How the Kremlin Turned a MAGA Influencer Trip Into an Influence Operation
Illustration: Diana Dupu (Context.ro) 2026-04-15
Illustration: Diana Dupu (Context.ro) 2026-04-15
A report of Alliance4Europe and an investigation by VSquare and Context.ro uncovered that a 10-day trip to Moldova and Moscow by a group of MAGA influencers from the US, Canada, and the UK was used in a Russian online information operation. This operation, dubbed Matushka (also referred to as Operation Overload or Storm-1679), is attributed to one of the Kremlin’s digital interference operations. While there is no evidence that the MAGA influencers were part of the Russian operation, our investigation uncovered their ties with the Russian Federation. The Moscow segment of the trip took place at the invitation of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Key findings:
- On the brink of Moldova’s crucial Parliamentary elections, the story of the group of “Western bloggers” who visited the country and claimed to have gathered substantial evidence of systematic state persecution of Orthodox believers was shared across far-right outlets.
- Salt and Light, an informal network linked to the fugitive pro-Russian oligarch Ilan Shor, heavily promoted the story and turned it into a political weapon. Salt and Light framed the upcoming elections as a battle for faith, urging believers to vote for leaders who would “protect the church” and portraying any pro-Western stance as a threat to faith, an extensive report by Alliance4Europe, an expert group that tracks disinformation campaigns, concluded.
- It turns out that the bloggers were on their way to Russia with the blessing and support of the Russian Church. Clergy from the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia were lobbying on Capitol Hill alongside Republican leaders over what they call Kyiv’s religious persecution against Orthodox Christians.
- The head of the group of bloggers, Charles Bausman, the founder of a pro-Kremlin publication and a Russian propagandist, actually lives on and off in Moscow and calls omnipresent MAGA activist Brian Brown a “good friend”.
- John Henry Westen, who is from the Catholic outlet LifeSiteNews and was also presented as being part of the delegation, publicly supported Donald Trump. Last year, LifeSiteNews officially joined the Pentagon press corps, represented by Wade Searle, a controversial figure with ties to white supremacists. .
- None of the bloggers responded to our requests for comment.
“Years ago, I learned that through the Romanian Church and this Bessarabian metropolis thing that the canonical Moldovan Orthodox Church was facing similar levels of persecution”, said Conrad Franz, a young US podcast host who traveled to Moldova and Russia in September of last year. His statement was published on the Salt and Light TikTok account. A similar statement was published on Salt and Light’s Instagram account in Russian by Charles Bausman, portrayed as a US blogger, around the same time.
Conrad Franz had previously worked for Steve Turley, a religious-right author and podcaster who spoke at Verona World Congress of Families global summit in 2019. On the website Turley Talks, Franz is listed as the author of articles like “RUSSIA STRIKES: The Neoliberal World Order Has Fallen! and was involved in the production of a propaganda documentary supporting Republican Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race. Mastriano is a fundamentalist Christian nationalist who supports a total ban on abortion and whose ties with far-right extremists and militias were exposed by multiple media reports.
Bausman was presented on the Salt and Light network as the leader of a delegation of American, British, and Canadian influencers who visited the Republic of Moldova and Moscow between September 14 and 23, 2025 with the purpose of documenting the alleged persecution of Orthodox Christians by the West. Their trip, which took place right before crucial parliamentary elections were held, was heavily promoted in Moldova. The main promoter was Salt and Light, a newspaper and online platform that, according to DFRLab (a organization with technical and policy expertise on disinformation and part of Atlantic Council think thank), is part of the Matushka operation and was amplified by Moldova24 (MD24), a television outlet previously identified by DFRLab as part of the digital network controlled by a fugitive Moldovan oligarch now residing in Moscow.
The European Commission’s 2024 report concludes that religious freedom is generally respected in Moldova and that there is no evidence of its violation. A Context.ro investigation from 2025 uncovered that the persecution of those of Orthodox faith was the subject of a petition filed with the United Nations by an NGO working closely with Justice pour Tous Internationale (JPTi), which is funded by Pravfond, an NGO backed by the Kremlin. According to an OCCRP investigation that VSquare was also part of, “Pravfond” has funded the legal defense of alleged spies and criminals, backed propaganda outlets, and worked hand-in-glove with intelligence operatives. And it has continued to issue grant after grant, even after being sanctioned by the European Union. The Russian Foreign Ministry disputed the allegation of Pravfond’s links with Russian intelligence services in a public statement: “The Foundation has never cooperated with any special services, nor has it ever employed any members of the special services engaged in influence operations in Western countries, including the EU.”
A newly published report found that the bloggers’ trip and public comments were used in digital interference operations. This was uncovered and reported by Alliance4Europe, a pan-European collaborative initiative designed to preempt, detect, and combat information manipulation. Their report concluded that the trip and the bloggers’ statements were weaponized in a disinformation campaign. The trip and the statements were used “within a Russian-linked FIMI operation as part of a coordinated disinformation campaign promoting false claims of Orthodox persecution under pro-EU leadership, with messaging that sought to influence voter behaviour in favour of pro-Russian candidates,” the report states. Neither Alliance4Europe nor our investigation found evidence that the members of the blogger delegation deliberately participated in an influence operation. We reached out to all the participants but none replied.
Salt and Light Newspaper, Source: Cristian Leonte
However, the report identified “a pattern in which Western religious ultra-conservatives with genuine beliefs may have been leveraged — whether knowingly or unknowingly — to lend credibility to Russian geopolitical narratives targeting Moldova’s democratic processes.” At the same time, Alliance4Europe researchers found evidence that the trip was, according to an article published by The Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media of the Russian Orthodox Church, “facilitated by the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate.” The trip was officially sanctioned by the Russian authorities and included a meeting with Petr Olegovich Tolstoy, the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation and several high-ranking figures of the Russian Church. Context.ro and VSquare reporters uncovered something else, too: members of the delegation have consistent links with Russian media founders or Russian based influencers who openly promote Russia’s superiority over the Western world.
The Head of the Delegation: A 2021 Insurrections and Russian Media Founder
The head of the blogger delegation, Charles Bausman, is a US citizen who now apparently lives in Russia. He founded Russia Insider, a pro Kremlin publication aiming to provide an alternative to how Russia is portrayed in the Western media, Russia Faith and Truthtopowernews, where he promoted his antisemitic views (“I became convinced that ‘The Holocaust’ never happened, and that it is an outrageous slander against the German people, of which I am one, which cannot go unanswered” full article here). In 2019, Russia Insider published a post by Brian Brown post praising Levan Vasadze, the Georgian mogul now under UK sanctions for pumping out Kremlin disinformation. Bausman is in charge of the English content for Global Orthodox Project (gorthodox (.) com), which states that its mission is to unite Orthodox believers around the world.
Bausman ended up in Russia after being present at the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, and left behind a 1 million-dollar propertyin the United States, according to The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which revealed his ties to the American white supremacy movement.
Tom Ertl, Franz Conrad Kain, John-Henry Westen, Jozef Schutzman, Charles Bausman, Eddie Gonzales, Source: Website of the Synodal Department for Church Relations with Society and the Media of the Russian Orthodox Church
In 2022 he reemerged as a commentator on Tsargrad TV, a Russian channel owned and operated by Konstantin Malofeyev, a Russian oligarch from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. Malofeyev is known to be the co-sponsor of The World Congress of Families (WCF), an umbrella group for pro-family, anti-LGBT forces and a joint effort between far-right American and Russian conservative Christian figures. Our investigation identified that one member of Bausman’s delegation previously joined the WCF, which was sponsoredby Malofeyev, who is internationally sanctioned for supporting the occupation of Crimea and publicly calling for the incorporation of Ukraine into Russia.
From Moscow to the Pentagon
John Henry Westen served on the CitizenGo Board of Trustees alongside Alexey Komov, a close associate of Konstantin Malofeyev. In 2014, Westen’s name appeared on a list of confirmed foreign participants in the Moscow Large Families Forum that was co-sponsored by Konstantin Malofeyev. His trip, according to a massive the leak made public by a group of Russian hackers , was partially paid for by the Andrew the First-Called Foundation, which is led by Russian oligarch Vladimir Yakunin, who is now subject to Western sanctions.
Westen is the CEO and chief editor of Lifesitenews, a website banned from several social media platforms for spreading misinformation about the Coronavirus pandemic.
John Henry Westen, SPAS TV interview capture, Source: X LifeSiteNews account
LifesiteNews announced it will be part of the Pentagon press corps after tens of news outlets left in protest of government-imposed restrictions on their work. Their reporter at the White House is Wade Searle, who was an aide to US Senator Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona until he was exposed by “Talking Points Memo” as being allegedly a key activist in the white supremacist movement.
After Westen’s trip to Moscow, Lifesitenews published an article that criticized the West and described Russia as the leader of an ideological revolution: “As Russia leads a moral revolution banning abortions, celebrating large families, and outlawing LGBT propaganda, the West is sinking deeper into a spiritual crisis, masking its decline with empty statistics.”
The bloggers, led by Bausman, produced several materials picturing Russia as the last bastion of Christianity and Moldova’s government as the opposite. “There is a clear potential for collaboration among those defending life and family in Russia, Africa, and certain political movements in the United States. While conservatives in Canada and Europe face an uphill battle, the alignment of societal and governmental support for these values in Russia creates a strong foundation for mutual support and dialogue in this global struggle for life and family”, Westen himself said, quoted by TASS.
On X, Westen posted an interview he gave to SPAS TV, a television station owned by the Russian Orthodox Church that has been placed under international sanctions for spreading pro-Kremlin propaganda and disinformation about Russia’s war against Ukraine and for justifying Russia’s war of aggression on religious and spiritual grounds. LifeSiteNews TV also published a SPAS interview in which Westen shifts from Charlie’s Kirk’s death to “Russia’s growing reputation as a pro-family nation” and highlights the contrast between “Russia’s religious and cultural revival with the moral collapse of the West.”
Similar findings to those included in the Alliance4Europe’s report, were published by a Moldovan NGO called Watchdog – the full report is available here.
This is the second story of the #MEGAverse project. Find the first investigation here.
If you have some insights to share, let us know.
The Romanian version of this investigation was published on Context.ro.
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