An investigation into the activities of the outlet Anonymous News has exposed a complex network of pro-Russian propaganda linking German far-right activists, officers of Russia’s security services in Moscow, and an impoverished Bulgarian intermediary. The source is the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.
At the center of the scandal was a campaign aimed at discrediting the President of France, Emmanuel Macron. In February, an article was published under the fictitious name Achim Detjen (a pseudonym referencing a Cold War spy-series Stasi agent) containing false accusations that Macron had links to Jeffrey Epstein. France’s Viginum service determined that the operation, code-named Storm-1516, is directly coordinated by Unit 29155 of Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU, and poses a serious threat to European democracy.
The central figure in the network is German radical Mario Rönsch. His career began with anti-migration rallies and the creation of large Facebook groups with millions of followers, such as Anonymous Collective. Rönsch also earned about €100,000 selling weapons through the online store Migrantenschreck (“Migrant Terror”). After serving a prison sentence in Germany, he moved to Moscow, where he registered a consulting firm and launched a YouTube channel promoting life in Russia. His current platform, Anonymous News, operates on Russian hosting infrastructure and publishes hacked documents from the British government that had previously been circulated by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The project’s financial infrastructure was hidden in Eastern Europe. Donations from readers across Europe to cover editorial expenses (the 2026 budget exceeds €102,000) were transferred to a PayPal account belonging to the Czech company AN Media. Journalists from Bird.bg discovered that the formal owner of the firm is Ivelin Borisov, an impoverished Bulgarian living in a crumbling house in a remote village. Borisov admitted he was paid only €200–300 to sign documents in the Czech Republic. He does not speak German, has never written any articles, and knew nothing about the media business in his name. The company administrator, Magdalena Průšová, confirmed that the registration was arranged by a German man named Mario, and that the company is now undergoing forced liquidation by a Prague court due to failure to submit financial reports.
The technical trail of the investigation led journalists from the Ukrainian outlet Toronto Television to a direct connection with the Russian security services. Promotion of Anonymous News content was carried out through a Telegram account called Corob_12, belonging to 38-year-old Russian citizen Alexey Bashilov. Data leaks showed that Bashilov ordered food deliveries to the headquarters of the Federal Security Service of Russia at Bolshaya Lubyanka 1 in Moscow. In the phone books of colleagues he is listed as “Lyosha FSB,” and his office landline is registered to military unit 43753 — the Information Protection and Special Communications Center of the FSB. Bashilov also administers the Telegram channel “Notes of Woland,” whose posts are frequently reposted by propagandist Vladimir Solovyov and State Duma deputy Andrey Lugovoy, a suspect in the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko.
Expert Katharina Bader notes that channels such as Anonymous News are part of a vast ecosystem whose goal is not merely to make people believe falsehoods, but to undermine trust in politics and traditional media as a whole. Constant exposure to such narratives leads audiences to perceive any information as potential propaganda. When journalists began asking Bashilov questions, his accounts were deleted and the channel’s activity ceased, further confirming its connection to operational structures of Russian intelligence services.
