An investigation by the international investigative journalism network Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has revealed how modern Russian influence operations in Europe are concealed.
According to the investigation, the case began when the name Achim Detjen appeared as the author on a German-language portal called Anonymous News. Detjen is the name of the hero of the Stasi from the 1970s (the Soviet equivalent of James Bond), who fought Western plots in the East German television series “Das Unsichtbare Visier”.
The article on this portal fabricated, without evidence, a connection between French President Emmanuel Macron and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The hyperlink on the author’s name did not lead to the profile of any journalist, but to the German-language website of the Russian state broadcaster RT, where other articles have also been published under the name of the fictitious spy.
While investigating Anonymous News, the research uncovered a group of real individuals alongside Achim Detjen. Among them were a German far-right figure, Mario Rönsch (convicted of arms trafficking and released on parole in December 2020), an officer of Russia’s Federal Security Service, Alexey Bashilov, and a poor Bulgarian, Ivelin Borisov, who had been paid to serve as the formal owner of a media company receiving donations from readers.
Donations for Anonymous News are sent via a PayPal account to the Czech company AN Média a Platební Služby s.r.o., which is officially listed as being owned by Borisov. However, the “owner” is a poor 56-year-old man living in a dilapidated house, who had been given 200–300 euros to sign several documents in the Czech Republic.
The company’s documents also mention a Czech woman, Magdalena Průšová, who confirmed that she had accompanied Borisov to a notary and that a German man named Mario was behind the company. Articles from Anonymous News were distributed through a Telegram account called Corob_12, while identifying the phone number linked to this account led to the 38-year-old Bashilov and to the headquarters of the FSB in Moscow.
In 2024 and 2025, Anonymous News published links distributing hacked documents from the UK Foreign Office and the British embassy in Moscow, which had previously been released by Russia’s foreign ministry.
The OCCRP investigation therefore shows that Russian hybrid operations function by masking themselves through false identities, fake portals, financial intermediaries, and distribution networks across social media and controlled channels such as Telegram and Pravda.