russian sockpuppets spread divisive content, fake news, and even organized real-life events, creating an environment of distrust and chaos. Their goal was to sow discord and undermine the democratic process.

Vladimir Putin with his sheep, by Midjourney

How sockpuppets operate

Sockpuppets often work in networks, creating an echo chamber effect. They amplify messages, create false trends, and give the illusion of widespread support for a particular viewpoint. Advanced tactics include deepfakes and AI-generated text, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish between real and fake content.

Detection and countermeasures

Detecting sockpuppets is challenging due to their evolving sophistication. Social media platforms are employing AI-based algorithms to identify and remove these accounts. However, the arms race between detection methods and evasion techniques continues. Governments and independent watchdogs also play a crucial role in exposing such operations.

Implications for democracy

The use of sockpuppet accounts by authoritarian regimes like Russia poses a significant threat to democratic processes. By influencing public opinion and political outcomes in other countries, they undermine the very essence of democracy – the informed consent of the governed. This digital interference erodes trust in democratic institutions and fuels political polarization.

As we continue to navigate the complex landscape of digital information, the challenge posed by sockpuppet accounts remains significant. Awareness and vigilance are key. Social media platforms, governments, and individuals must collaborate to safeguard the integrity of our political systems. As citizens, staying informed and critically evaluating online information is our first line of defense against this invisible but potent threat.

January 4, 2024

Deep state

Uncategorized

The “deep state” conspiracy theory, particularly as it has been emphasized by supporters of former President Donald Trump, alleges the existence of a hidden, powerful network within the U.S. government, working to undermine and oppose Trump’s presidency and agenda. In reality, the epithet is an elaborate way of discrediting the non-partisan civil service personnel who are brought in to government for their expertise and competence, who typically remain in their posts through Presidential transitions regardless of which party is occupying the White House.

The deep state gathers in front of the US Capitol, by Midjourney

Origin of the deep state meme

The term “deep state” originated in Turkey in the 1990s, referring to a clandestine network of military officers and their civilian allies who, it was believed, were manipulating Turkish politics. In the American context, the term was popularized during the Trump administration as a meme, evolving to imply a shadowy coalition — echoing other popular conspiracy theories such as the antisemitic global cabal theory — within the U.S. government, including intelligence agencies, the civil service, and other parts of the bureaucracy.

Main claims

Bureaucratic opposition: The theory posits that career government officials, particularly in intelligence and law enforcement agencies, are systematically working against Trump’s interests. This includes alleged sabotage of his policies and leaking information to the media.
Manipulation of information: Proponents believe that these officials manipulate or withhold information to influence government policy and public opinion against Trump.
Alleged connections with other theories: The deep state theory often intersects with other conspiracy theories, like those surrounding the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the impeachment proceedings against Trump. It suggests these events were orchestrated by the deep state to discredit or destabilize his presidency.

Contextual factors

Political polarization: The rise of the deep state theory is partly attributed to the increasing political polarization in the U.S. It serves as a narrative to explain and rally against perceived opposition within the government.
Media influence: Certain media outlets and social media platforms have played a significant role in propagating this theory. It’s often amplified by commentators who support Trump, contributing to its widespread dissemination among his base.
Trump’s endorsement: Trump himself has referenced the deep state, particularly when discussing investigations into his administration or when responding to criticism from within the government.

Criticism and counterarguments to deep state “theory”

Lack of concrete evidence: Critics argue that the deep state theory lacks substantial evidence. They contend that routine government processes, checks and balances, and the separation of powers are mischaracterized as clandestine operations.
Undermining trust in institutions: There’s concern that such theories undermine public trust in vital governmental institutions, particularly those responsible for national security and law enforcement.
Political tool: Detractors view the deep state concept as a political tool used to dismiss or discredit legitimate investigation and opposition.

Deep state conspiracy theory, as illustrated by Midjourney

Impact on governance and society

Influence on supporters: For many Trump supporters, the deep state theory provides an explanatory framework for understanding his political challenges and defeats. It galvanizes his base by portraying him as an outsider battling corrupt, entrenched interests.
Public trust and conspiracism: The theory contributes to a broader erosion of trust in government and institutions, fostering a climate where conspiratorial thinking becomes more mainstream.
Policy implications: Belief in the deep state can impact policy discussions and decisions, as it frames certain government actions and policies as inherently suspect or malicious.

Comparative perspective

Globally, similar theories exist in various forms, often reflecting local political and historical contexts. They typically emerge in situations where there is a distrust of the political establishment and are used to explain perceived injustices or power imbalances.

The deep state conspiracy theory as espoused by Trump’s MAGA movement plays a significant role in current American political discourse, impacting public perception of government, policy debates, and the broader social and political climate. Its lack of verifiable evidence and potential to undermine democratic institutions make it a dangerous propaganda prop applied recklessly by the current GOP frontrunner for the 2024 nomination.

June 6, 2023

Project Lakhta

Uncategorized

Project Lakhta is the internal name for the disinformation operation that Yevgeniy Prigozhin‘s Internet Research Agency is running to interfere in elections across the Western world, according to the Robert Mueller indictments relating to the Russian attacks on the 2016 election.

The op included/includes bots on social media, fake influencers, paid crisis actors, massive propaganda, financial fraud, old-fashioned spying, and more. There is no evidence this operation has ceased its activities — indeed what would be the incentive, following such Great Success??

In fact, prosecutions are still ongoing.

Project Lakhta and the Internet Research Agency: Russia's troll factory

History of Project Lakhta

Project Lakhta was a covert operation ordered by Russian president Vladimir Putin with the goal of interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The interference aimed to harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boost the candidacy of Donald Trump, and increase political and social discord in the United States. The Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian troll farm, created thousands of social media accounts to support radical political groups and promote events in support of Trump and against Clinton. The operation also involved computer hackers affiliated with the Russian military intelligence service infiltrating information systems of the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign officials, then publicly releasing the stolen files and emails. The U.S. intelligence community, the FBI, and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees conducted investigations into the matter. These investigations concluded that Russian interference was “sweeping and systematic” and “violated U.S. criminal law”, but there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates (¹).

Scale of Project Lakhta

In 2018 a Russian national, Elena Khusyaynova, was charged with being a key member of Project Lakhta. Khusyaynova served as the chief accountant of the operation and managed its financial aspects, including paying off Russian political activists posing as U.S. citizens, advertising on social media platforms, and promoting news postings on social networks. Between 2016 and 2018, Project Lakhta’s expenses exceeded $35 million and its operating budget was over $10 million. The operation allegedly involved the creation of thousands of fake social media accounts to aggravate political groups and create divides before the election. The charges were unsealed in Alexandria, Virginia, emphasizing that the complaint does not allege that Khusyaynova or the broader conspiracy had any effect on the outcome of an election. In response to these meddling efforts and a recent data breach, Facebook is reportedly seeking to acquire a major cybersecurity firm to enhance its security measures (²).

June 23, 2019

Advice from James Madison to America, from the grave

How shall we think about Russia’s ongoing intrusion into the U.S. political realm — especially its attacks on the heart of democracy: our election system?

I think James Madison — the Father of the Constitution — would have had many choice words about this development. Since we cannot alas ask him his opinion any longer, perhaps his parting words to the beloved country he was instrumental in creating can suffice:

The advice nearest to my heart and deepest in my convictions is the Union of the States be cherished and perpetuated. Let the open enemy to it be regarded as a Pandora with her box opened; and the disguised one, as the Serpent creeping with his deadly wiles into Paradise.”
— “Advice to My Country,” James Madison, 1834

May 7, 2019

The Trump Russia Scandal: Cast of Characters for the new Cold War

This list casts a wide net in enumerating the various principals of interest to Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election… and beyond. The Russia scandal has continued to unspool throughout the Trump presidency, including the real estate magnate’s first impeachment over his extortion of Ukraine, and his second impeachment over the armed insurrection he incited following his failed re-election bid. It continues to this day.

Plus, don’t miss the RussiaGate Lexicon — and please note these are both works in progress and being updated frequently as new details emerge about the Russia scandal, the Trump family criminal organization, and Putin’s revanchist influence in American politics.

Bestiary

Nationality	Type	Known for
American	Civil servant	Top aide to Hillary Clinton
Latvian	Bank	One of the largest private banks in Latvia
Russian	Oligarch	Russian steel magnate whose Evraz company was given the green light to supply steel to DAPL by the Trump administration
	Lobbyist	A company seeking to build nuclear power plants in the Middle East in partnership with a sanctioned Russia company; Mike Flynn was working for them without having disclosed it to the US government as required.
Russian
Russian	Oligarch	Emin's father; a wealthy Russian-Azerbaijani oligarch who has received lucrative construction contracts from the Kremlin. Known as "Putin's Builder"
Russian	Oligarch	Popular Russian-Azerbaijani singer and businessperson who may have facilitated a handoff of hacked information to Donald Trump Jr via surrogates
Russian	Russian Mafia
Ukranian	Oligarch	Ukranian steel magnate who brokered the relationship between Paul Manafort and defeated presidential candidate Victor Yanukovich
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Former Soviety spy who attending the June 9 meeting in Trump Tower between Don Jr, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya
Russian	Oligarch	CEO of Lukoil, Russia's second largest oil and gas company, that sought the services offered by Trump data firm Cambridge Analytica
Russian	Bank	Largest private commercial bank in Russia, that reportedly had a mysterious secret server connection to the Trump Organization during the campaign. The head of Alfa Group is the father-in-law of Dutch lawyer Alex Van Der Zwaan, currently serving 30 days in federal prison after being indicted by the FBI in the Mueller investigation.
Azerbaijani		Wife of Emin Agalarov and daughter of the president of Ajerbaijan.
	Company	Head of Crowdstrike, the US security firm that first broke the results of the DNC hack investigation, concluding the Russian military intelligence agency was behind it.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	IRA-controlled Twitter account, an anti-immigration persona with 24,000 followers
American	Media Outlet	Helped bury stories portraying Trump in a bad light before the election, via catch and kill methodology among others
Chinese	Company
		Flight 93
American	Company	The House might come after messaging records for principals.
	Oligarch	co-founder of Bayrock and Kazakh-born Soviet official turned real estate tycoon
Ukranian		Member of the Ukranian parliament who says Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen and business crony Felix Sater confirmed the White House received his “peace proposal” (suggesting Russia “lease” the country for 100 years)
Australian	Hacker	Editor-in-chief of Wikileaks and former hacker from Australia, currently holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in London on the lam from rape charges in Sweden; he is suspected of coordinating with the Russian government on the cyber attack on the American election in 2016.
Russian	Oligarch	Russian banker and consultant who bought Bank of Cyprus's Russian-based businesseses; a transaction overseen by Wilbur Ross
Ukranian	Politician	Former Prime Minister of Ukraine who was ousted in the Maidan revolution along with President Viktor Yanukovych.
Cypriot	Bank
American	Principal actor
		Suspected organized crime figure who accompanied Ivanka and Don Jr to Russia in 2007-2008
Russian	Oligarch	Head of investor relations for Rosneft who met with Carter Page in Moscow after his 2016 speech.
Russian		Worked at the Internet Research Agency
French	Foreign Intelligence	Cooperated with Russia in the Syrian civil war and nominated Putin for a Nobel Peace Prize; Donald Trump, Jr. spoke at an event held by Baussart's French think tank.
	Company	Employed Felix Sater for a number of shady real estate dealings involving Mr Trump. Founded by Tevfik Arif, a Russian oligarch.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook group that bought ads in support of the Trump campaign, and had over 200,000 followers by the time it was finally deactivated in mid-2017
	Civil servant	Trump's pick to lead the DOJ's criminal division; once represented a Putin-tied Russian bank
Russian	Hacker	Hacker group
Russian	Journalist	Well-known journalist who was the founding editor of Russia’s top business daily, Vedomosti, as well as the first publisher of the Russian edition of Forbes; left the country during the Brain Drain. “The Kremlin doesn’t care because it doesn’t consider the likes of me Russia’s best and brightest,” he told me by email after his departure to Germany in the summer of 2014. “To them, we’re the traitors, the fifth column.”
Russian		26-year-old former worker at the Internet Research Agency in Russia who has spoken to the US media about his experiences in the "factory of lies"
American	Lawyer	U.S. Attorney who was prosecuting the Prevezon Holdings case when he was fired by Trump, shortly after which the huge case about to go to trial abruptly settled.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	IRA-controlled persona claiming to want to teach African-Americans self-defense to protect themselves when contacted by police, that hired an actual self-defense instructor in NY to offer classes sponsored by Black Fist
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	IRA-controlled account posing as grassroots activists
American		his company Colt Ventures provided data management services to the Trump campaign
American	Civil servant	John Kerry's deputy secretary of state under Obama
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Worked for the Internet Research Agency from at least April 2014 to at least July 2014; she served on the translator project and oversaw the group's data analysis operations. She is one of the operatives who traveled to the United States to gather intel.
	Politician	Russian deputy foreign minister
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Director of FSB circa 2015
	Foreign Intelligence	Worked for the Internet Research Agency from at least November 2013 to at least October 2014. She was at one time head of the translator project, along with other positions.
	Civil servant
American	Intelligence Community	Acting CIA director under Obama; one of the 3 who brief Trump and Obama about the Russian attack on Election 2016
American	Company	LLC begun by Maria Butina and Paul Erickson in South Dakota
American	Lobbyist	Major Trump campaign donor and Deputy Finance Chair of the RNC, who suspiciously took hundreds of millions of dollars from the UAE and was working on a business deal with the corrupt Prime Minister of Malaysia implicated in a heist of $4.5 billion dollars. Had himself been charged with felony bribery, ended up turning state's witness, plea-bargained his case down to a misdimeanor while those he bribed went to prison. Also, he was reportedly negotiating a deal wherein he stood to benefit to the tune of $75 million, to drop the Feds' case into the Malaysian theft.
American	Activist	Founder of Hermitage Capital, who worked with Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky to uncover a $230 million money laundering scheme from Prevezon Holdings into NYC real estate. He has sought justice for the murder of Magnitsky in 2009.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	One of the 13 Russian nationals indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in February 2018, in connection with the Internet Research Agency's attack on the U.S. 2016 election. Burchik was Executive Director, the #2 in the organization, from at least March 2014.
American	Politician	(R-NC) and chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one of the committees in Congress conducting Russia investigations
American	Lobbyist	Helped Trump write his first foreign policy speech
Russian
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	"Personal assistant" to Alexander Torshin, she claims to have started several gun rights organizations in Russia
American	Media Outlet	Originally broke the story of the Steele dossier and published what of it they had.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	One of the 13 Russians indicted by Robert Mueller's Special Counsel in February 2018, Bystrov was General Director -- the organization's highest-ranking position -- by April 2014.
British	Company	Data analytics company that worked for the Trump campaign and has been indicted in the UK for data theft.
American	Unregistered Foreign Agent	Member of Trump's campaign team, in charge of communications for New York. Left the campaign after voicing approval of the installation of Paul Manafort, replacing Corey Lewandowski as Trump's campaign manager.
American	Company	Cloud computing company that hosted the Trump Organization and may have information on the Alfa Bank link during the campaign
French		French right-wing group that hosted a Trump trip to Paris during the home stretch of the campaign
American	Media Personality	Alt-Right personality in the U.S. who lives in Orange County, CA
American	Media Personality	Bowing out of politics after announcing a move to Fox and whining about the cost of living as a Senator
	Lawyer	Russian prosecutor general
American	Intelligence Community	Director of National Intelligence under Obama; one of the 3 who brief Trump and Obama about the Russian attack on Election 2016
American	Politician
American	Politician
American	Intelligence Community	Director of National Intelligence who testified that there is no doubt Russia sees its 2016 efforts as having been successful.
American	Lawyer	Trump's personal lawyer. Convicted of various federal crimes including campaign finance violations; sentenced to 3 years in prison.
American	Lawyer	Trump's mentor and ruthless, vicious lawyer
American	Politician	Senator from Maine who has been a voice of moderation within the Republican-controlled Senate, siding several times with the Democrats and voting against her own party.
American	Intelligence Community	Being fired by Donald Trump as the FBI Director
American	Intelligence Community	new leader of the House Intelligence Committee's Russia probe after the recusal of Devin Nunes
Russian	Company	Company owned by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, known to be nicknamed "Putin's Chef" and inside the Russian president's inner circle.
American	Company	provided data management services to the Trump campaign, and an investor in VizSense -- a social media company who worked reportedly for the campaign and for Michael Flynn
American	Politician	Leader of the House Intelligence Committee, one of the Congressional committees investigating the Russia scandal
American	Lawyer	Husband of Kellyanne Conway, a lawyer who has represented a corporation accused of bribing Russian officials
American	Oligarch
American	Politician	Criticized the firing of Sally Yates: "If dedicated government officials deem [Trump's] directives to be unlawful and unconstitutional, he will simply fire them as if government is a reality show."
	Lobbyist	Managing director of ACU Strategic Partners, a firm Mike Flynn was consulting for regarding building nuclear power plants in the Middle East.
American	Media Personality	Intermediary between Roger Stone and Wikileaks, an arm of the Russian intelligence apparatus
American		New York Republican Party Chairman and son-in-law of Richard Nixon who recommends Carter Page to the Trump campaign
		Roger Stone's publicly identified intermediary between himself and Julian Assange of Wikileaks. When subpoena'd by Congress, he pled the Fifth.
Russian	Company	Real estate developmenr firm owned by the Agalarovs, that secured the Moscow location for Trump's 2013 Miss Universe pageant
American	Company	One of the US private security contractors who implicated the Russians in the hack of the DNC servers.
American	Media Personality	The reigning Miss Universe at the time of the 2013 Moscow pageant (and former Miss USA, and noted Trump favorite)
American	Politician	ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, one of the first to request an investigation into Michael Flynn
American	Intelligence Community	White House director of cybersecurity
American
American	Company	Political consulting company created by Paul Manafort in 2005.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	A cutout of the GRU, this account directly released and coordinated with Wikileaks to release more widely the stolen emails from Clinton, the DNC, and the DCCC
American
American	Lobbyist	GOP strategy firm hired by Facebook to besmirch its rivals and tar them with accusations of being tied to George Soros
	Oligarch	Ex-wife of Rupert Murdoch, friend of Ivanka Trump, and friend of Russian oligarhcs + Putin (rumored to be Putins' girlfriend)
American
American	Government agency
Russian	Oligarch	Russian billionaire and Kremlin insider barred from the US due to organized crime links [contact w/Paul Manafort]
German	Bank	Both the Risk Division's Goup Risk Office and Credit Risk Management teams are under scrutiny from House Democrats at the HPSCI for due diligence on Trump transactions that have anything to do with the bank's own confirmed history of laundering Russian money.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Chief executive of the state-run Russian Direct Investment Fund, their sovereign wealth fund, who met with Erik Prince at a bar in the Seychelles, with George Nader present.
		Company started by Paul Manafort in 2011 to consult, lobby, and do PR for Ukranian dictator Victor Yanukovich, whom Manafort helped get elected in 2010 until fleeing the country in 2014.
		FSB handler of Russian DNC hacker
Ukranian	Territory	Area of Ukraine where a counter-revolution emerged after students ousted former President Viktor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and overthrew the government.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook group with more than 250,000 followers by the time it was deactivated in mid-2017
American	Tech tycoon	Co-founder and CEO of Twitter and Square
		Top Australian diplomat in Britain, who had drinks with George Papadopolous in London the night he blabbed about the Russians having dirt on Hillary Clinton.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Hacker group
Russian		Russia's most well-known neo-fascist ideologue, & Kremlin confidant
Russian		Founder of the successful VKontakte social network website, often described as Russia’s Facebook. Durov said he had been forced out of the company over his refusal to co-operate with the security services, and that his company was now under the “full control” of Kremlin-friendly figures
American	Civil servant	Obama White House press secretary in 2016
	Oligarch	MMA star, former Trump business partner, and friend of Putin
	Company	One of Oleg Deripaska's companies whose sanctions were lifted by the Trump administration.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Hacker group connected to the Kremlin
American	Unregistered Foreign Agent	Attempted to set up a backchannel between the NRA and the Russian government during the Trump campaign.
	Foreign Intelligence	ex-KGB chief linked to helping the Christopher Steele dossier on Trump, reportedly found dead in the back of his car in Moscow on Boxing Day
	Lobbyist	NGO entity created by Manafort and Gates in Belgium in 2012 to serve as an "arm's length" front for their work with Yanukovich.
Russian	Company	One of Oleg Deripaska's companies whose sanctions were lifted by the Trump administration.
American	Company
Russian	Principal actor	Fictional corporate twin entity to the IRA (indicted by Mueller) that is suing Facebook on First Amendment grounds... surely to go up to a COTUS tipped by Kavangaugh, as all such hyper-controversial cases are liable to be?!?!
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Hacked Democratic Party emails during the 2016 US presidential election; also hacked MAcros campaign emails in France.
British	Politician	Former UKIP leader now under investigation for ties to WikiLeaks and Julian Assange
American	Intelligence Community	Investigation of domestic terror units and criminal cells, as well as foreign criminal groups within the U.S.
Russian		Russian Parliament
American	Politician	Overseeing the process generally of national and state elections
American	Politician	US Senator from California who published Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS's transcript of testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
American	Company	Security firm
Ukranian	Oligarch	Ukranian oligarch and nagural gas magnate who got sweetheart deals within Putin's inner circle
American	Civil servant	John Kerry's chief of staff
Icelandic	Company	Icelandic hedge fund with ties to Putin, that invested in Trump Soho via FBI informant and convicted felon Sal Lauria
American	Intelligence Community	As the new NSA director he advocated military intervention in the Middle East and an alliance with Russia; later it turned out he'd accepted undisclosed payments from the Rurkish government and lied about undisclosed meetings with the Russian Ambassador, Sergey Kislyak
American	Company
	Company	Hosted the meeting in the Seychelles between Erik Prince and Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund
American	Media Outlet
American	Media Outlet	see: Washington Free Beacon
Russian	Oligarch	invested $200m in Uber (?)
American	Company	Erik Prince's company, who has ignored document requests from Congress relating to the meeting in the Seychelles with Kirill Dmitriev
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	the Russian Federal Security Service
American		Political research firm hired first by conservative billionaire, later by the Clinton campaign, that ultimately led to the Steele dossier.
Russian	Principal actor	Worked at the Internet Research Agency before being employed at Facebook
	Intelligence Community
American	Intelligence Community
American	Lobbyist	Paul Manafort's right hand man, indicted along with the former Trump campaign manager for a number of federal crimes from money laundering to illegal foreign lobbying and tax evasion.
Russian	Media Outlet
Russian	Company	Russia's energy monopolgy and largest gas company
American
Georgian	Nation-state	Former Soviet state
Russian	Military	Russian General who wrote seminal asymmetric warfare doc
	Journalist	Journalist and author who has lived extensively in Russia and studied the rise of Putin
Russian	Activist	Leader of the Ukranian pro-Russian separatists in Donbas, he is alleged to have been connected to the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17
American	Politician	Publicly "predicted" the Comey "re-opening" of Clinton's emails when the Anthony Weiner laptop was found
Russian	Russian Mafia	Former Boris Berezovsky associate turned up murdered in the UK, 8 days after the poisoning and attempted assassination of Sergei Skripal in London.
	Russian Mafia	Publicist of Russian-Azerbaijani singer Emin Agalarov who set up the June 9 meeting between Don Jr, Kushner, Manafort, and the Russians
American	Company	Online search company whose system was gamed, hacked, or perhaps simply used intentionally to sow disinformation to some of the most vulnerable citizen targets, as identified by stolen and purchased predictive user data.
Russian	Politician	Glasnost
Hungarian	Media Personality	Former counterterrorism analyst for Fox News who joined the administration as an adviser; his ties to the Hungarian right had come increasingly under scrutiny before his departure from the White House. Prior to immigrating to the United States, Gorka had mounted an unsuccessful political career in Hungary and, in doing so, once expressed support for a far-right militia in the country.
American		A watchdog organization for financial and other high-profile crimes within the U.S.
American	Politician	(R-SC) Chair of the House Oversight Committee
American	Politician	(R-IA)
Russian	Intelligence Community	Soviety military intelligence services
American	Government agency	Has been asserted by TFA that documents were "unlawfully" given to the Special Counsel's Office by this agency, including parts susceptible to privilege.
Russian	Hacker	A cutout of the GRU, this account directly released and coordinated with Wikileaks to release more widely the stolen emails from Clinton, the DNC, and the DCCC
American	Civil servant	Hillary for America IT chief
American	Intelligence Community	Testified before the House Intelligence Committee on the probable ability of the Russians to hack an election
American	Media Personality	Made claims on his show that the Steele dossier launched the Russia probe, which isn't accurate.
European	Politician	Informal name given to the set of former European politicians whom Paul Manafort and Rick Gates paid to espouse pro-Yanukovich talking points.
American	Lawyer	Representing Trump in the Stormy Daniels case; also represented Terry Bolea in the Gawker trial
American	Politician	Member of the House Intelligence Committee, one of the Congressional committees investigating the Russia scandal
		The investment fund client of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who uncovered a $230 million money laundering scheme through New York real estate via Prevezon, a Russian holding company.
American	Principal actor	Yet another former White House Communications Director, she resigned the day after giving 9 hours of testimony on the Hill to the House Intelligence Committee. Til then she had been the longest-running current member of the Trump campaign.
American
American	Civil servant	US Ambassador to Russia
American	Lawyer	Paul Erickson's lawyer
		Tied to VizSense Inc. and White Canvas Group, 2 firms that did business with Michael Flynn
Russian		Christian fascist philosopher who inspired much of Vladimir Putin's political philosophy
American	Company	Platform used by the Russian disinformation campaign that House Democrats want to subpoena
American	Company	Platform used by the Russian disinformation campaign that House Democrats want to subpoena the transition team for records of
Russian	Principal actor	Well-known troll farm with ties to the Kremlin, funded and run by Russian oligarch and "Putin's Chef" Yevgeniy Prigozhin (who also oversees private mercenary military forces in Syria and Ukraine.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence
	Media Outlet	The main Bolshevik newspaper in the early 20th century
American	Politician
Russian		One of Putin's closest allies, he's the head of anti-narcotics in Russia; has spoken out against marijuana legalization in the US (!)
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	IRA-controlled Twitter account claiming to be a Virginian Trump supporter with 70,000 followers
Russian	Politician	Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader, who is thought to be behind the murder of Putin critic and opposition leader Boris Nemtsov. Kadyrov received a medal from Putin the month after Nemtsov's murder.
Russian, American	Foreign Intelligence	Former KGB agent who became a U.S. citizen and grew critical of Putin's regime.
Russian	Oligarch	Sole shareholder of Prevezon, implicated in the $230m theft of Russian taxpayer dollars
Russian	Russian Mafia	8th person at Don Jr's June 9 meeting; VP at Crocus Group, owned by Aras Agalarov — a lawyer for the Russian real estate firm, he has been identified by the Government Accountability Office as part of a large ring of Russian money-laundering operations.
American	Lawyer	Mike Flynn's lawyer
American	Politician	Georgia secretary of state who bristled at the idea of DHS's warning about the election integrity and attempts to hack voter registration
American	Politician	Secretary of State under Obama from 2013 to 2018
American	Company	Western PR firm that helps place pro-Russian op-eds in Western media (like Putin's in NYTimes on 9/11/13)
Russian	Intelligence Community	The Soviet secret service, renowned for ruthlessness and duplicity
Russian		Daughter of a Russian oligarch, married to Alex van der Zwaan -- the first to go to prison in the Mueller investigation.
Russian	Oligarch	Russian oligarch billionaire, principal of Alfa Bank (Russia's largest privste bank) and the father-in-law of Alex van der Zwaan who has pleaded guilty to MUeller's team.
Russian	Oligarch	Ex-oil tycoon unexpectedly freed by Putin ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympics
Russian	Principal actor	FAN's chief accountant and an indictee under Mueller's Russian investigation
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Paul Manafort's business associate in the Ukraine
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Russian Ambassador who spoke with Mike Flynn [tracker] about lifting sanctions in undisclosed series of meetings
	Company	Company formed by Peter Smith to facilitate and manage his question to find Hillary's missing emails.
Russian	Oligarch	Young Russian billionaire who claims to have been instrumental in getting Trump elected.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence
		Cambridge Analytica researcher who oversaw the harvesting of 50 million Facebook user accounts' info who also moonlighted as a lecturer at St. Petersburg University
Russian	Media Outlet	Long-respected business newspaper purchased by pro-Kremlin oligarch Alisher Usmanov
Russian		Leninist Youth League organization for Communists aged 14 to 28 in the late 80s & early 90s
Russian
Russian		CEO of VTB, one of the largest Russian banks (and under US sanctions)
Hungarian		One of the leaders of Jobbik, Hungary's pro-Putin rightist party, who is accused of being a Russian spy.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	One of the two main suspects in the UK's murder investigation case of former FSB/KGB spy turned informant and expat dissident, Alexander Litvinenko -- killed by polonium-210 poisoning after having tea with the two then-current KGB officers in November, 2006.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Senior Putin aide who attended the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in lieu of Putin.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	The Dutch intelligence community alerted the DNC way back in 2015 that they had been hacked back in 2014.
Russian	Principal actor
		Former Bayrock partner who filed a lawsuit in January, 2017 alleging tax evasion of as much as $250 million in income + Russian money laundering
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Served as Director and 3rd highest employee within the Internet Research Agency, from at least September 2013. She was one of two employees of the IRA who obtained visas and entered the United States on June 4, 2014.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Russian diplomat recalled to Russia, fearing his cover would be blown re: heavy involvement in the 2016 election, including the veterans' pensions ruse
American	Oligarch	Father of Jared, the elder Kushner committed campaign fraud, blackmailed his own sister, and spent time in federal prison before re-emerging to help run the family business and, of course, suck at the teat of the Presidency
American	Principal actor	The evil son-in-law so evil he owned a billion dollar building at 666 Fifth Ave. in Manhattan
American	Company
American	Intelligence Community	Former chief of the DOJ's Counterintelligence & Export Control Section
	Russian Mafia	FBI informant and convicted felon who brokered a $150 million deal for Sater with FL Group, an Icelandic hedge fund tied to Putin that also invested in the Trump Soho project
	Politician	Russian Foreign Minister
French	Politician	head of the French far-Right party
Russian	Hacker	Russian hacker who ran the sprawling Kelihos botnet, a massive spam and scam network; indicted by a US grand jury on 4/21/17
Russian
Russian	Oligarch	Russian "king of diamonds" who was a partner in Prevezon (involved in the Magnistsky-exposed money laundering of $230m in Russian tax dollars) and sold several floors of the NYTimes building in Manhattan to Jared Kushner
Russian		Former police investigator from the Siberian city of Surgut, who left the force after becoming disgusted by the “culture of corruption” he had witnessed, and moved to Moscow in 2009. Inspired, like so many others, by the anti-Putin protests of 2011–12, Leviyev, a tattooed 29-year-old, is now one of the country’s top “social media dissidents”.
Russian	Oligarch	Russian Canadian CEO of developer Talon (Trump Toronto); had no previous experience in real estate or construction
American	Lobbyist	Donald Trump's first campaign manager; succeeded by Paul Manafort.
		Alleged mobster and associate of John Gotti, who is on video with Trump in the 80s at a WrestleMania event
Russian	Oligarch	Russian steel mogul who made $830m in 3 days after the election
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	former Russian FSB agent who informed on Putin's connections to the Russian mafia and was assassinated by polonium-210 poisoning in 2006
Russian
		Ties to the Romneys?!
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	One of the two main suspects in the UK's murder investigation case of former FSB/KGB spy turned informant and expat dissident, Alexander Litvinenko -- killed by polonium-210 poisoning after having tea with the two then-current KGB officers in November, 2006. Lugovoy is currently a sitting member of the Russian parliament: deputy of the State Duma.
Russian	Company	Russia's second largest oil company after Rosneft, they contracted with Trump data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica
American	Civil servant	US Attorney General under Barack Obama
American	Journalist	Host of the most popular nighttime news show on MSNBC; she's been following the Russia story aggressively for over a year in meticulously detailed fashion.
	Lawyer	lawyer who tried to expose the theft of $230 million of Russian taxpayers' money by Prevezon Holdings (laundered into NYC real estate) before being arrested and allegedly tortured prior to his death in a Moscow prison in 2009; the 2012 Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act is a landmark human rights act named after him.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Division of the GRU that carried out the second half of the Russian attack on our democracy -- cyber intrusions and hacking of stolen materials from the Clinton campaign, disseminated by WikiLeaks
American	Principal actor
American	Intelligence Community	Head of cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security who confirmed to NBC News that the Russians successfully infiltrated "an exceptionally small number" of voter regidstration rolls in 21 states.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	IRA-controlled accouunt created in May 2016 to promote IRA-organized rallies in support of the Trump Campaign
American	Politician
American	Intelligence Community	Deputy Nartional Security Advisor under Mike Flynn. Asked to step down by HR McMaster.
American	Lawyer	White House counsel from XXXX-XXXX
American	Politician
American	Company	Social media and blogging community frequented by the Russians during their efforts at sowing propaganda and discord during the American 2016 Presidential election.
Russian	Politician	Russian Prime Minister
American	Oligarch
American	Principal actor	Shadowy billionaire Trump backer and donor who also backs Breitbart, Cambridge Analytica, and John Bolton.
		Holds Trump debt
British	Foreign Intelligence	British intelligence agency; the rough equivalent of the American CIA.
		Director of the London Academy of Diplomacy who meets with George Papadopoulos in Italy.
	Oligarch	part owner of Novatek who made $1.9b from the stock pop post-Trump
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	GRU cyberunit dedicated to targeting military, politival, governmental, and non-governmental organizations outside of Russia, including the U.S. Separate from this investigation, Unit 26165 was charged by a grad jury for hacking the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the World Doping Agency, and other international sport associations.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	A GRU unit engaged in cyber operations, including assisting in the release of the documents stolen by Unit 26165, the promotion of those releases, and the publication of anti-Clinton content on social media accounts operated by the GRU. This unit also hacked computers belonging to the stater boards of elections, secretaries of state, and U.S. companies supplying software and other technology related to elections.
American	Principal actor	Aggressively anti-immigrant advisor to Trump, co-writing many of his most vitriolic speeches
Belarusian	Russian Mafia	Trump associate, head of the Russian-American chamber of commerce, and one of the sources of the Steele dossier
Russian	Principal actor	Former worker at the Russian troll factory, the Internet Research Agency, who told the Western press what it was like inside the farm.
Russian	Russian Mafia	Notorious mobster
Emirati		The crown prince of Abu Dhabi.
	Lawyer	World's fourth largest offshore law firm, whose files were published as the Panama Papers in a German newspaper
American	Civil servant	Special Counsel at the DOJ, investigating RussiaGate
		Ministry of Internal Affairs; supervises all police, prisons, and "public order militias"
American	Lobbyist	Lebanese-American businessman who lobbies for the UAE, and was at the meeting in the Seychelles with Erik Prince and the Russians
Russian	Activist	Putin critic and activist blogger; has been arrested, charged, & sentenced several times (but recognized as a political prisoner by NGOs)
Russian	Politician	Putin critic and opposition politician who was shot dead in Moscow in 2015 by a member of the Chechen security forces
Russian	Company	Restaurant of Yevgeny Prigozhin that became a favorite of Putin's, netting Mr Prigozhin lucrative contracts for shady operations as "Putin's Chef"
Russian
British	Principal actor	CEO of Trump data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	a forerunner to the KGB under Stalin
American	Lobbyist	Hosted a number of conduits between the Trump campaign and Russian nationals, particularly Russian billionaires and oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin.
American	Intelligence Community
American	Civil servant	Former Trump aide who made a series of bizarre statements on cable TV before testifying to Robert Mueller's team
American	Politician
American	Media Outlet	Website owned by Jarek Kushner as part of Observer Media
American	Media Outlet	Media company owned by Jared Kushner.
American	Media Personality	American TV host
Ukrainian		Successor ruling party in Ukraine after Victor Yanukovich fled to Moscow and his Party of Regions toppled.
Hungarian	Politician	President of Hungary, noted for his pro-Putin and anti-refugee beliefs
British	Company	Steele's research firm
		dead — Bryan Cohen's father-in-law (brother of Trump's personal lawyer
Russian	Media Outlet	Russia's TV network
		Holds Trump debt
American	Principal actor
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	IRA-controlled Twitter account claiming to be a Texan Trump supporter with 70,000 followers
American	Principal actor	Member of the Trump campaign who has pled guilty in the Robert Mueller investigation and flipped to become a cooperating witness. Will serve jail time.
American	Principal actor	Head of the Trump campaign's digital operation
Ukranian		Ukranian political party run by Victor Yanukovych, the pro-Putin dictator ushered into power by Paul Manafort.
American
American	Principal actor	Helped American Media bury stories unfavorable to Trump leading up to the election -- a campaign contribution violation, not to mention a moral violation
American	Principal actor	Vice President of the United States
Russian	Principal actor	Putin's press secretary. Michael Cohen was in touch with him as late at June 2016, during the presidential campaign, in talks over the Trump Tower Moscow deal.
		Fox News counterterrorism analyst & one of Trump's 5 initial national security advisors
American	Civil servant	His stolen emails were one of several tronches of stolen documents released by Wikileaks at strategic moments during the 2016 presidential election campaign.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Russian agent who received intelligence information from American energy consultant Carter Page beginning in January 2013
Russian		Worked for the Internet Research Agency as its head of IT from April 2014 to at least July 2014; he oversaw the buildout of the U.S. infrastructure for the Russian operations.
American	Civil servant	CIA Director who went from praising to condemning Wikileaks
Ukranian	Politician	Ukranian president
Cypriot	Company	a Cyprus company that has invested in Manhattan real estate and which prosecutors allege was the receptacle for some of the $230 million stolen from Russian taxpayers in 2007; part of Hermitage Capital, the investment fund Magnitsky was investigating until his murder in a Moscow prison in 2009.
American	Civil servant
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	"Putin's Chef" -- a former caterer and restauranteur who now runs Vladimir Putin's internet propaganda operations via the Internet Research Agency as well as overseeing mercenary forces operating in Syria and Ukraine.
American	Oligarch	Sec. of Education Betsy DuVoss's brother, who met a Russian oligarch in the Seychelles during the campaign to talk about lifting sanctions. Founded and runs Blackwater, a formidable private security firm often accompanying US military operations as the theater of war becomes increasingly privatized and mercenaries find themselves duking it out in the desert armed with the plausible deniability of being at arm's length from their country's official foreign policy.
American	Media Outlet
Russian	Activist
Russian	Principal actor
American	Politician	Member of the House Intelligence Committee, one of the Congressional committees investigating the Russia scandal
American	Company	Was asked by House Democrats on March 7, 2018 to provide intel on the scope and scale of the Russian disinformation effort on their platforms during the 2016 election
Russian	Company	One of the first private companies or "collectives" formed under Gorbachev's glasnost reforms, it brokered the first proto-Internet within the Soviet Union and first connection to the outside world — playing a key role in thwarting the attempted coup against Gorbachev by the KGB in August, 1991
Russian		Moscow-based entity begun by Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin -- odd, in a country with no gun rights at all.
American	Company	Hosted Donald Trump during his 2013 visit to Moscow for the Miss Universe pageant
Russian		extreme nationalist party in Russia c. 2003 that hinted at ethnic cleansing; The Guardian reported it had actually been set up as a prop by Putin & cronies, to draw votes away from the other far-right Communist Party
American	Lobbyist	Hired by Alfa Bank: a former REagan administration official
American	Intelligence Community	Admiral and Director of the National Security Agency under Obama; one of the 3 who briefed Trump and Obama about the Russian attack on Election 2016
American	Politician	Representative (R-CA 48th District) since 2013; dubbed "Putin's favorite Congressman"
Russian		Putin ally implicated in the Panama Papers
Russian	Company	Russia's state oil company
Russian	Media Outlet	Russia's official government newspaper
American	Politician	US Secretary of Commerce and single largest shareholder of the Bank of Cyprus, the famous haven for Russian oligarchs to stash their billions
Russian
		CEO of Vornado, a $20 billion real estate investment trust (REIT) that owns 49.5% of Jared Kushner's building at 666 Fifth Avenue; he's also on Trump's economic advisory team
Russian	Media Outlet	Russian state-owned news service
Russian	Media Outlet	The Kremlin's new video news agency
Russian	Company	One of Oleg Deripaska's companies whose sanctions have been lifted by Trump's Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Russian		Russia's sovereign wealth fund
Russian		part of the far-right coalition within Russia seeking to build an international consensus, this group advocates "Christian Orthodox imperial nationalism"
Russian	Politician	Russian Deputy Foreign Minister
American	Politician	Speaker of the House (R-WI) and a Trump defender and denialist
Russian	Oligarch	the “Fertilizer King” — fertilizer billionaire who purchased Trump's Palm Beach mansion for $95 million, but never moved in
American	Oligarch
American	Civil servant
Russian	Russian Mafia	Russian mobster and FBI informant who runs Bayrock, a money-laundering firm designed to hide dirty Russian money in Trump's taxes
Saudi Arabian	Nation-state
Russian	Bank	Russia's largest bank
American	Civil servant	Trump press secretary for all of 10 days
American	Principal actor	Managed the Trump campaign's social media
American	Politician	Top-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee overseeing that chamber's Russia investigation
American		Trump's longtime security chief and confidant
American	Lawyer	New York State Attorney General who has a long history of legal cases with Trump
American	Politician	(D-NY) and Sen. Minority Leader
Russian	Oligarch	President of Rosneft at the time Exxon violated Russian sanctions to help protect his property interest
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook group that bought ads in support of the Trump Campaign, and had over 130,000 followers at the time it was deactivated in mid-2017
American	Lawyer	Trump's personal lawyer
American	Principal actor	Trump's first US Attorney General, before Bill Barr. He has recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his curious, multi-part memory loss of meetings with Russian agents.
Ukranian	Oligarch	Ukrainian steel magnate & partner at Talon International who is managing Trump Toronto hotel as it goes into default
American		President of the Miss Universe Organization, who reported directly to Trump at the time of the 2013 Moscow pageant
Russian		Director of PArtnership Marketing for vKontakte, a Russian social media site, that had communications with the Trump campaign about setting up a profile.
	Company
American	Media Outlet	Conservative broadcasting conglomerate gobbling up local TV stations and forcing them to air canned right-wing footage with each segment.
American		Head of research firm Fusion FPS who commissioned the Christopher Steele dossier.
American	Oligarch	Billionaire financier who originally commissioned research firm Fusion GPS to start compiling opposition research on Donald Trump. He abandoned the project after Trump secured the nomination.
	Lawyer	Law firm retained by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates to "whitewash" Victor Yanukovich's imprisonment of his political rival, Yulia Tymochenko, in Ukraine.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook account that organized a pro-Trump rally near Trump Tower in mid-2016
Russian		Former Russian official turned British spy who was attacked with his daughter Yulia with nerve gas in southern England, reputedly by agents of the Kremlin.
Russian		Sergei's daughter
American	Civil servant	Head of the State Dept's intelligence bureau under Obama
American		Alleged to have solicited help on the dark web in finding Hillary's "missing" emails from the Russians
American	Company	One of the social networks the Democratic oversight committees want to send document requests to, to request more intel on the scope and scale of the Russian campaign on their platforms
American	Intelligence Community	Controversial former employee for private firms working within the US government who absconded with millions of top secret NSA and other departmental intelligence documents, fled to Hong Kong where he alerted the press, and flew on to Moscow where he lives under the protection of the Kremlin.
Polish		Polish workers' party confronting Communism in the late '80s
Russian
		Nuclear non-proliferation expert who briefed Mike Flynn on the ACU's nuclear program and rejoiced that he would be named head of the NSA.
American	Civil servant	Trump's press secretary
Russian	Media Outlet	Russian news wire proffering fake news
Russian	Politician
American	Principal actor	Ex-Facebook security chief
German	Foreign Intelligence	Nickname for the Ministry of State Security in East Germany during the Cold War
British	Foreign Intelligence	Former British MI6 intelligence agent who put together the Steele Dossier on Donald Trump's dealings with Russia
American	Lobbyist	Long-time political advisor best known for being part of Richard Nixon's "Dirty Tricks" crew who perpetuated Watergate among much else; he "predicted" the release of Clinton's hacked emails
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook group
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook group that bought Facebook ads in support of Donald Trump
	Media Personality	Works for Sputnik in Russia. Never responded to an official Congressional inquiry.
Russian
Russian	Media Outlet	Russia's largest blogging service via acquisition of LiveJournal from Six Apart
Russian	Principal actor	Putin's disinformation machine
Russian	Intelligence Community	Russian foreign intelligence service
American	Politician	Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee
	Company
Russian	Russian Mafia	organized crime ring based in St. Petersburg w/ties to Putin; led by Gennadiy Petrov and Aleksandr Malyshev
	Lobbyist	GOP strategy firm hired by Facebook
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Twitter account posing as the Tennessee GOP Party.
American		Trump for America, Inc., the business entity formed to handle the Trump transition
American	Principal actor	U.S. Secretary of State and former CEO of Exxon
	Oligarch	23% owner of natural gas company Novatek, who made $1.8b from surges in pro-Russian market following Trump's election
Russian		Program director at the Russian International Affairs Council, a government-funded think tank, who met with George Papadopolous to try to establish a meeting between Trump and Putin.
Russian	Russian Mafia	Nicknamed "The Little Taiwanese," he's one of Russia's most notorious mobsters. At the time of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, he had been indicted in the U.S. for protecting a high-stakes illegal gambling operation run out of Trump Tower.
Russian	Principal actor	Russian central banker, Putin confidant, NRA whisperer, handler of Maria Butina
Russian	Russian Mafia	Ran a Russian-American gambling crime ring out of Trump Tower. Serving 5 years for racketeering.
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	Department within the IRA dedicated to U.S. operations
American	Principal actor
American	Principal actor
American
American	Principal actor
American	Oligarch	Donald Trump's father, who built the family real estate fortune and handed it off to his son to ruin it
American	Principal actor	Daddy's little girl
American	Principal actor
American	Principal actor
American	Principal actor
Russian
American	Company	Was asked by House Democrats on March 7, 2018 to provide intel on the scope and scale of the Russian disinformation effort on their platforms during the 2016 election
Ukranian	Company	Ukranian state-owned company who was the target of a bribery offer from ACU Strategic Partners -- who Mike Flynn was working with -- to accept a $45 billion contract to build reactors in Saudi Arabia in exchange for supporting the lifting of sanctions levied against Russia by the US and EU.
Turkish	Nation-state
Russian	Media Outlet	Independent Russian broadcaster
American	Company
Ukranian	Politician	Ran against Victor Yanukovich in the 2010 Presidentials elections, and was jailed by him under spurious charges following his Paul Manafort-aided win.
		Holds Trump debt
Russian	Foreign Intelligence	An IRA-controlled Facebook account that had over 300,000 followers at the time it was finally deactivated in mid-2017
Russian		Political Party of Russian PResident Vladimir Putin
Russian	Oligarch	Putin-connected oligarch with connections to secretary of commerce Wilbur Ross [tracker]
Russian		Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin who met with Donald Trump Jr, Paul Manafort, and Kared Kushner at Trump Tower in June 2016 about the dirt Russia had on Hillary Clinton. At the time she was representing Prevezon Holdings in the case the U.S. Justice Department had brought against them for a $230 million money laundering scheme that lawyer Sergei Magnitsky had uncovered.
American	Company	Provided social media services to the Trump campaign and Michael Flynn
Russian		Russian social network; equivalent analog to Facebook
Russian	Bank	Russian state-owned development bank, under investigation for Russian election interference
	Company	$20 billion REIT that's an ~equal partner with Jared Kushner in the 666 Fifth Ave. building in Manhattan; Steve Roth, CEO, is an advisor to Trump
	Bank	Executive at Deutsche Bank's private wealth unit who helped finance many of Trump's real estate projects after other banks (and the "regular" side of Deutsche Bank) wouldn't deal with him any more, following massive losses
Russian	Bank	Russia's largest commercial bank; under US and EU sanctions for money laundering
American	Politician	(D-VA) — top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee
	Media Outlet
American	Media Outlet	venerable local paper purchased by Jeff Bezos in 2013
American
American
American	Politician
American	Principal actor
		The House HPSCI committee wants to subpoena them for communication records relating to principals in the Trump campaign
American	Intelligence Community
American	Lobbyist	Undertook Turkey-related work for Michael Flynn
American	Civil servant	Supposed to be a civil servant but often a lobbyist, The White House includes the President and high-level senior staff
	Hacker
Global		umbrella term for Russia's movement to unite an international extreme far-right coalition
American		candidate for the next FBI Director, to replace James Comey
American		Whistleblower from Trump data team Cambridge Analytica who revealed the existence of a formerly secret client: Lukoil, Russia's #2 oil and gas company
Ukranian	Politician	Ukraine's former pro-Moscow president; he paid $12.7 million to help influence the Ukranian election his way before being ousted from power in 2013. Paul Manafort made many of the millions he later laundered with Rick Gates via undisclosed lobbying for Mr Yanukovych.
American		Deputy Attorney General under Barack Obama and Acting Attorney General following the inauguration of Donald Trump. She was dismissed by him after 10 days when she instructed the Justice Department not to allow Trump's Muslim ban to be enforced because it violated the law and the Constitution.
American
Russian	Politician	First President of the Russian Federation, after he orchestrated Russia's exit from the USSR (and thus, its downfall, as all the Soviet satellite republics followed suit). He ruled from 1991 to 1999, never quite managing to usher in a true democracy before settling on a successor, an obscure and unknown former KGB officer stationed in East Berlin during the Second World War: Vladimir Putin.
American	Company	Favored propaganda platform for Russian agents used in the cyberattacks against the 2016 election
Russian
		"Young Army" — created in 2015 by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to "encourage patriotism among schoolchildren"
American	Oligarch	CEO of Facebook, whose platform was used by the Russians in their influence campaign against the 2016 U.S. elections
Dutch		Dutch lawyer caught lying to the FBI about his law firm Skadden's report on Ukranian dictator Victor Yanukovich's imprisonment of his presidential rival Yulia Tymochenko in Ukraine. Has plead guilty to Robert Mueller's team.

January 30, 2019

Russian Information Warfare Dictionary: Terminology for the New Cold War

Did Russia hack the 2016 US election? Most certainly. The FBI, CIA, and entire intelligence community is in agreement on this point. Russian information warfare has been infamous the world over for decades — with a recent flare up starting with the Brexit vote as an obvious canary in a larger coalmine, and extending to the proliferation of right-wing movements around the world: particularly in Eastern Europe on Putin’s doorstep.

The following list is an attempt to demystify the language surrounding Russian interference in the election of Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin’s efforts to undermine the Western order — in retaliation for the fall of the Soviet Union which happened under his watch as a young KGB agent stationed in Dresden, Germany.

See also: the RussiaGate Bestiary which lists the individuals involved in the Russian 2016 election interference investigation of Trump campaign conspiracy and fraud. Please note: both of these resources are works in progress and are being updated frequently.

Term	Definition
4chan	A notorious internet message board with an unruly culture capable of trolling, pranks, and crimes.
8chan	If 4chan isn't raw and lawless enough for you, try the even more right-wing "free speech"-haven 8chan, which is notorious for incubating a large swath of the Gamergate culture.
The Act	Las Vegas nightclub in the Palazzo, owned by Sheldon Adelson, under surveillance by the Nevada Gaming Control Board for obscene performances. Site of the Miss USA pageant party attended by Trump and the Agalarov's in June 2013.
active measures	information warfare aimed at undermining the West
Air Force One	The U.S. presidential plane.
AMS Panel	The GRU's "nerve center" through which they monitored the middle servers that monitored the DNC and DCCC networks. Housed on a leased computer located in Arizona.
art critic in civilian clothing	"joke" used by the KGB to refer to themselves while informing on dissidents under Soviet rule
attorney work product
backdoor	a method, often secret, of bypassing regular login authentication or encryption of a computer or server
Baku	capital of Azerbaijan
banana republic	politically unstable countries whose economies are monocultures controlled by an oligarchy; puppet states
Bank Secrecy Act	Legal statute requiring persons managing funds in excess of $10,000 in foreign banks disclose said accounts to the US Treasury.
bespredel	"limitless and total lack of accountability of the elite oligarchs"
blind trust	A financial trust in which the beneficiaries have no access to the holdings of the trust, or any knowledge of its investments and contents
Bolotnaya Square	The square was the site of the biggest protests in Russia since the Soviet era, in December 2011
Bolshevik	The majority faction within the Marxist revolutionary party led by Vladimir Lenin to power in Russia during the October Revolution of 1917, eventually becoming the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
bolt hole	A type of retreat or refuge for those in the survivalist subculture, to be absconded to in case of disaster or apocalypse.
BND	German foreign intelligence agency
bug-out location (BOL)	Another name for a bolt hole or survivalist refuge location.
Calexit	Movement to split the state of Californnia into East and West states
capital flight	Refers to the massive ongoing exodus of both legitimate and illegitimate funds of Russian oligarchs and their state cronies to "safe havens" in foreign banks and offshore accounts outside of Russia
28 C.F.R. 600.8(c)	"at the conclusion of the Special Counsel's work, he...shall provide the Attorney General a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions the Special Counsel reached"
Charter 77	Informal Czech resistance movement against the communist regime, named after a document that was deemed a political crime to distribute.
Chekism	Loyalty to the concept of an unbroken chain of Russian security services, all the way from Lenin's Cheka to the KGB to the FSB
Chronicle of Current Events	Soviet dissident periodical (samizdat) from 1968 to the early 1980s that reported on the human rights violations in the Soviet Union
Cold War
Color Revolutions
computational propaganda
cooperating witness
CPAC	Conservative Political Action Conference
CPSU	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Crimea	territory in eastern Ukraine invaded and "annexed" by Putin in 2014; unrecognized and condemned by the international community
criminal investigation
Crocus City Hall	7000-seat theater complex in Moscow built by Aras Agalarov; site of the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow
Cuban Missile Crisis
cut out
cyberspies
cyberwarfare
Cyprus
DACA
dacha	country estate
Dark Web
data transfer
deep state	Networks of opposition within governments who undermine the official regime
demoshiza	short for ‘democratic schizophrenics’
deposition
détente	strategy of easing geopolitical tensions between nations; used in particular to describe attempts to "cool off" antagonism during the Cold War
dezinformatsiya	Russian information warfare
diaspora
directories	The file folder organizational structure on your computer
disinformation
DIOG	The FBI's Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide
document theft
Donbas	Territory in eastern Ukraine where Russian aggression has resumed as of Jan 29, 2017 following two years of Minsk Two ceasefire agreement
Doomsday Clock
doxing	researching and broadcasting personally identifiable information about an individual
Duma	the lower house of the Federal Assembly, Russia's Parliament
Eastern Bloc
Echo Moskvy	Democratic radio station in Moscow seminal is thwarting the KGB-led coup against Gorbachev in 1991
encryption
"Eternal Rome"	ideology positing Russia as a geopolitical bulwark of conservatism against a weak-kneed West (part of Alexander Dugin's reformulation of Eurasianism theory)
Evening Internet	the first blog in Russia, founded by Anton Nossik
executive privilege
exfiltration	The removal or copying of data from one server to another without the knowledge of the owner
fake news
fallout shelter
false flag	covert operations designed to deceive by appearing as though they are carried out by other entities, groups, or nations than those who actually executed them
FAPSI	One of the agencies spun out from the former KGB to head Govt Comms & Info (modeled after the NSA) — this division was instrumental in controlling the unfolding of the Russian internet
Federal Assembly	Russian Parliament
fifth column
fifth world war	non-linear war; the war of all against all
Financial Crimes Enforcement NEtwork (FinCEN)	Department within the Treasury that handles and maiontains FBAR filings from US persons holding in excess of $10,000 in foreign banks.
FISA Court
FISA warrant
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)	Legal statute requiring those persons lobbying on behalf of a foreign government or other entity to register such with the U.S. government.
foreign bank account report (FBAR)	Required disclosure to the US treasury by persons holding in excess of $10,000 in funds in foreign banks.
forensics
FreedomFest	Conservative evangelical event annually in Las Vegas
frozen conflict zones	term for several unrecognized pseudo states within former Soviet territories who have broken away from the national government and are operating as Russian protectorates
FSB	the Russian Federal Security Service
GamerGate
Gazeta.ru
Gazprom	Russia's energy monopolgy and largest gas company
Georgia
Ghost Stories	FBI operation allowing a sleeper cell of 10 KGB spies to operate in the U.S. for 10 years, to reverse engineer their methods. At the end of the sting, FBI Director Robert Mueller rounded them all up and expelled them from the country.
glasnost	"increased government transparency" or openness — a slogan employed by Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet leader in the 1980s
Glavplakat
"global cabal"	euphemism in far-right Russian discourse to refer to a perceived "Jewish conspiracy" behind the international order of institutions like NATO and the EU
globalization
Grand Jury	16 to 23 people impaneled to hear evidence from a legal prosecution, and decide if said prosecution has a caseworthy set of evidence to bring charges.
Grenadines
hashtag
Helsinki Accords
honeypot
hybrid warfare
IC (Intelligence Community)
iMessage	Apple's version of SMS
information warfare
interlocuter
IRC
Iskra	The main Bolshevik newspaper in the early 20th century
Jackson–Vanik amendment to the Trade Act of 1974
kakistocracy
keylogging	Technique that enabled the GRU to record passwords, internal communications, banking info, and sensitive personal info from compromised DCCC and DNC employees
KGB	The Soviet secret service, renowned for ruthlessness and duplicity
kleptocracy	form of government in which the leaders harbor organized crime rings and often participate in or lead them; the police, military, civil government, and other governmental agencies may routinely participate in illicit activities and enterprises.
Kommersant	Long-respected business newspaper purchased by pro-Kremlin oligarch Alisher Usmanov
kompromat	compromising material on a head of state or other important figure; typically used for blackmail purposes
Komsomol	Leninist Youth League organization for Communists aged 14 to 28 in the late 80s & early 90s
The Kremlin
Kuchino	the oldest top-secret research facility of the KGB, 12 miles east of Moscow
Kurchatov Institute	Preeminent Soviet nuclear research facility still in operation today in the far north of Moscow
Latvia
Lenta.ru
liberalism	Political and ethical framework based on individual liberty via human rights and equal protection
Logan Act
lords on the boards
Mafia state	A systematic corruption of government by organized crime syndicates.
Magnitsky Act
Maidan revolution	Student protests that ousted the Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych, that started Nov 21, 2013.
malware
Marxism
maskirovka	war of deception and concealment
Menatep
Menshevik
middle servers	Intermediary sets of servers used by the GRU to communicate with their malware implants in infected U.S. computers and networks -- for an arm's length, plausible deniability strategy
Mimikatz	Piece of malware whose function is a hacker credential harvesting tool
Minsk Two	Colloquial name of the 2015 ceasefire agreement between Russia & Ukraine following the annexation of Crimea
Mitrokhin Archive
Mokhovaya Square	well-known landmark in front of the Kremlin
MSK-IX	The main Internet exchange point in Russia
MVD	Ministry of Internal Affairs; supervises all police, prisons, and "public order militias"
nationalism
National Prayer Breakfast
neutralize
Never-Trump
Newsru.com
NKVD	a forerunner to the KGB under Stalin
non-linear warfare
NotPetya
novichok	military-grade nerve agent developed by Russia and used in the poisoning of former FSB agent turned Putin critic Andrei Skripal and his daughter in Lonson in March, 2018
Novorossia	region of eastern Ukraine occupied by Russian separatists
October Revolution	the Nov 7, 1917 Bolshevik revolution and armed overthrow of the government, leading to the creation of the USSR
October Surprise
oligarchy
one-party state
open source intelligence
operating system
operatives
oppo	short form of opposition research
opposition research
OSINT	open source intelligence
Ostankino	Russia's TV network
Ozero Cooperative
perestroika	policy of restructuring or rebuilding the Soviet government, employed by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s
plausible deniability
plea deal
plead the Fifth
Plovdiv, Bulgaria	Safe "bolt hole" identified for Eastern European hackers paid by Trump and the Kremlin if things went south
ponyatiya	an unwritten understanding about how things must be done
populism
postmodernism
"post office boxes"	Secret Soviet military and security research facilities, known only to the public by their P.O. Box number
post-truth
power grid intrusions
Prague, Czech Republic
proizvol	Russian word for "arbitrariness"
Project Lakhta	Internal name for the operation that Prigozhin's IRA was running to interfere in elections across the Western world, according to the Mueller indictments.
Project Ripon
propaganda
provokatsiya
rar.exe	A hacker tool used to compile and compress materials for exfiltration to GRU servers from the DNC and DCCC networks
Reddit	American social network inhabited by numerous denizens of the alt-Right and hosting notoriously grotesque subreddits.
refuseniks	Term given during the Soviet era, particularly under Stalin, for Jews who had been denied permission to emigrate
reiding
Relcom	One of the first private companies or "collectives" formed under Gorbachev's glasnost reforms, it brokered the first proto-Internet within the Soviet Union and first connection to the outside world — playing a key role in thwarting the attempted coup against Gorbachev by the KGB in August, 1991
rent-a-peer
retweet	When a Twitter user amplifies the tweet of another, by "retweeting" it out to her or his network
Rodina	extreme nationalist party in Russia c. 2003 that hinted at ethnic cleansing; The Guardian reported it had actually been set up as a prop by Putin & cronies, to draw votes away from the other far-right Communist Party
Rosatom	Russian company building Turkey's first nuclear plant
Rose Revolution	Peaceful protest-driven pro-Western transfer of power in the former Soviet state of Georgia in Nov 2003
Rosneft	Russia's state oil company
Rossiiskaia Gazeta	Russia's official government newspaper
RT.com	state-owned Russian news service
Rublevka	billionaire's row in Moscow
Russian Imperial Movement	part of the far-right coalition within Russia seeking to build an international consensus, this group advocates "Christian Orthodox imperial nationalism"
Russophobia	Popular hysteria against Russia and Russians perceived to be the case by Russia and Russians
samizdat	in the Soviet era, the creation by hand and distribution of copies of literature and other material banned by the state
Sberbank	Russia's largest bank
SDNs (specially designated nationals)	Individuals against whom secondary sanctions have been applied
The Seychelles
shadow profiles	Data that Facebook collects on people who are not members of Facebook, via association with their friends who are
shestidesiatniki	"Sixties' Generation" in the Soviet Union, who shared a lot in common with the American New Left. Advocated for political reform.
Siemens AG
siloviki	Russian term for those who have backgrounds and employment in security services, the military, and police; more specifically a reference to Putin's security cabal
Signal
sistema	Russian term to denote "how the government really works" (as opposed to via formal state institutions)
SJW	Social Justice Warriors, a term which has somehow been wielded as a pejorative by alt-righters and other radical right cadre, energing out of Gamergate culture.
SMS	Aka "texting"
Snow Revolution	popular protests beginning in Moscow in 2011, demanding the reinstatement of free elections & the ability to form opposition parties
sockpuppet accounts	Fake social media accounts used by trolls for deceptive and covert actions, avoiding culpability for abuse, aggression, death threats, doxxing, and other criminal acts against targets.
Solidarity	Polish workers' party confronting Communism in the late '80s
SORM	System of Operative Search Measures — the system in use by the FSB to eavesdrop on the Russian internet
South Stream pipeline	Gazprom project through Balkans and Central Europe
"sovereign democracy"	system in which democratic procedures are retained, but without any actual democratic freedoms; brainchild of Vladislav Surkov
sovereign wealth fund
spasitelnii	Russian word for "redemptive"
spearphishing	An email designed to appear as if from a trusted source, to solicit information that allows the sender to gain access to an account or network, or installs malware that later enables the sender to gain access to an account or network
specialists	Moniker given to the IRA employees assigned to operate the social media accounts in the U.S., including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr.
Sputnik	Russian news wire proffering fake news
Stasi	Nickname for the Ministry of State Security in East Germany during the Cold War
Steele dossier
stochastic terrorism
Stoleshnikov Lane	pedestrian street in Moscow lined with designer boutiques
St. Petersburg	Location of the headquarters for the IRA, Internet Research Agency, aka Putin's troll farm, at 55 Savushkina Street.
Strana.ru
subpoena
SUP Media	Russia's largest blogging service via acquisition of LiveJournal from Six Apart
SVR	Russian foreign intelligence service
swatting	hoaxed reports to emergency services intended to provoke a SWAT team response at the target's home; a form of Internet-based attack used by Gamergate, the alt-Right, and other groups and individuals
tax returns
The Thaw	Brief period of reform under Nikita Khrushchev between 1956 and 1964, when Khrushchev takes over from Stalin and is replaced by Leonid Brezhnev
tradecraft
"translator project"
trial balloon	Information put out or leaked to the media to gauge public reaction.
Trump Tower Moscow	Then-candidate Trump signed a letter of intent to move forward with this project in 2015, while at the same time denying its existence publicly, repeatedly.
truthiness
Turkish Stream	Proposed gas pipeline allowing Russia to extend its control over Turkey and European energy markets
Ukranian occupation
unmasking	Intelligence protocol redacting American identities from transcripts of foreign intercepts
USPER
Velvet Revolution
vertical of power	reference to the tightly controlled power cabal structure Putin has amassed around himself
vKontakte	Russian social network; equivalent analog to Facebook
vlast	power
VPN
VTB	Russia's largest commercial bank
wag the dog
watering hole	hacker attacks that infect entire websites
whataboutism	Classic debate tactic of old Soviet apologists to deflect criticism of Soviet policy; whenever an American would levy a critique, the response would be, "What about the bad things America does?"
white knights
white nationalism
Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation
World National-Conservatism Movement (WNCM)	umbrella term for Russia's movement to unite an international extreme far-right coalition
X-Agent	Multifunction hacking tool that allowed Russian GRU Military Unit 26165 to log keystrokes, take screenshots, and gather other data about the infected computers
X-Tunnel	Hacking tool creating an encrypted connection between the victim DCCC/DNC computers and the GRU-controlled computers to facilitate a large-scale data transfer
Yes California	Movement to secede from the US entirely, run by Marcus Ruiz Evans, Louis J. Marinelli
Yukos
zakaz	news information that has been paid for by special interest

January 12, 2019

The straw that broke the camel’s back: the firing of James Comey

The FBI took the extraordinary step of initiating a counterintelligence investigation into the President of the United States, based according to the New York Times on the firing of James Comey and Trump‘s public actions surrounding that event, in which he linked the firing to the Russia investigation vociferously several times.

This is a historical first.

Hold on to your hats.

April 24, 2018

A Short History of the Cold War 2.0, So Far

Please Note: This is very much a work in progress and much of the timeline hasn’t yet made it from my notes and scribblings into the Timeline.js environment that makes this interactive data visualization possible. Stay tuned… but for now, at least you can get a bit of a sense how deep this #Russiagate rabbit hole goes.

March 31, 2018

Putin’s Greatest Weakness: The Russian Economy

Dictatorships generally do not foster, or even tolerate, the kind of creative disruption of the status quo necessary to the existence of a dynamic free market. Plus, the economy of the Russian state can best be described as a mafia state, or kleptocracy. Thus Vladimir Putin needs to find other ways to shore up both the national finances and the support of his cronies (much less so, of his people, who are primarily afterthoughts in the Russian power structure).

After the fall of the Soviet Union, the rapid shift to capitalism was done with little oversight and many hands in the cookie jar. The Russian land’s rich stores of minerals, oil and gas, heavy metals, and other natural resources were rapidly privatized and newly-minted oligarchs flexed wealth and power in a way never before dreamed of in the former USSR.

The combination of powerful new gatekeepers who locked up the Russian economy early via capital flight and never let it go overshadowed the capitalistic transition and, in a very real way, hijacked it before it ever really got underway. The result is, some 30 years on, an unpopular creaking kleptocratic regime reviled around the world for its stubborn aggression, subversion of democratic processes around the world particularly in Europe and the United States, support for organized crime, and significant financial crimes on the part of the state itself.

Putin’s autocratic rule from dull to terrifyingly devious has a chilling effect on hope, self-determination, self-governance, and ultimately — on happiness, freedom, and creativity. Totalitarianism is capable of exerting control, but always fails to inspire anything except for eventual revolution against the oppressors.

Here is a granular look at major indicators of the economy of the Russian Federation.

OECD Country Dashboard: Russian economy

March 26, 2018

The Mafia State: Russia Since the “End” of the Cold War

We Americans thought it ended, anyhow — but we were wrong. The revanchism that in some sense was of high potential after the fall of the former Soviet Union indeed came to pass — and later to be accelerated by the rise of Vladimir Putin to power.

Along with that trajectory, a curious development path for the former Soviet state: mostly, a descent into organized crime at the highest echelons of government. In some sense, organized crime is the government.

Here’s a great #longread from the Guardian about the history of a modern-day mafia state.

November 16, 2017

Putin’s Playbook: Pull factions apart from center; exacerbate democratic crisis

While we wring our hands in the United States over whether or not such a strategy is even conceivable, the erstwhile President of Russia has been running this playbook out in the open in Ukraine and Eastern Europe for some time. With help from Propagandist-in-Chief Vladislav Surkov, Putin has leveraged the open secrets about the psychology of crowds we learned in the late 19th and early 20th century to stir up emotional antagonisms within the political spectrum — to predictable results.

It’s no accident that fascism is on the march in America. The conditions have been brewing for some time, predominantly since the Conservative movement began breaking away more militantly from democratic principles and towards authoritarian philosophy (elite rule by force: preferably invisible force via economic hegemony for the middle and upper classes, and violent force / the carceral state for The Undesirables) in the late 1970s and 1980s. All Putin had to do was make use of available prevailing conditions and tools — the rise of social media in the 2000s counterintuitively blew a gaping wide security hole in the American persuasion landscape that Cold War Soviet operatives of the 1960s would scarcely have believed.

Today, as in parts of Europe between the world wars, the U.S. has partisan gridlock within The Establishment sector of politics; this exacerbates the impatience with and contempt for the status quo (aka the Liberal world order) that in some sense naturally congeals at the far right and far left margins of the political spectrum as a simple consequence of the Normal Distribution (the Median Voter Theorem captures this tendency quite succinctly). Under such conditions, an influence campaign like the one Russia wielded against the United States during the 2016 election season was tasked merely with tilting the playing field a little further — a task that platforms like Facebook and Twitter were in some sense fundamentally engineered to accomplish, in exchange for ad revenue.

New World Order? Be careful what we wish for

“Both Italian and German fascists had done their best to make democracy work badly. But the deadlock of liberal constitutions was not something the fascists alone had brought about. ‘The collapse of the Liberal state,’ says Roberto Vivarelli, ‘occurred independently of fascism.’ At the time it was tempting to see the malfunction of democratic government after 1918 as a systemic crisis marking the historic terminus of liberalism. Since the revival of constitutional democracy since World War II, it has seemed more plausible to see it as a circumstantial crisis growing out of the strains of World War I, a sudden enlargement of democracy, and the Bolshevik Revolution. However we interpret the deadlock of democratic government, no fascist movement is likely to reach office without it.”
— Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism

100 years on, it feels like we’re back at the start.

July 9, 2017

HOWTO: A Field Guide to Identifying Bots on Twitter

While multiple formal investigations against the Trump family and administration continue to unfold, and Drumpf supporters weirdly deny the probable cause for concern, Putin’s troll army continues to operate out in the open on Twitter, Facebook, Medium, and other social media networks. The sheer scale of this operation started to become clear to me in the months leading up to Election 2016, having both spent a lot of time on social media both professionally and personally for over a decade as well as a hefty amount of time on political investigation during this presidential cycle: bots on Twitter had taken over.

Whatever your thoughts on the #RussiaGate corruption scandal may be, it should concern any citizen that an enormous group of bad actors is working together to infiltrate American social media, with a specific intent to sway politics. Media literacy is one part of the answer, but we’re going to need new tools to help us identify accounts that are only present in bad faith to political discourse: they are not who they claim to be, and their real goals are kept carefully opaque.

Cold War 2.0

We should consider our nation embroiled in a large international game of psychological warfare, or PsyOps as it is referred to in intelligence circles. The goal is to sow disinformation as widely as possible, such that it becomes very difficult to discern what separates truth from propaganda. A secondary goal is to sow dissent among the citizenry, particularly to rile up the extremist factions within America’s two dominant political parties in an attempt to pull the political sphere apart from the center.

We didn’t really need much help in that department as it is, with deep partisan fault lines having been open as gaping wounds on the American political landscape for some decades now — so the dramatically escalated troll army operation has acted as an intense catalyst for further igniting the power kegs being stored up between conservatives and progressives in this country.

Luckily there are some ways to help defray the opposition’s ability to distract and spread disinfo by identifying the signatures given off by suspicious accounts. I’ve developed a few ways to evaluate whether a given account may be a participant in paid propaganda, or at least is likely to be misrepresenting who they say they are, and what their agenda is.

Sometimes it’s fun to get embroiled in a heated “tweetoff,” but I’ve noticed how easy it is to feel “triggered” by something someone says online and how the opposition is effectively “hacking” that tendency to drag well-meaning people into pointless back-and-forths designed not to defend a point of view, but simply to waste an activist’s time, demoralize them, and occupy the focus — a focus that could be better spent elsewhere on Real Politics with real citizens who in some way care about their country and their lives.

Bots on Twitter have “Tells”

1) Hyper-patriotism

– Conspicuously hyper-patriotic bio (and often, name) – Posts predominantly anti-Democrat, anti-liberal/libtard, anti-Clinton, anti-Sanders, anti-antifa etc. memes:

2) Hyper-Christianity

– Conspicuously hyper-Christian in bio and/or name of bots on Twitter:

3) Abnormally high tweet volume

Seems to tweet &/or RT constantly without breaks — supporting evidence of use of a scheduler tool at minimum, and displaying obviously automated responses from some accounts. The above account, for example, started less than 2 years ago, has tweeted 15,000 more times than I have in over 10 years of frequent use (28K). Most normal people don’t schedule their tweets — but marketers and PR people do.

4) Posts only about politics and one other thing (usually a sport)

– Posts exclusively about politics and potentially one other primary “normie” topic, which is often a sport – May proclaim to be staunchly not “politically correct”:

5) Hates Twitter Lists

– Bots on Twitter have a strange aversion to being added to Lists, or making Lists of their own:

6) Overuse of hashtags

– Uses hashtags more than normal, non-marketing people usually do:

7) Pushes a one-dimensional message

– Seems ultimately too one-dimensional and predictable to reflect a real personality, and/or too vaguely similar to the formula:

8) Redundant tweets

– Most obviously of all, it retweets the same thing over and over again:

9) Rehashes a familiar set of memes

– Tweets predominantly about a predictable set of memes:

Mismatched location and time zone is another “tell” — and although you can’t get the second piece of data from the public profile, it is available from the Twitter API. If you know Python and/or feel adventurous, I’m sharing an earlier version of the above tool on Github (and need to get around to pushing the latest version…) — and if you know of any other “tells” please share by commenting or tweeting at me. Next bits I want to work on include:

Examining follower & followed networks against a matchlist of usual suspect accounts
Looking at percentage of Cyrillic characters in use
Graphing tweet volume over time to identify “bot” and “cyborg” periods
Looking at “burst velocity” of opposition tweets as bot networks are engaged to boost messages
Digging deeper into the overlap between the far-right and far-left as similar memes are implanted and travel through both “sides” of the networks