Russian disinformation operators have launched a fresh assault on the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, and one of the first casualties has been the independent investigative magazine Mother Jones. According to a detailed account published by Mother Jones, an X account using the Russian handle “роман” — the Russian form of “Roman” — posted a fabricated video that was falsely branded with the Mother Jones logo. The video purported to be a news report from Mother Jones, complete with the outlet’s signature style, and it advanced a lurid conspiracy theory: the Democratic National Committee had secretly paid $259 million to Mark Thompson, CNN’s top executive, in exchange for the network promoting “gender transition among children.” The clip claimed CNN had aired “8,970 reports, programs, and shows” that promoted gender transition for minors, and that the evidence came from personal emails supposedly stolen by the hacker collective Anonymous. It even included a fake version of Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery, who in the clip hailed the fictional leak as a “great gift from Anonymous” exposing the moral decay of Democrats and their media allies. The video ended with the standard card seen on authentic Mother Jones videos: “Read more at MotherJones.com.” Within a day, the video had been viewed 155,000 times on one X account and another 50,000 times on a second account. The account that first posted it showed clear signs of automation: it had been created in 2018, had no followers, and had no previous posts. Disinformation researchers told Mother Jones that the impression counts were likely inflated, exaggerating the reach among real users. After being alerted by the independent tracking group @antibot4navalny, Mother Jones’ lawyer filed a complaint with X, and the platform ultimately removed the post, saying it violated X’s rules on trademark policy. The episode, the article argues, is a textbook example of how Russian operatives are exploiting American social media to inject fake reporting into public discourse.
The phony Mother Jones video is part of a broader Russian operation that researchers have dubbed Storm-1679, or Matryoshka, after the famous Russian nesting dolls. In the past two weeks, according to reports from The New York Times and other news organizations, this network has begun inserting false election-related material into American social media feeds. The most visible pieces of the campaign are deepfake videos of Hollywood celebrities attacking Democrats and urging voters to support Republicans. One fabricated clip shows actress Sarah Jessica Parker appearing to say, “When I hear about Democrats, I immediately think of corrupt Nazi whores. If you love America, never vote for Democrats.” That video was branded with a CNN logo and promoted the hashtag #AllDemocratsAreCriminals. Other doctored videos have used likenesses of Christopher Lloyd, Ed Begley Jr., and Julia Roberts. The pattern is unmistakable: create authentic-looking media content, attach it to well-known media brands, and fill it with inflammatory, partisan messages designed to mobilize conservative voters and depress Democratic turnout. This latest operation is specifically aimed at the 2026 midterm elections and appears intended to help Donald Trump and the Republican Party. The fake Mother Jones video fits neatly into that scheme, using a trusted left-leaning magazine to deliver a story about Democratic corruption and child gender transition, a topic that has become a central culture-war wedge in American politics. The use of a left-leaning outlet is particularly noteworthy: the goal is not only to promote Republican narratives but also to make Democrats and their media look corrupt, hypocritical, and willing to hide scandals involving children. At the same time, by impersonating outlets across the political spectrum, Matryoshka hopes to blur the line between journalism and propaganda.
The operation was first identified by @antibot4navalny, a small group of anonymous activists who specialize in tracking Russian influence operations. That group has documented that Matryoshka is putting out fake CNN reports containing false accusations against Democratic senatorial candidates. One such report targets James Talarico of Texas, falsely claiming he “despises Hasidic Jews because their faith does not allow children to change their gender.” According to @antibot4navalny, the network has produced dozens of false reports made to look as though they came from The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Politico, PBS, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, and other major American outlets. Many of these fakes follow the same celebrity-says-Democrats-are-horrible template. Others allege corruption at American media companies, and some are especially insidious: they pretend to be news reports debunking stories about Russian disinformation, planting the false idea that warnings about Russian meddling are themselves a hoax. That meta-manipulation is a deliberate tactic to corrode public trust in journalism and to give readers an excuse to dismiss real reporting. The scale and sophistication of the operation, Mother Jones notes, shows that Russian influence networks have learned from past campaigns and are continually refining their methods. They are not simply retweeting Kremlin propaganda; they are manufacturing native-seeming content that mirrors the look, language, and distribution patterns of American media. This makes it harder for platforms, journalists, and ordinary users to separate fact from fiction. The @antibot4navalny group has been able to uncover the operation by examining the infrastructure behind the accounts, but its ability to keep pace is not guaranteed, especially with fewer government resources devoted to countering foreign influence.
Matryoshka is not a newcomer. Mother Jones’ report points to the network’s role in the 2024 presidential campaign, where it ran a massive disinformation operation to damage Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and boost Donald Trump. The article cites the book “How Russia Won: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and the Fight for America” by its author, which chronicles how Matryoshka produced numerous social media posts and video clips falsely branded as reports from major outlets such as Fox News, BBC, and CNN, as well as government agencies and research organizations. The network spread a torrent of lies: that Harris had an abortion at age seventeen; that she was exhibiting early-onset Alzheimer’s disease; that her grandfather was a communist; and that her family was tied to Pfizer and Big Pharma. It also circulated a fake USA Today report claiming Ukrainian refugees were smuggling fentanyl into the United States, and it generated content designed to stoke fears of civil war, post-election violence, and a nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia. The 2024 operation demonstrated the network’s ability to use false branding, overseas infrastructure, and social media algorithms to push malicious narratives into mainstream feeds. It also showed that even absurd claims can gain traction if they are laundered through influencers, media personalities, and partisan accounts. The same playbook is now being retooled for the midterms, with a current emphasis on celebrity deepfakes and fake media reports. The article stresses that these operations are not crude or isolated; they are coordinated, iterative, and increasingly sophisticated, learning from what worked in previous cycles and adapting to platform policy changes.
In the first three months of 2025, Matryoshka shifted its focus to undermining Western support for Ukraine, pushing false reports that Kyiv was corrupt and belligerent and that Europe was being dragged into World War III. Those messages, according to disinformation researchers, did not gain much traction. But one Matryoshka fake did break through, thanks to a powerful amplifier. During Elon Musk’s campaign against the U.S. Agency for International Development, which he was trying to abolish, Musk shared with his then-216 million followers on X a clip from E! News reporting that USAID had paid celebrities enormous sums to travel to Ukraine, including Angelina Jolie ($20 million), Orlando Bloom ($8 million), Sean Penn ($5 million), and Ben Stiller ($4 million). Donald Trump Jr. reposted the video, helping it draw more than 11 million views. That video was a Matryoshka fake. The episode illustrates a key vulnerability in the information environment: once a piece of disinformation is picked up by a major account, it can spread so quickly that fact-checking and takedowns happen too late. It also demonstrates that Russian influence operations are not always aimed at changing minds directly; sometimes they supply attractive content to influential figures who unwittingly do the distribution work. Mother Jones’ article warns that with the 2026 elections approaching, the potential for similar viral moments is high. The reliance on celebrity and culture-war stories, from Sarah Jessica Parker to child gender transition, is designed to maximize emotional reactions and drive shares before anyone can verify the material’s authenticity.
So far, Matryoshka’s 2026 operation does not appear to have reached the same scale as its 2024 campaign. The fake Mother Jones video was removed after a complaint, and the network’s posts have not seen the same explosive growth on X, Bluesky, or other platforms. But the article cautions that in 2024, Russian disinformation campaigns did place false anti-Democratic messages in the feeds of millions of Americans. One particularly damaging piece of fiction claimed that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, had inappropriately touched an exchange student when he was a high school teacher. That story went viral, amplified by Jack Posobiec, a MAGA provocateur known for promoting Pizzagate, and by popular right-wing influencer Candace Owens. The report notes that Putin’s forces have mounted disinformation and influence operations in every U.S. national election since 2016, with the dual goals of sowing discord and helping Trump. This time, however, the United States is far less equipped to counter the threat. The Trump administration has shuttered the units at the FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department that once tracked Russian disinformation and worked to counter it. With those defenses gone, Matryoshka and other Russian operations have a clear shot at influencing the midterm elections—helping Republican candidates and, perhaps more importantly, amplifying any chaos or conflict that erupts after the votes are counted. The fake Mother Jones video may have been removed, but the same infrastructure remains active, and the article warns that the 2026 campaign could bring an operation far bigger and more consequential than a few fake videos of Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, or Cher.