May 28, 2017
MELNIK, Czech
Republic — Working at his computer, as he does most weekends, on an
anti-Western diatribe for a Czech website, Ladislav Kasuka was not sure what to
make of the messages that began popping up on his Facebook page, offering him
money to organize street protests.
“Do you need
help?” read the first message, written in Russian, from a person he did not
know. This was followed, in a mix of Russian and garbled Czech, by gushing
encouragement for street demonstrations and increasingly specific offers of
cash.
An initial
payment of 300 euros ($368) was offered for Mr. Kasuka, a penniless Czech
Stalinist, to buy flags and other paraphernalia for a protest rally in Prague,
the Czech capital, against the NATO alliance and the pro-Western government in
Ukraine. Later, he was offered €500 ($558) to buy a video camera, film the
action and post the video online. Other small sums were also proposed.
“It was all a bit
unusual, so I was surprised,” Mr. Kasuka recalled in a recent interview at a
shopping mall north of Prague where he works on security and maintenance.
He decided the
cash “was for a good cause” — halting the spread of NATO and capitalist Western
ways into the formerly communist lands of Eastern Europe — so he accepted.
The strange relationship
that followed, consisting of passionate social media exchanges about politics
and a total of €1,500 in cash transfers, was one of many forged across Eastern
and Central Europe in summer 2014. They were part of a frenetic, though often
clumsy, influence campaign financed from Moscow and directed by Alexander
Usovsky, a Belarus-born writer, Russian-nationalist agitator and ideological
hired gun in a shadowy battle for hearts and minds between Russia and the West.
Compared with
Russia’s supposed meddling in the recent presidential elections in France and
the United States, the activities of Mr. Kasuka and those like him are of
little consequence. He belongs firmly to the fringe of Czech politics, and has
never aspired to any higher office than local councilor in Melnik, the town
north of Prague where he lives with his girlfriend in a graffiti-smeared
housing block.
Mr. Kasuka’s
collaboration with Mr. Usovsky first came to light in a cache of emails,
Facebook messages and other data pilfered by Ukrainian hackers from Mr.
Usovsky’s computer. It provides a rare ground-level view of a particularly murky
aspect of Russia’s influence strategy: freelance activists who promote its
agenda abroad, but get their backing from Russian tycoons and others close to
the Kremlin, not the Russian state itself.
Mr. Usovsky’s
focus was on marginal political players in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland
and Slovakia, and his efforts mostly fell flat. The protests organized by Mr.
Kasuka and others attracted only handfuls of people. Pro-Russian websites that
Mr. Usovsky helped to set up all fizzled. A Polish politician he was in touch
with, Mateusz Piskorski, was arrested last year on suspicion of spying for
Russia.
None of that
seemed to deter Mr. Usovsky, who was still pitching wild plans and detailed
budgets to potential backers in Moscow early this year.
His communications
offer a revealing glimpse into Russian thinking, ambitions and frustrations.
His dealings with the office of Konstantin Malofeev, a nationalist billionaire
who was hit with sanctions by the United
States over his alleged support for pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, are
especially notable.
After Mr. Usovsky
managed to orchestrate only a few tiny demonstrations in Prague, Warsaw and
other cities, an assistant to Mr. Malofeev demanded in October 2014 that Mr.
Usovsky produce “a clear, concrete and realistic plan for the coming to power
of pro-Russian forces.”
Mr. Malofeev
declined to be interviewed, and his spokeswoman, Nadezhda Novoselova, said the
billionaire and his staff had nothing to do with Mr. Usovsky.
Mr. Malofeev has
acquired a reputation as the Kremlin’s version of George Soros, the
Hungarian-American billionaire whom pro-Western forces across Eastern Europe
often turn to for money. Unlike Mr. Soros, though, the wealthy Russians who
support activists abroad generally try to keep their roles and spending secret.
That allows the Kremlin to keep its distance as well.
Mr. Malofeev has
in the past insisted he supported only humanitarian work, not political
trouble-making.
Reports that
Russia used cyberattacks and disinformation to meddle in the American election
have persuaded many that Moscow runs a sophisticated influence machine. But
interviews with several of Mr. Usovsky’s collaborators, and the contents of his
hacked computer, suggest that it was at times a more shambolic affair, hampered
by money squabbles, intramural rivalries and absurdly distorted views of how
politics works outside Russia.
Jakub Janda,
deputy director of European Values, a Western-financed research group in Prague
that has tracked Russian influence campaigns, said that Mr. Usovsky seemed so
far out of touch with reality that he might even be “a decoy” meant to make
people say, “Look, this whole Russia threat thing is just not serious.”
Others, though,
see Mr. Usovsky as evidence of Russia’s mastery of plausible deniability and
its willingness to bet on opportunists, no matter how slim their chances of
success.
Mr. Usovsky “is a
good case study in Russian methods,” said Daniel Milo, a former official of the
Slovakian Interior Ministry who is now an expert on extremism at Globsec, a
research group in Bratislava, the Slovak capital. “He is a small cog in a big
industry,” Mr. Milo said. “There may be dozens more.”
Mr. Usovsky
declined to be interviewed for this article without being paid. But in response
to emailed questions, he confirmed that his computer had been hacked, and he
did not dispute the authenticity of the leaked messages.
A resident of
Vitebsk, near the Russian border with Belarus, Mr. Usovsky started his
operation in 2014, riding a wave of nationalist fervor in Moscow after the
annexation of Crimea and the widespread belief among Russia’s political and
business elite that united European backing for sanctions against Russia could
be quickly dissolved.
He set up a
network of websites in various languages to promote Slavic unity, rented an
office in Bratislava and established a sham foundation nominally dedicated to
promoting culture.
Asked by email
how much money he had received from sponsors in Moscow, Mr. Usovsky initially
denied receiving any. Then, when he was sent a copy of a message he had written
in October 2014 detailing €100,000 he received to finance the “preparatory
stage” of his work in Eastern Europe, he stopped responding to inquiries.
Other messages
taken from his computer by hackers suggest that the money came from Mr.
Malofeev. Mr. Usovsky badgered Mr. Malofeev’s assistant for hundreds of
thousands more euros in late 2014 and 2015, to finance pro-Russian candidates
in Polish elections.
Though he never
even came close to bringing any pro-Russian groups to power, Mr. Usovsky was
able to identify partners in Eastern and Central Europe ready to accept his
help. He also showed a grasp of the internet’s power to amplify fringe voices
and make thinly attended demonstrations seem like major dramas. He worked
closely with state-controlled Russian news outlets to ensure that the
activities of his Czech, Slovak and Polish collaborators received extensive
coverage.
For example, Mr.
Kasuka, the Czech Stalinist, has appeared regularly in Russian media as a
commentator on Czech affairs and geopolitics. He once told RT that the United States
might drop an atomic bomb on Ukraine and blame Russia to create a pretext for
war. And a small rally that Mr. Kasuka organized in Prague was featured on
Perviy Kanal, a major Russian TV channel.
“It is totally
crazy,” said Roman Mica, an analyst based in Prague. “Pervy Kanal presents as
serious news a protest by 10 or so people who are mostly ready for the
psychological hospital.” He said Mr. Kasuka had become “one of the best known
Czechs in Russia, after our hockey players.”
One person Mr.
Usovsky did not want in the limelight, however, was himself. When a Slovak
group, Peaceful Warrior, wanted to thank him publicly at a rally for his financial
support, he swiftly vetoed the idea.
After Mr.
Malofeev, his main backer, cooled on his ambitious but unrealistic political
plans, Mr. Usovsky grew increasingly desperate for money. He told Mr.
Malofeev’s assistant in March 2015 that his “Polish friends” needed €292,700
($327,000) to win seats in Parliament. He also asked for €10,000 ($11,175) for
Jobbik, a far-right Hungarian party, and €3,000 more for a neo-fascist
paramilitary group called the Hungarian Guard.
Apparently
rebuffed by Mr. Malofeev, he peppered other prospective Russian donors with
detailed plans for a “pro-Russian fifth column,” claiming that he could destroy
“Europe’s anti-Russian front” by channeling money to politicians who opposed
NATO and the European Union. Among them were the Russian Institute for
Strategic Studies, headed by a former intelligence officer, and Konstantin
Zatulin, a hard-line member of the Russian Parliament.
Short of funds,
Mr. Usovsky looked to Mr. Kasuka, the Czech Stalinist, as a low-cost project
that could keep him in the game. Unlike Mr. Usovsky’s Polish partners, Mr.
Kasuka was not constantly asking for money, and had even turned some down when
he ran for a seat on the Melnik town council in 2014.
But Mr. Kasuka
lost interest in street politics. Though he is still in touch with Mr. Usovsky
on social media, he says he now concentrates on his writings about the risk of
war, Stalin’s achievements and the misery caused by capitalist exploitation.
“It does not
matter to me whether money comes from the Kremlin or from America, so long as
it helps the cause,” he said. “What matters is the idea.”
Correction: May
29, 2017
Because of an
editing error, an earlier version of this article referred incorrectly in one
passage to requests made to Mr. Malofeev’s office for money to finance
pro-Russian politicians in Polish elections. The requests came directly from
Mr. Usovsky, not from an assistant.
Oleg Matsnev
contributed reporting from Moscow, Hana de Goeij from Prague, and Miroslava
Germanova from Bratislava, Slovakia.
Andrew Higgins
