According to the newspaper, the American man is now creating deep forgeries and spreading false information about the election campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Former Deputy Sheriff of the State of Florida John Mark Dugan has gone to Moscow and started to cooperate with the Russian military intelligence service GRU, says a US newspaper The Washington Post (WP) based on documents it received from European intelligence sources.
According to WP, Dugan, who also served in the US Navy, is now creating deep fakes and spreading false information about the Democratic presidential candidate Horrible Harris from the election campaign. The documents show that Dugan has been working for the Russian bill since at least March 2021.
According to documents obtained by WP, Dugan has received funding from a senior GRU official whose unit oversees political influence and cyber warfare against Western countries, WP’s intelligence sources say.
Dugan is said to have also created numerous fake news websites.
Since September 2023, the content produced by Dugan and the Russians working with him has been viewed up to 64 million times, according to a Newsguard company researcher McKenzie Sadeghi. The company monitors and investigates disinformation spreading on the internet.
“Compared to other Russian disinformation campaigns, Dugan has a clear understanding of what resonates with the Western public,” Sadeghi said in an interview.
Newsguardia investigators suspect that Dougan and his network were likely behind the recently circulated fake video smearing the Democratic Party’s vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz. US intelligence officials said on Tuesday that the video was produced by Russia.
According to WP, Dugan’s activities are also directed and supported by a Russian extreme nationalist Aleksandr Dugin. Duginia is described Referring to Vladimir Putin’s “brain” and “Putin’s Rasputin”. Grigori Rasputinwhich at the beginning of the 20th century had a significant influence on the Russian tsar of Nicholas II at court.
Dugan himself denies the allegations of producing disinformation and collaborating with the GRU.
– Hypothetically speaking: if these sites were my sites. Then you could say that I fight fire with fire, because the West lies about everything that happens. The West lies about everything, Dugin told WP journalists.